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NLP Research Group 9

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

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How many times the word 'rested' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

possibly

How many times the word 'possibly' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

naturally

How many times the word 'naturally' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

manner

How many times the word 'manner' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

creaking

How many times the word 'creaking' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

draw

How many times the word 'draw' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

hesitation

How many times the word 'hesitation' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

distress

How many times the word 'distress' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

settled

How many times the word 'settled' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

earnest

How many times the word 'earnest' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

father

How many times the word 'father' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

suturing

How many times the word 'suturing' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

begged

How many times the word 'begged' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

another

How many times the word 'another' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

indisposition

How many times the word 'indisposition' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

rash

How many times the word 'rash' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

cannot

How many times the word 'cannot' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

n't

How many times the word 'n't' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

much

How many times the word 'much' appears in the text?

"Oh yes--how can it be otherwise? I know the thing could not be," she went on, speaking more to herself than to me; "but I almost wish Walter Hartright had stayed here long enough to be present at the explanation, and to hear the proposal to me to write this note." I was a little surprised--perhaps a little piqued also--by these last words. "Events, it is true, connected Mr. Hartright very remarkably with the affair of the letter," I said; "and I readily admit that he conducted himself, all things considered, with great delicacy and discretion. But I am quite at a loss to understand what useful influence his presence could have exercised in relation to the effect of Sir Percival's statement on your mind or mine." "It was only a fancy," she said absently. "There is no need to discuss it, Mr. Gilmore. Your experience ought to be, and is, the best guide I can desire." I did not altogether like her thrusting the whole responsibility, in this marked manner, on my shoulders. If Mr. Fairlie had done it, I should not have been surprised. But resolute, clear-minded Miss Halcombe was the very last person in the world whom I should have expected to find shrinking from the expression of an opinion of her own. "If any doubts still trouble you," I said, "why not mention them to me at once? Tell me plainly, have you any reason to distrust Sir Percival Glyde?" "None whatever." "Do you see anything improbable, or contradictory, in his explanation?" "How can I say I do, after the proof he has offered me of the truth of it? Can there be better testimony in his favour, Mr. Gilmore, than the testimony of the woman's mother?" "None better. If the answer to your note of inquiry proves to be satisfactory, I for one cannot see what more any friend of Sir Percival's can possibly expect from him." "Then we will post the note," she said, rising to leave the room, "and dismiss all further reference to the subject until the answer arrives. Don't attach any weight to my hesitation. I can give no better reason for it than that I have been over-anxious about Laura lately--and anxiety, Mr. Gilmore, unsettles the strongest of us." She left me abruptly, her naturally firm voice faltering as she spoke those last words. A sensitive, vehement, passionate nature--a woman of ten thousand in these trivial, superficial times. I had known her from her earliest years--I had seen her tested, as she grew up, in more than one trying family crisis, and my long experience made me attach an importance to her hesitation under the circumstances here detailed, which I should certainly not have felt in the case of another woman. I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off. II We all met again at dinner-time. Sir Percival was in such boisterous high spirits that I hardly recognised him as the same man whose quiet tact, refinement, and good sense had impressed me so strongly at the interview of the morning. The only trace of his former self that I could detect reappeared, every now and then, in his manner towards Miss Fairlie. A look or a word from her suspended his loudest laugh, checked his gayest flow of talk, and rendered him all attention to her, and to no one else at table, in an instant. Although he never openly tried to draw her into the conversation, he never lost the slightest chance she gave him of letting her drift into it by accident, and of saying the words to her, under those favourable circumstances, which a man with less tact and delicacy would have pointedly addressed to her the moment they occurred to him. Rather to my surprise, Miss Fairlie appeared to be sensible of his attentions without being moved by them. She was a little confused from time to time when he looked at her, or spoke to her; but she never warmed towards him. Rank, fortune, good breeding, good looks, the respect of a gentleman, and the devotion of a lover were all humbly placed at her feet, and, so far as appearances went, were all offered in vain. On the next day, the Tuesday, Sir Percival went in the morning (taking one of the servants with him as a guide) to Todd's Corner. His inquiries, as I afterwards heard, led to no results. On his return he had an interview with Mr. Fairlie, and in the afternoon he and Miss Halcombe rode out together. Nothing else happened worthy of record. The evening passed as usual. There was no change in Sir Percival, and no change in Miss Fairlie. The Wednesday's post brought with it an event--the reply from Mrs. Catherick. I took a copy of the document, which I have preserved, and which I may as well present in this place. It ran as follows-- "MADAM,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, inquiring whether my daughter, Anne, was placed under medical superintendence with my knowledge and approval, and whether the share taken in the matter by Sir Percival Glyde was such as to merit the expression of my gratitude towards that gentleman. Be pleased to accept my answer in the affirmative to both those questions, and believe me to remain, your obedient servant, "JANE ANNE CATHERICK." Short, sharp, and to the point; in form rather a business-like letter for a woman to write--in substance as plain a confirmation as could be desired of Sir Percival Glyde's statement. This was my opinion, and with certain minor reservations, Miss Halcombe's opinion also. Sir Percival, when the letter was shown to him, did not appear to be struck by the sharp, short tone of it. He told us that Mrs. Catherick was a woman of few words, a clear-headed, straightforward, unimaginative person, who wrote briefly and plainly, just as she spoke. The next duty to be accomplished, now that the answer had been received, was to acquaint Miss Fairlie with Sir Percival's explanation. Miss Halcombe had undertaken to do this, and had left the room to go to her sister, when she suddenly returned again, and sat down by the easy-chair in which I was reading the newspaper. Sir Percival had gone out a minute before to look at the stables, and no one was in the room but ourselves. "I suppose we have really and truly done all we can?" she said, turning and twisting Mrs. Catherick's letter in her hand. "If we are friends of Sir Percival's, who know him and trust him, we have done all, and more than all, that is necessary," I answered, a little annoyed by this return of her hesitation. "But if we are enemies who suspect him----" "That alternative is not even to be thought of," she interposed. "We are Sir Percival's friends, and if generosity and forbearance can add to our regard for him, we ought to be Sir Percival's admirers as well. You know that he saw Mr. Fairlie yesterday, and that he afterwards went out with me." "Yes. I saw you riding away together." "We began the ride by talking about Anne Catherick, and about the singular manner in which Mr. Hartright met with her. But we soon dropped that subject, and Sir Percival spoke next, in the most unselfish terms, of his engagement with Laura. He said he had observed that she was out of spirits, and he was willing, if not informed to the contrary, to attribute to that cause the alteration in her manner towards him during his present visit. If, however, there was any more serious reason for the change, he would entreat that no constraint might be placed on her inclinations either by Mr. Fairlie or by me. All he asked, in that case, was that she would recall to mind, for the last time, what the circumstances were under which the engagement between them was made, and what his conduct had been from the beginning of the courtship to the present time. If, after due reflection on those two subjects, she seriously desired that he should withdraw his pretensions to the honour of becoming her husband--and if she would tell him so plainly with her own lips--he would sacrifice himself by leaving her perfectly free to withdraw from the engagement." "No man could say more than that, Miss Halcombe. As to my experience, few men in his situation would have said as much." She paused after I had spoken those words, and looked at me with a singular expression of perplexity and distress. "I accuse nobody, and I suspect nothing," she broke out abruptly. "But I cannot and will not accept the responsibility of persuading Laura to this marriage." "That is exactly the course which Sir Percival Glyde has himself requested you to take," I replied in astonishment. "He has begged you not to force her inclinations." "And he indirectly obliges me to force them, if I give her his message." "How can that possibly be?" "Consult your own knowledge of Laura, Mr. Gilmore. If I tell her to reflect on the circumstances of her engagement, I at once appeal to two of the strongest feelings in her nature--to her love for her father's memory, and to her strict regard for truth. You know that she never broke a promise in her life--you know that she entered on this engagement at the beginning of her father's fatal illness, and that he spoke hopefully and happily of her marriage to Sir Percival Glyde on his deathbed." I own that I was a little shocked at this view of the case. "Surely," I said, "you don't mean to infer that when Sir Percival spoke to you yesterday he speculated on such a result as you have just mentioned?" Her frank, fearless face answered for her before she spoke. "Do you think I would remain an instant in the company of any man whom I suspected of such baseness as that?" she asked angrily. I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession. "In that case," I said, "excuse me if I tell you, in our legal phrase, that you are travelling out of the record. Whatever the consequences may be, Sir Percival has a right to expect that your sister should carefully consider her engagement from every reasonable point of view before she claims her release from it. If that unlucky letter has prejudiced her against him, go at once, and tell her that he has cleared himself in your eyes and in mine. What objection can she urge against him after that? What excuse can she possibly have for changing her mind about a man whom she had virtually accepted for her husband more than two years ago?" "In the eyes of law and reason, Mr. Gilmore, no excuse, I daresay. If she still hesitates, and if I still hesitate, you must attribute our strange conduct, if you like, to caprice in both cases, and we must bear the imputation as well as we can." With those words she suddenly rose and left me. When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal. I returned to the perusal of the newspaper, strongly suspecting that Miss Halcombe and Miss Fairlie had a secret between them which they were keeping from Sir Percival, and keeping from me. I thought this hard on both of us, especially on Sir Percival. My doubts--or to speak more correctly, my convictions--were confirmed by Miss Halcombe's language and manner when I saw her again later in the day. She was suspiciously brief and reserved in telling me the result of her interview with her sister. Miss Fairlie, it appeared, had listened quietly while the affair of the letter was placed before her in the right point of view, but when Miss Halcombe next proceeded to say that the object of Sir Percival's visit at Limmeridge was to prevail on her to let a day be fixed for the marriage she checked all further reference to the subject by begging for time. If Sir Percival would consent to spare her for the present, she would undertake to give him his final answer before the end of the year. She pleaded for this delay with such anxiety and agitation, that Miss Halcombe had promised to use her influence, if necessary, to obtain it, and there, at Miss Fairlie's earnest entreaty, all further discussion of the marriage question had ended. The purely temporary arrangement thus proposed might have been convenient enough to the young lady, but it proved somewhat embarrassing to the writer of these lines. That morning's post had brought a letter from my partner, which obliged me to return to town the next day by the afternoon train. It was extremely probable that I should find no second opportunity of presenting myself at Limmeridge House during the remainder of the year. In that case, supposing Miss Fairlie ultimately decided on holding to her engagement, my necessary personal communication with her, before I drew her settlement, would become something like a downright impossibility, and we should be obliged to commit to writing questions which ought always to be discussed on both sides by word of mouth. I said nothing about this difficulty until Sir Percival had been consulted on the subject of the desired delay. He was too gallant a gentleman not to grant the request immediately. When Miss Halcombe informed me of this I told her that I must absolutely speak to her sister before I left Limmeridge, and it was, therefore, arranged that I should see Miss Fairlie in her own sitting-room the next morning. She did not come down to dinner, or join us in the evening. Indisposition was the excuse, and I thought Sir Percival looked, as well he might, a little annoyed when he heard of it. The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, I went up to Miss Fairlie's sitting-room. The poor girl looked so pale and sad, and came forward to welcome me so readily and prettily, that the resolution to lecture her on her caprice and indecision, which I had been forming all the way upstairs, failed me on the spot. I led her back to the chair from which she had risen, and placed myself opposite to her. Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down. "You used often to sit on my knee when you were a child, my dear," I said, "and now your little dog seems determined to succeed you in the vacant throne. Is that pretty drawing your doing?" I pointed to a little album which lay on the table by her side and which she had evidently been looking over when I came in. The page that lay open had a small water-colour landscape very neatly mounted on it. This was the drawing which had suggested my question--an idle question enough--but how could I begin to talk of business to her the moment I opened my lips? "No," she said, looking away from the drawing rather confusedly, "it is not my doing." Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand whenever any one was talking to her. On this occasion they wandered to the album, and toyed absently about the margin of the little water-colour drawing. The expression of melancholy deepened on her face. She did not look at the drawing, or look at me. Her eyes moved uneasily from object to object in the room, betraying plainly that she suspected what my purpose was in coming to speak to her. Seeing that, I thought it best to get to the purpose with as little delay as possible. "One of the errands, my dear, which brings me here is to bid you good-bye," I began. "I must get back to London to-day: and, before I leave, I want to have a word with you on the subject of your own affairs." "I am very sorry you are going, Mr. Gilmore," she said, looking at me kindly. "It is like the happy old times to have you here. "I hope I may be able to come back and recall those pleasant memories once more," I continued; "but as there is some uncertainty about the future, I must take my opportunity when I can get it, and speak to you now. I am your old lawyer and your old friend, and I may remind you, I am sure, without offence, of the possibility of your marrying Sir Percival Glyde." She took her hand off the little album as suddenly as if it had turned hot and burnt her. Her fingers twined together nervously in her lap, her eyes looked down again at the floor, and an expression of constraint settled on her face which looked almost like an expression of pain. "Is it absolutely necessary to speak of my marriage engagement?" she asked in low tones. "It is necessary to refer to it," I answered, "but not to dwell on it. Let us merely say that you may marry, or that you may not marry. In the first case, I must be prepared, beforehand, to draw your settlement, and I ought not to do that without, as a matter of politeness, first consulting you. This may be my only chance of hearing what your wishes are. Let us, therefore, suppose the case of your marrying, and let me inform you, in as few words as possible, what your position is now, and what you may make it, if you please, in the future." I explained to her the object of a marriage-settlement, and then told her exactly what her prospects were--in the first place, on her coming of age, and in the second place, on the decease of her uncle--marking the distinction between the property in which she had a life-interest only, and the property which was left at her own control. She listened attentively, with the constrained expression still on her face, and her hands still nervously clasped together in her lap. "And now," I said in conclusion, "tell me if you can think of any condition which, in the case we have supposed, you would wish me to make for you--subject, of course, to your guardian's approval, as you are not yet of age." She moved uneasily in her chair, then looked in my face on a sudden very earnestly. "If it does happen," she began faintly, "if I am----" "If you are married," I added, helping her out. "Don't let him part me from Marian," she cried, with a sudden outbreak of energy. "Oh, Mr. Gilmore, pray make it law that Marian is to live with me!" Under other circumstances I might, perhaps, have been amused at this essentially feminine interpretation of my question, and of the long explanation which had preceded it. But her looks and tones, when she spoke, were of a kind to make me more than serious--they distressed me. Her words, few as they were, betrayed a desperate clinging to the past which boded ill for the future. "Your having Marian Halcombe to live with you can easily be settled by private arrangement," I said. "You hardly understood my question, I think. It referred to your own property--to the disposal of your money. Supposing you were to make a will when you come of age, who would you like the money to go to?" "Marian has been mother and sister both to me," said the good, affectionate girl, her pretty blue eyes glistening while she spoke. "May I leave it to Marian, Mr. Gilmore?" "Certainly, my love," I answered. "But remember what a large sum it is. Would you like it all to go to Miss Halcombe?" She hesitated; her colour came and went, and her hand stole back again to the little album. "Not all of it," she said. "There is some one else besides Marian----" She stopped; her colour heightened, and the fingers of the hand that rested upon the album beat gently on the margin of the drawing, as if her memory had set them going mechanically with the remembrance of a favourite tune. "You mean some other member of the family besides Miss Halcombe?" I suggested, seeing her at a loss to proceed. The heightening colour spread to her forehead and her neck, and the nervous fingers suddenly clasped themselves fast round the edge of the book. "There is some one else," she said, not noticing my last words, though she had evidently heard them; "there is some one else who might like a little keepsake if--if I might leave it. There would be no harm if I should die first----" She paused again. The colour that had spread over her cheeks suddenly, as suddenly left them. The hand on the album resigned its hold, trembled a little, and moved the book away from her. She looked at me for an instant--then turned her head aside in the chair. Her handkerchief fell to the floor as she changed her position, and she hurriedly hid her face from me in her hands. Sad! To remember her, as I did, the liveliest, happiest child that ever laughed the day through, and to see her now, in the flower of her age and her beauty, so broken and so brought down as this! In the distress that she caused me I forgot the years that had passed, and the change they had made in our position towards one another. I moved my chair close to her, and picked up her handkerchief from the carpet, and drew her hands from her face gently. "Don't cry, my love," I said, and dried the tears that were gathering in her eyes with my own hand, as if she had been the little Laura Fairlie of ten long years ago. It was the best way I could have taken to compose her. She laid her head on my shoulder, and smiled faintly through her tears. "I am very sorry for forgetting myself," she said artlessly. "I have not been well--I have felt sadly weak and nervous lately, and I often cry without reason when I am alone. I am better now--I can answer you as I ought, Mr. Gilmore, I can indeed." "No, no, my dear," I replied, "we will consider the subject as done with for the present. You have said enough to sanction my taking the best possible care of your interests, and we can settle details at another opportunity. Let us have done with business now, and talk of something else." I led her at once into speaking on other topics. In ten minutes' time she was in better spirits, and I rose to take my leave. "Come here again," she said earnestly. "I will try to be worthier of your kind feeling for me and for my interests if you will only come again." Still clinging to the past--that past which I represented to her, in my way, as Miss Halcombe did in hers! It troubled me sorely to see her looking back, at the beginning of her career, just as I look back at the end of mine. "If I do come again, I hope I shall find you better," I said; "better and happier. God bless you, my dear!" She only answered by putting up her cheek to me to be kissed. Even lawyers have hearts, and mine ached a little as I took leave of her. The whole interview between us had hardly lasted more than half an hour--she had not breathed a word, in my presence, to explain the mystery of her evident distress and dismay at the prospect of her marriage, and yet she had contrived to win me over to her side of the question, I neither knew how nor why. I had entered the room, feeling that Sir Percival Glyde had fair reason to complain of the manner in which she was treating him. I left it, secretly hoping that matters might end in her taking him at his word and claiming her release. A man of my age and experience ought to have known better than to vacillate in this unreasonable manner. I can make no excuse for myself; I can only tell the truth, and say--so it was. The hour for my departure was now drawing near. I sent to Mr. Fairlie to say that I would wait on him to take leave if he liked, but that he must excuse my being rather in a hurry. He sent a message back, written in pencil on a slip of paper: "Kind love and best wishes, dear Gilmore. Hurry of any kind is inexpressibly injurious to me. Pray take care of yourself. Good-bye." Just before I left I saw Miss Halcombe for a moment alone. "Have you said all you wanted to Laura?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "She is very weak and nervous--I am glad she has you to take care of her." Miss Halcombe's sharp eyes studied my face attentively. "You are altering your opinion about Laura," she said. "You are readier to make allowances for her than you were yesterday." No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman. I only answered-- "Let me know what happens. I will do nothing till I hear from you." She still looked hard in my face. "I wish it was all over, and well over, Mr. Gilmore--and so do you." With those words she left me. Sir Percival most politely insisted on seeing me to the carriage door. "If you are ever in my neighbourhood," he said, "pray don't forget that I am sincerely anxious to improve our acquaintance. The tried and trusted old friend of this family will be always a welcome visitor in any house of mine." A really irresistible man--courteous, considerate, delightfully free from pride--a gentleman, every inch of him. As I drove away to the station I felt as if I could cheerfully do anything to promote the interests of Sir Percival Glyde--anything in the world, except drawing the marriage settlement of his wife. III A week passed, after my return to London, without the receipt of any communication from Miss Halcombe. On the eighth day a letter in her handwriting was placed among the other letters on my table. It announced that Sir Percival Glyde had been definitely accepted, and that the marriage was to take place, as he had originally desired, before the end of the year. In all probability the ceremony would be performed during the last fortnight in December. Miss Fairlie's twenty-first birthday was late in March. She would, therefore, by this arrangement, become Sir Percival's wife about three months before she was of age. I ought not to have been surprised, I ought not to have been sorry, but I was surprised and sorry, nevertheless. Some little disappointment, caused by the unsatisfactory shortness of Miss Halcombe's letter, mingled itself with these feelings, and contributed its share towards upsetting my serenity for the day. In six lines my correspondent announced the proposed marriage--in three more, she told me that Sir Percival had left Cumberland to return to his house in Hampshire, and in two concluding sentences she informed me, first, that Laura was sadly in want of change and cheerful society; secondly, that she had resolved to try the effect of some such change forthwith, by taking her sister away with her on a visit to certain old friends in Yorkshire. There the letter ended, without a word to explain what the circumstances were which had decided Miss Fairlie to accept Sir Percival Glyde in one short week from the time when I had last seen her. At a later period the cause of this sudden determination was fully explained to me. It is not my business to relate it imperfectly, on hearsay evidence. The circumstances came within the personal experience of Miss Halcombe, and when her narrative succeeds mine, she will describe them in every particular exactly as they happened. In the meantime, the plain duty for me to perform--before I, in my turn, lay down my pen and withdraw from the story--is to relate the one remaining event connected with Miss Fairlie's proposed marriage in which I was concerned, namely, the drawing of the settlement. It is impossible to refer intelligibly to this document without first entering into certain particulars in relation to the bride's pecuniary affairs. I will try to make my explanation briefly and plainly, and to keep it free from professional obscurities and technicalities. The matter is of the utmost importance. I warn all readers of these lines that Miss Fairlie's inheritance is a very serious part of Miss Fairlie's story, and that Mr. Gilmore's experience, in this particular, must be their experience also, if they wish to understand the narratives which are yet to come. Miss Fairlie's expectations, then, were of a twofold kind, comprising her possible inheritance of real property, or land, when her uncle died, and her absolute inheritance of personal property, or money, when she came of age.

perilous

How many times the word 'perilous' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

kings

How many times the word 'kings' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

partly

How many times the word 'partly' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

damn

How many times the word 'damn' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

fetched

How many times the word 'fetched' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

indifferent

How many times the word 'indifferent' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

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How many times the word 'across' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

directly

How many times the word 'directly' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

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"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

walk

How many times the word 'walk' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

very

How many times the word 'very' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

ripping

How many times the word 'ripping' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

toward

How many times the word 'toward' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

glencora;--but

How many times the word 'glencora;--but' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

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"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

girlhood

How many times the word 'girlhood' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

simply

How many times the word 'simply' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

fiume

How many times the word 'fiume' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

them-

How many times the word 'them-' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

quietly

How many times the word 'quietly' appears in the text?

"So to-day is your maiden's farewell, is it?" he asked after awhile. "Yes! It must be getting late," she said, as she rose from the low stool and shook out her many starched skirts, "mother will be back directly to fetch me for the feast." "It will be in the schoolroom, I suppose," he said indifferently. "Yes. And some of the lads are coming over presently to fetch father. They have arranged to carry him all the way. Isn't it good of them?" "To carry him all the way?" he asked, puzzled. "Father has not moved for two years," she said simply; "he was stricken with paralysis, you know." "Ah, yes! Klara told me something about that." "So in order to give me the pleasure of having father near me at my farewell feast, M ritz and Jen and Imre and Jank are going to fasten long poles to his chair and carry him to the schoolroom and back. Isn't it good of them? And I think they mean to do the same thing to-morrow and carry him to church. We are going to put his bunda round his shoulders. He has not worn his bunda for two years. . . . It was yesterday, when I took it out in order to mend it, that I found the letter which you wrote me from Fiume. It had slipped between the pocket and the lining and . . ." "And are you happy, Elsa?" he broke in abruptly. She hesitated almost imperceptibly for a moment, then she said quietly: "Yes, Andor. I am fairly happy." "B la?" he asked again. "Is he fond of you?" "I think so." "You are not sure?" "Oh, yes!" she said more firmly, "I am quite sure." "He hasn't taken to drinking, has he? . . . He was a little inclined that way at one time." "Oh!" she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, "I don't think that he drinks more than other fellows of his age." She went over to the window and somewhat ostentatiously, he thought, began turning over the contents of her work-box. There was something in her attitude now which worried him, and she seemed more determined than ever not to look him straight in the face. "Elsa! I shall think the worst if you tell me nothing," he said firmly. "There is nothing to tell, Andor." "Yes, there is," he persisted; "there is something about B la which makes you unhappy and which you won't tell me. . . . Now, listen to me, Elsa, for I mean every word which I am going to say . . . I can bring myself to the point of seeing you married to another man and happy in your new home, even though my own heart will break in the process . . . but what I could never stand would be to see you married to another man and made unhappy by him. . . . So if you won't tell me what is on your mind with regard to B la, I will pick a quarrel with him this afternoon, and kill him if I can." "Don't talk so wildly, Andor," she said, as she turned and faced him, for she was a little frightened at his earnestness and knew that he had it in him to act just as he said he would. "The whole thing is only foolishness on my part, I know." "Then there is something?" he persisted obstinately. "Well!" she said, after a little more hesitation, "it's only that he will go hanging about at the Goldsteins' all the time." "Oh! it's Klara, is it?" "I can't bear that girl," said Elsa, with sudden vehemence. He looked at her keenly. "You are jealous, Elsa," he said. "Is it because you love B la?" "I don't like his hanging round Klara," she replied evasively. He rose from the table, drawing in his breath as he did so, with a curious hissing sound; perhaps the pain which he felt now was harder to bear even than that caused by the first crushing blow. The Inevitable had indeed placed its cruel hand upon his happiness; not all the boundless wealth of his love, of his will and of his daring could ever give Elsa back to him again. "I had better go now, I suppose," he said. "Mother will be here directly," she replied, "won't you see her?" "Not just yet, I think. I thought of asking Pater Bonif cius if he could give me a bed for a night. Pali b csi might not be ready for me yet." "But you will come to my farewell feast?" asked Elsa, with that unconscious cruelty of which good women are so often capable. "If you wish it, Elsa," he replied. "I do wish it," she said, "and everyone will be so happy to see you. They would think it strange if you did not come, for everyone will know by then that you have returned." "Then I will come," he concluded. He went up to her and held out his hand; she put her own upon it. Of course he did not ask for a kiss; he had no longer a right to that. Somehow, in the last few moments a barrier seemed to have sprung up between him and her which had obliterated all the past. He was a stranger now to her and she to him; that day five years ago was as if it had never been. B la and her plighted troth to him stood now between Andor and that past which he must forget. But as he stood now holding her hand, he looked at her earnestly, and her blue eyes, dimmed but serene, met his own gaze without flinching. "The past, Elsa," he said, "is done with. Henceforth we shall be nothing to one another. You will forget me easily enough. . . . I wish that I had never come back to disturb the peace which I see is rapidly spreading over your life. My only wish now is that with you it should be peace. My heart has already given you up to B la--but not unconditionally, mind. . . . He must make you happy . . . I tell you that he must," he reiterated, almost fiercely. "If he does not, he will have to reckon with me. Heaven help him, I say, if he is ever unkind to you. . . . I shall see it, I shall know it. . . . I shall not leave this village till I am assured that he means to be kind--that he _is_ kind to you, even though my heart should break in remaining a witness to your happiness." He stooped, and with the innate chivalry peculiar to the Hungarian peasantry, he kissed the small, cold hand which trembled in his grasp: he kissed it as a noble lord would kiss the hand of a princess. Then, without looking on her again, he walked quietly out of the house, and Elsa was alone with yet another bitter-sweet memory to add to her store of regrets. CHAPTER XIV "It is true." By the time that Andor turned the corner of the house into the street, he found that the news of his arrival had already spread through the village like wildfire. Klara Goldstein's ready tongue had been at work this past hour; she had quickly disseminated the news that the wanderer had come home. She did not say that the malice and love of mischief in her had caused her to say nothing to Andor about Elsa's coming wedding. She merely told the first neighbour whom she came across that Lakatos Andor had come back, just as she, for one, had always declared that he would. Andor's friends had assembled in the street in a trice; here was too glorious an opportunity to shout and to sing and to make merry, to be lightly missed. And Andor had always been popular before. He was doubly so now that he had come back from America or wherever he may have been, and had made a fortune there; he shook one hundred and fifty hands before he could walk as far as the presbytery. The gypsies who had just arrived by train from Arad were not allowed to proceed straight to the schoolroom. They were made to pause in the great open place before the church, made to unpack their instruments then and there, and to strike up the R k czy March without more ado, in honour of the finest son of Marosfalva, who had been thought dead by some, and had returned safe and sound to his native corner of the earth. It was with much difficulty that at last Andor succeeded in effecting his escape and running away from the series of ovations which greeted him when and wherever he was recognized. The women embraced him without further ado, the men worried him to tell them some of his adventures then and there. Above all, everyone wanted to hear how very much more wretched, uncomfortable and God-forsaken the rest of the wide, wide world was in comparison with Hungary in general and the village of Marosfalva in particular. The heartfelt, if noisy, greetings of his old friends had the effect of soothing Andor's aching heart. The sight of his native village, the scent of the air, the dust of the road acted as a slight compensation for the heavy load of sorrow which otherwise would hopelessly have weighed him down. With a final wave of his hat he disappeared from the enraptured gaze of his friends into the cool quietude of the presbytery garden. He stood still for a moment behind a huge clump of tall sunflowers and gaudy dahlias to recover his breath and rearrange his coat, which had been mishandled quite a good deal by his friends in the excess of their joy. From the other side of the low gate came the buzz of animated talk, his own name oft-repeated, cries of surprise and of pleasure, when the news reached some late-comers, and through it all the soft, pathetic murmur of the gipsies' fiddles; they had lapsed from the inspiriting strains of the R k czy March to one of the dreamy Magyar love-songs which suited their own languid Oriental temperament far better than the martial music. But here, in the small presbytery garden, the world seemed to have slipped back an hundred years or more. Perfect peace! the drowsing of flies and wasps, the call of thrushes, the crackling of tiny twigs in the branches of the old acacia tree in the corner! Only the flies and the birds and the flowers seemed to live, and the air was heavy with the pungent odour of the sunflowers. Andor drew a long breath. He seemed suddenly to wake from a long, long dream. It was just over five years ago that he had stood one morning just like this in this little garden; the late roses had not then ceased to bloom. It was the day before he had to leave Marosfalva in order to become a soldier, and he had come after Mass to say a private good-bye to the kind priest. Now it seemed as if those five years were just one long dream--the soldiering, the voyage across the sea, the two years in a strange, strange land, all culminating in that awful cataclysm which had for ever robbed him of happiness. It seemed as if it _could_ not all be true, as if Elsa was even now waiting for him to go out for a walk under the acacia trees as she had done on that morning five years ago. Even now he pulled the bell as he had done then, and now--as then--Pater Bonif cius himself came to the door. His old housekeeper had already brought the news to the presbytery of Andor's home-coming, and the old Pater was overjoyed at seeing the lad--now become so strong and so manly. He took Andor to his heart, chiefly because he would not have the lad see the tears which had so quickly come to his eyes. "It is true then, Pater," said Andor, when he had followed the old man into the little parlour all littered with papers and books. "It is true, or you would not have cried when first you embraced me." "What is true, my son?" asked the Pater. "That Elsa is to marry Er s B la to-morrow?" "Yes, my son, that is true," said the priest simply. And thus Andor knew that, at any rate, the hideous present was not a dream. CHAPTER XV "That is fair, I think." An hour later, Andor was in the street with the rest of the village folk, watching Elsa as she walked up toward the schoolroom in the company of her mother. Her fair hair shone like the gold beads round her neck, and her starched petticoats swung out from her hips as she walked. She held her head a little downcast; people thought this most becoming in a young bride; but Andor, who stood in the forefront of the spectators as she passed, saw that she held her head down because her cheeks were pale and her eyes swollen with tears. Irma n ni walked beside her daughter with the proud air of a queen, and on ahead Barna M ritz, the mayor's second son, Feh r Jen , whose father worked the water-mill on the Maros, and two other sturdy fellows were carrying the bride's paralysed father shoulder high in his chair. Just as the little procession halted for a moment before entering the whitewashed school-house, Er s B la, the bridegroom and hero of the hour, appeared, coming from the opposite direction, and with Klara Goldstein, the Jewess, upon his arm. Klara--arrayed in fashionable town garments, with a huge hat covered in feathers, a tight modern skirt that forced her to walk with mincing steps, high-heeled shoes, open-work stockings and gloves reaching to the elbow--was indeed a curious apparition in amongst these peasant girls, with their bare heads and high red-leather boots and petticoats standing round them like balloons. Andor frowned heavily when he caught sight of her; he had seen that Elsa's pale cheeks had become almost livid in hue and that her parted lips trembled as if she were ready to cry. The looks that were cast by the village folk upon the Jewess were none too kindly, and there were audible mutterings of disapproval at Er s B la's conduct; but neither looks nor mutterings disconcerted Klara Goldstein in the least. She knew well enough that envy of her fashionable attire bore a large share in the ill-will which was displayed against her, and the handsome Jewess, who so often had to bear the contempt and the sneers of these Magyar peasants whom she despised, was delighted that Er s B la's admiration for her had induced him to give her an opportunity of queening it for once amongst them all. She felt that she shone in her splendour in comparison with the pale-faced bride in all her village finery. She carried a sunshade and a reticule, her dark hair was arranged in frisettes under her broad-brimmed hat; she knew that the men were casting admiring glances on her, and in any case, for the moment, she was the centre of universal observation. Whilst some of the young men were engaged in carrying old Kapus into the house, a proceeding which kept the festive throng waiting outside, she tripped up daintily to Elsa, and said in soft, cooing tones: "It was kind of you, my dear Elsa, to include me among your personal friends on such an important occasion. As the young Count was saying to me only last night, 'You will give Irma n ni and little Elsa vast pleasure by your presence at the child's maiden's farewell, and mind you wear that lovely hat which I admire so much.' So affable, the young Count, is he not? He told me that nothing would do but when I get married he must come himself to every feast in connection with my wedding." But once she had delivered these several little pointed shafts, Klara Goldstein was far too clever to wait for a retort. Before Elsa, whose simple mind was not up to a stinging repartee, could think of something indifferent or not too ungracious to say, the handsome Jewess had already spied Andor's face among the crowd. "There is the hero of the hour, B la," she said, turning to the bridegroom, who had stood by surly and defiant; "these past five years have not changed him much, eh? . . . Your future wife's old sweetheart," she added, with a malicious little laugh; "are you not pleased to see him?" Then, as B la somewhat clumsily, and with a pretence at cordiality which he was far from feeling, went up to Andor and held out his hand to him, Klara continued glibly: "Poor old Andor! he is a trifle glum now. I never told him that his sweetheart was getting married to-morrow. Never mind, my little Andor," she added, turning her expressive dark eyes with a knowing look upon the young man; "there is more fish in the Maros than has come out of it. And I thought that you would prefer to get the truth direct from our pretty Elsa!" "I think you did quite right, Klara," said Andor indifferently. But in the meanwhile B la had contrived to come up quite close to Elsa, and to whisper hurriedly in her ear: "A bargain's a bargain, my dove!--you behave amiably to Klara Goldstein and I will keep a civil tongue in my head for your old sweetheart. . . . That is fair, I think, eh, Irma n ni?" he added, turning to the old woman. "Don't be foolish, B la," retorted Kapus Irma dryly. "Why you should be for ever teasing Elsa, I cannot think. You must know that all girls feel upset at these times, and as like as not you'll make her cry at her own feast. And that would be a fine disgrace for us all!" "Don't be afraid, mother," said Elsa quietly; "I don't feel the least like crying." "That's splendid," exclaimed B la, with ostentatious gaiety. "Here's Irma n ni trying to teach me something about girls. As if I didn't know about them all that there is to know. Eh, Andor, you agree with me, don't you?" he added, turning to the other man. "We men know more about women's moods and little tempers than their own mothers do. What? Now, Irma n ni, take your daughter into the house. There is a clatter of dishes and bottles going on inside there which is very pleasant to the stomach. Miss Klara, will you honour me by accepting my arm? Friends, come in all, will you? All those, I mean, whom my wife that is to be has invited to her last girlhood's entertainment. Irma n ni, do lead the way. Elsa looks quite pale for want of food--she had her breakfast very early, I suppose, and got tired dressing for this great occasion. Andor, you shall sit next to Elsa if you like. . . . You must have lots to tell her. Your adventures among the cannibals and the lions and tigers. . . . Eh? . . . And Irma n ni shall sit next to you on the other side, and don't let her have more wine than is good for her. Whew! but it is hot already! Come along, friends. By thunder, Klara, but that is a fine hat you have got on." He talked on very volubly and at the top of his voice, making ostentatious efforts to appear jovial and amiable to everyone; but Er s B la was no fool: he knew quite well that his attitude toward his bride and toward Klara the Jewess was causing many adverse comments to go round among his friends. But he was in a mood not to care. He was determined that everyone should know and see that he was the master here to-day, just as he meant to be master in his house throughout the years to come. Like every self-enriched peasant, he attached an enormous importance to wealth, and was inclined to have a contempt for the less fortunate folk who had not risen out of their humble sphere as he had done. His wealth, he thought, had placed him above everyone else in Marosfalva, and above the unwritten laws of traditions and proprieties which are of more account in an Hungarian village than all the codes framed by the Parliament which sits in Budapesth. He was proud of his wealth, proud of his education, his book-learning and knowledge of the world, and reckoned that these gave him the right to be a law unto himself. His naturally domineering and masterful temperament completed his claim to be considered the head man of Marosfalva. The Hungarian peasants are ready enough to give deference where deference is exacted, but, having given it, their cordial friendship dies away. They acknowledged a social barrier more readily, perhaps, than any other peasantry in Europe, but having once acknowledged it, they will not admit that either party can stand on both sides of it at one and the same time. So now, though Er s B la was flouting the local traditions and proprieties by his attentions to Klara Goldstein, no one thought of openly opposing him. Everyone was ready enough to accept his actions, as they would those of their social superiors--the gentlemen of Arad, the Pater, my lord the Count himself, but they were not ready to accept his cordiality nor to extend to him their simple-minded and open-hearted friendship. The presence of the Jewess did not please them--she was a stranger and an alien--she looked like a creature from another world with her tight skirts, high-heeled shoes and huge, feathered hat. No one felt this more keenly than Andor, whose heart had warmed out--despite its pain--at sight of all his friends, their national costumes, their music, their traditions--all of which had been out of his life for so long. He felt that Klara's presence on this occasion was in itself an outrage upon Elsa, even without B la's conspicuously unworthy conduct. Elsa, with her tightly-plaited hair, her balloon skirts and bare neck and arms, looked ashamed beside this fashionable apparition all made up of billowy lace and clinging materials. Andor cursed beneath his breath, and ground his heel into the dust in the impotency of his rage. He tried to remember all that the Pater had said to him half an hour ago about forbearance and about God's will. Personally, Andor did not altogether believe that it was God's will that Elsa should be married to a man who would neither cherish her nor appreciate her as she deserved to be: and it was with a heart weighed down with foreboding as well as with sorrow that he followed the wedding party into the school-house. CHAPTER XVI "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly." But even the bridegroom's unconventional and reprehensible conduct had not the power to damp for long the spirits of the guests. By the time the soup had been eaten and the glasses filled with wine, the noise in the schoolroom had already become deafening, and no person of moderate vocal calibre could have heard himself speak. The time had come for everyone to talk at the top of his or her voice, for no one to listen, and for laughter--irresponsible, immoderate laughter--to ring from end to end of the room. The gipsies were scraping their fiddles, blowing their clarionets and banging their czimbalom with all the vigour of which they were capable. They, at any rate, were determined to be heard above the din. The leader, with his violin under his chin, had already begun his round of the two huge tables, pausing for awhile behind every chair--just long enough to play into the ear of every single guest his or her favourite song. For thus custom demands it. There are hundreds and hundreds of Hungarian folk-songs, and to a stranger's ear no doubt these have a great similarity among themselves, but to a Hungarian there is a world of difference in each: for to him it is the words that have a meaning. The songs are, for the most part, love-songs, and all are written in that quaint, symbolic style, full of poetic imagery, which is peculiar to the Magyar language. When we remember that in the terrible revolution of '48, when these same Hungarian peasant lads who composed the bulk of Kossuth's followers fought against the Austrian army, and subsequently against the combined armies of Russia and of Austria, when we remember that throughout that terrible campaign they were always accompanied by their gipsy bands, we begin to realize how great a part national music plays in the national spirit of Hungary. The sweet, sad folk-songs rang in the fighting lads' ears when they fell in their hundreds before the superior arms and numbers of their powerful neighbours, they inspired them and urged them, they helped them to win while they could, and to yield only when overwhelming numbers finally crushed their powers of resistance. Gipsy musicians fell beside the young soldiers, playing to them until the last the songs that spoke to them of their village, their sweethearts and their home. And the sweet, sad strains rang in the ears of the lads when they closed their eyes in death. And now when Andor--face to face with the first great sorrow of his life--felt as if his heart must break under it, he loved to hear the gipsy musician softly caressing the strings of his violin as he played close to his ear the sweetest, saddest melody among all the sweet, sad melodies in the Magyar tongue. It begins thus: "A Maros vize folyik csendesen!" "The waters of the Maros flow sluggishly--" and it speaks of a broken-hearted lover whose sweetheart belongs to another. Andor had never cared for it before. He used to think it too sad, but now he understood it: it was attuned to his mood, and the soft sound of the instrument helped him to keep his ever-growing wrath in check, even while he was watching Elsa's pale, tearful face. She had made pathetic efforts to remain cheerful and not to listen to Klara's strident voice and loud, continuous laughter. B la had practically confined his attentions to the Jewess, and Elsa tried not to show how ashamed she was at being so openly neglected on this occasion. She should have been the queen of the feast, of course; the bridegroom's thoughts should have been only for her; everyone's eyes should have been turned on her. Instead of which she seemed of less consequence almost than anyone else here. If it had not been for Andor, who sat next to her and who saw to her having something to eat and drink--it was little enough, God knows!--she might have sat here like a wooden doll. Something of the respect which Er s B la demanded as his own right encompassed her, too, already: the cordiality of the past seemed to have vanished. She was already something of a lady: "_ten's asszony_" (honoured madam), she would be styled by and by. And this foreknowledge, which she was gradually imbibing while everybody round her made merry, caused her almost as much sadness as B la's indifference towards her. It seemed as if all brightness was destined to go out of her life after to-day, and it was with tear-filled eyes that she looked up now and again from her plate and gazed round upon the festive scene before her. The whitewashed schoolroom, where on ordinary working days brown and grimy little faces were wont to pore laboriously over slates and books, presented now a very lively appearance. Two huge trestle tables ran down its length, and thirty guests were seated on benches each side of these. The girls in all their finery wanted a deal of sitting-room, with their starched petticoats standing out over their hips, and their bare arms and necks shone with the vigorous application of yellow soap: and the smooth hair, fair and dark, had an additional lustre after the stiff brushing which it had to endure. The matrons wore darker skirts and black silk handkerchiefs tied round their heads, ending in a bow under the chin: but everywhere ribbons fluttered and beads jingled, and the men had spurs to their high boots which gave a pleasing clinking when they clapped their heels together. Overhead, hung to the ceiling, were festoons of bright pink paper roses and still brighter green glazed calico leaves; the tables were spread with linen cloths, and literally threatened to break down under the weight of pewter dishes filled with delicacies of every sort and kind--home-killed meat and home-made sausages, home-made bread and home-grown wine. The Magyar peasant is an epicure. His rich soil and excellent climate give him the best of food, and though, when times are hard, he will live readily enough on maize bread and pumpkin, he knows how to enjoy a good spread when rich friends provide it for him. And Er s B la had done the feast in style. Nothing was stinted. You just had to sit down and eat your fill of roast veal or roast pork, of fattened capons from his farmyard or of fogas[4] from the river, or of the scores of dishes of all kinds of good things which stood temptingly about. [Footnote 4: A kind of pike peculiar to Hungarian rivers.] No wonder that spirits

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"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

ill

How many times the word 'ill' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

hurt

How many times the word 'hurt' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

learned

How many times the word 'learned' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

done

How many times the word 'done' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

fire

How many times the word 'fire' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

fear

How many times the word 'fear' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

ages

How many times the word 'ages' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

become

How many times the word 'become' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

master

How many times the word 'master' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

first

How many times the word 'first' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

nor

How many times the word 'nor' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

pen

How many times the word 'pen' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

puzzled

How many times the word 'puzzled' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

standing

How many times the word 'standing' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

virtues

How many times the word 'virtues' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

supposing

How many times the word 'supposing' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

wish

How many times the word 'wish' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

mothers

How many times the word 'mothers' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

sell

How many times the word 'sell' appears in the text?

"What friend of mine?" "Never mind that; it does not matter now." "Do you mean my cousin George?" "Yes, I do mean your cousin; and oh, Alice! dear Alice! I don't know why I should love you, for if you had not been hardhearted that night,--stony cruel in your hard propriety, I should have gone with him then, and all this icy coldness would have been prevented." She was standing quite close to Alice, and as she spake she shook with shivering and wrapped her furs closer and still closer about her. "You are very cold," said Alice. "We had better go in." "No, I am not cold,--not in that way. I won't go in yet. Jeffrey will come to us directly. Yes;--we should have escaped that night if you would have allowed him to come into your house. Ah, well! we didn't, and there's an end of it." "But Glencora,--you cannot regret it." "Not regret it! Alice, where can your heart be? Or have you a heart? Not regret it! I would give everything I have in the world to have been true to him. They told me that he would spend my money. Though he should have spent every farthing of it, I regret it; though he should have made me a beggar, I regret it. They told me that he would ill-use me, and desert me,--perhaps beat me. I do not believe it; but even though that should have been so, I regret it. It is better to have a false husband than to be a false wife." "Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows." "Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;--and now;--what am I now?" "You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me." And Alice took hold of her arm. "No," she said, "no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him,--Burgo,--I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!" "Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away." "I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;--though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;--so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me." "I know that he does." "Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night,--every hour of every day and of every night,--I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation,--no friends,--no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me--" "Oh, Glencora!" "Well!--Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now,--this is what I want to tell you.--Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt." "You must not go. No power should take you there." "That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;--whether he has ever thought about it." "You must tell him plainly that you will not go." "I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. 'Glencora,' he said,--and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed,--'This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be any one whom you are afraid to meet.' Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo's arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?" "I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house." "Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man's body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!--ay, even though he had ill-treated me,--if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money,--all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man--! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?" Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend's advice. "Here's Jeffrey!" she said. "What an unconscionable time we have kept him!" "Don't mention it," he said. "And I shouldn't have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble." "We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that,--are we, Alice?" said Lady Glencora. "And now we'll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott." These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the word duenna to have passed her lips in speaking to any one; but, above all, she should not have done so in the hearing of Mr. Palliser's cousin. They walked all round the ruin, on a raised gravel-path which had been made there; and Alice, who could hardly bring herself to speak,--so full was her mind of that which had just been said to her,--was surprised to find that Glencora could go on, in her usual light humour, chatting as though there were no weight within her to depress her spirits. CHAPTER XXVIII. Alice Leaves the Priory. As they came in at the billiard-room door, Mr. Palliser was there to meet them. "You must be very cold," he said to Glencora, who entered first. "No, indeed," said Glencora;--but her teeth were chattering, and her whole appearance gave the lie to her words. "Jeffrey," said Mr. Palliser, turning to his cousin, "I am angry with you. You, at least, should have known better than to have allowed her to remain so long." Then Mr. Palliser turned away, and walked his wife off, taking no notice whatsoever of Miss Vavasor. Alice felt the slight, and understood it all. He had told her plainly enough, though not in words, that he had trusted his wife with her, and that she had betrayed the trust. She might have brought Glencora in within five or six minutes, instead of allowing her to remain out there in the freezing night air for nearly three-quarters of an hour. That was the accusation which Mr. Palliser made against her, and he made it with the utmost severity. He asked no question of her whether she were cold. He spoke no word to her, nor did he even look at her. She might get herself away to her bedroom as she pleased. Alice understood all this completely, and though she knew that she had not deserved such severity, she was not inclined to resent it. There was so much in Mr. Palliser's position that was to be pitied, that Alice could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. "He is provoked with us, now," said Jeffrey Palliser, standing with her for a moment in the billiard-room, as he handed her a candle. "He is afraid that she will have caught cold." "Yes; and he thinks it wrong that she should remain out at night so long. You can easily understand, Miss Vavasor, that he has not much sympathy for romance." "I dare say he is right," said Alice, not exactly knowing what to say, and not being able to forget what had been said about herself and Jeffrey Palliser when they first left the house. "Romance usually means nonsense, I believe." "That is not Glencora's doctrine." "No; but she is younger than I am. My feet are very cold, Mr. Palliser, and I think I will go up to my room." "Good night," said Jeffrey, offering her his hand. "I think it so hard that you should have incurred his displeasure." "It will not hurt me," said Alice, smiling. "No;--but he does not forget." "Even that will not hurt me. Good night, Mr. Palliser." "As it is the last night, may I say good night, Alice? I shall be away to-morrow before you are up." He still held her hand; but it had not been in his for half a minute, and she had thought nothing of that, nor did she draw it away even now suddenly. "No," said she, "Glencora was very wrong there,--doing an injury without meaning it to both of us. There can be no possible reason why you should call me otherwise than is customary." "Can there never be a reason?" "No, Mr. Palliser. Good night;--and if I am not to see you to-morrow morning, good-bye." "You will certainly not see me to-morrow morning." "Good-bye. Had it not been for this folly of Glencora's, our acquaintance would have been very pleasant." "To me it has been very pleasant. Good night." Then she left him, and went up alone to her own room. Whether or no other guests were still left in the drawing-room she did not know; but she had seen that Mr. Palliser took his wife up-stairs, and therefore she considered herself right in presuming that the party was broken up for the night. Mr. Palliser,--Plantagenet Palliser, according to all rules of courtesy should have said a word to her as he went; but, as I have said before, Alice was disposed to overlook his want of civility on this occasion. So she went up alone to her room, and was very glad to find herself able to get close to a good fire. She was, in truth, very cold--cold to her bones, in spite of what Lady Glencora had said on behalf of the moonlight. They two had been standing all but still during the greater part of the time that they had been talking, and Alice, as she sat herself down, found that her feet were numbed with the damp that had penetrated through her boots. Certainly Mr. Palliser had reason to be angry that his wife should have remained out in the night air so long,--though perhaps not with Alice. And then she began to think of what had been told her; and to try to think of what, under such circumstances, it behoved her to do. She could not doubt that Lady Glencora had intended to declare that, if opportunity offered itself, she would leave her husband, and put herself under the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald; and Alice, moreover, had become painfully conscious that the poor deluded unreasoning creature had taught herself to think that she might excuse herself for this sin to her own conscience by the fact that she was childless, and that she might thus give to the man who had married her an opportunity of seeking another wife who might give him an heir. Alice well knew how insufficient such an excuse would be even to the wretched woman who had framed it for herself. But still it would operate,--manifestly had already operated, on her mind, teaching her to hope that good might come out of evil. Alice, who was perfectly clearsighted as regarded her cousin, however much impaired her vision might have been with reference to herself, saw nothing but absolute ruin, ruin of the worst and most intolerable description, in the plan which Lady Glencora seemed to have formed. To her it was black in the depths of hell; and she knew that to Glencora also it was black. "I loathe myself," Glencora had said, "and the thing that I am thinking of." What was Alice to do under these circumstances? Mr. Palliser, she was aware, had quarrelled with her; for in his silent way he had first shown that he had trusted her as his wife's friend; and then, on this evening, he had shown that he had ceased to trust her. But she cared little for this. If she told him that she wished to speak to him, he would listen, let his opinion of her be what it might; and having listened he would surely act in some way that would serve to save his wife. What Mr. Palliser might think of herself, Alice cared but little. But then there came to her an idea that was in every respect feminine,--that in such a matter she had no right to betray her friend. When one woman tells the story of her love to another woman, the confidant always feels that she will be a traitor if she reveals the secret. Had Lady Glencora made Alice believe that she meditated murder, or robbery, Alice would have had no difficulty in telling the tale, and thus preventing the crime. But now she hesitated, feeling that she would disgrace herself by betraying her friend. And, after all, was it not more than probable that Glencora had no intention of carrying out a threat the very thought of which must be terrible to herself? As she was thinking of all this, sitting in her dressing-gown close over the fire, there came a loud knock at the door, which, as she had turned the key, she was forced to answer in person. She opened the door, and there was Iphigenia Palliser, Jeffrey's cousin, and Mr. Palliser's cousin. "Miss Vavasor," she said, "I know that I am taking a great liberty, but may I come into your room for a few minutes? I so much wish to speak to you!" Alice of course bade her enter, and placed a chair for her by the fire. Alice Vavasor had made very little intimacy with either of the two Miss Pallisers. It had seemed to herself as though there had been two parties in the house, and that she had belonged to the one which was headed by the wife, whereas the Miss Pallisers had been naturally attached to that of the husband. These ladies, as she had already seen, almost idolized their cousin; and though Plantagenet Palliser had till lately treated Alice with the greatest personal courtesy, there had been no intimacy of friendship between them, and consequently none between her and his special adherents. Nor was either of these ladies prone to sudden friendship with such a one as Alice Vavasor. A sudden friendship, with a snuffy president of a foreign learned society, with some personally unknown lady employed on female emigration, was very much in their way. But Alice had not shown herself to be useful or learned, and her special intimacy with Lady Glencora had marked her out as in some sort separated from them and their ways. "I know that I am intruding," said Miss Palliser, as though she were almost afraid of Alice. "Oh dear, no," said Alice. "If I can do anything for you I shall be very happy." "You are going to-morrow, and if I did not speak to you now I should have no other opportunity. Glencora seems to be very much attached to you, and we all thought it so good a thing that she should have such a friend." "I hope you have not all changed your minds," said Alice, with a faint smile, thinking as she spoke that the "all" must have been specially intended to include the master of the house. "Oh, no;--by no means. I did not mean that. My cousin, Mr. Palliser, I mean, liked you so much when you came." "And he does not like me quite so much now, because I went out in the moonlight with his wife. Isn't that it?" "Well;--no, Miss Vavasor. I had not intended to mention that at all. I had not indeed. I have seen him certainly since you came in,--just for a minute, and he is vexed. But it is not about that that I would speak to you." "I saw plainly enough that he was angry with me." "He thought you would have brought her in earlier." "And why should he think that I can manage his wife? She was the mistress out there as she is in here. Mr. Palliser has been unreasonable. Not that it signifies." "I don't think he has been unreasonable; I don't, indeed, Miss Vavasor. He has certainly been vexed. Sometimes he has much to vex him. You see, Glencora is very young." Mr. Bott also had declared that Lady Glencora was very young. It was probable, therefore, that that special phrase had been used in some discussion among Mr. Palliser's party as to Glencora's foibles. So thought Alice as the remembrance of the word came upon her. "She is not younger than when Mr. Palliser married her," Alice said. "You mean that if a man marries a young wife he must put up with the trouble. That is a matter of course. But their ages, in truth, are very suitable. My cousin himself is not yet thirty. When I say that Glencora is young--" "You mean that she is younger in spirit, and perhaps in conduct, than he had expected to find her." "But you are not to suppose that he complains, Miss Vavasor. He is much too proud for that." "I should hope so," said Alice, thinking of Mr. Bott. "I hardly know how to explain to you what I wish to say, or how far I may be justified in supposing that you will believe me to be acting solely on Glencora's behalf. I think you have some influence with her;--and I know no one else that has any." "My friendship with her is not of very long date, Miss Palliser." "I know it, but still there is the fact. Am I not right in supposing--" "In supposing what?" "In supposing that you had heard the name of Mr. Fitzgerald as connected with Glencora's before her marriage with my cousin?" Alice paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, I had," she then said. "And I think you were agreed, with her other relations, that such a marriage would have been very dreadful." "I never spoke of the matter in the presence of any relatives of Glencora's. You must understand, Miss Palliser, that though I am her far-away cousin, I do not even know her nearest connections. I never saw Lady Midlothian till she came here the other day." "But you advised her to abandon Mr. Fitzgerald." "Never!" "I know she was much with you, just at that time." "I used to see her, certainly." Then there was a pause, and Miss Palliser, in truth, scarcely knew how to go on. There had been a hardness about Alice which her visitor had not expected,--an unwillingness to speak or even to listen, which made Miss Palliser almost wish that she were out of the room. She had, however, mentioned Burgo Fitzgerald's name, and out of the room now she could not go without explaining why she had done so. But at this point Alice came suddenly to her assistance. "Just then she was often with me," said Alice, continuing her reply; "and there was much talk between us about Mr. Fitzgerald. What was my advice then can be of little matter; but in this we shall be both agreed, Miss Palliser, that Glencora now should certainly not be called upon to be in his company." "She has told you, then?" "Yes;--she has told me." "That he is to be at Lady Monk's?" "She has told me that Mr. Palliser expects her to meet him at the place to which they are going when they leave the Duke's, and that she thinks it hard that she should be subjected to such a trial." "It should be no trial, Miss Vavasor." "How can it be otherwise? Come, Miss Palliser; if you are her friend, be fair to her." "I am her friend;--but I am, above everything, my cousin's friend. He has told me that she has complained of having to meet this man. He declares that it should be nothing to her, and that the fear is an idle folly. It should be nothing to her, but still the fear may not be idle. Is there any reason,--any real reason,--why she should not go? Miss Vavasor, I conjure you to tell me,--even though in doing so you must cast so deep reproach upon her name! Anything will be better than utter disgrace and sin!" "I conceive that I cast no reproach upon her in saying that there is great reason why she should not go to Monkshade." "You think there is absolute grounds for interference? I must tell him, you know, openly what he would have to fear." "I think,--nay, Miss Palliser, I know,--that there is ample reason why you should save her from being taken to Monkshade, if you have the power to do so." "I can only do it, or attempt to do it, by telling him just what you tell me." "Then tell him. You must have thought of that, I suppose, before you came to me." "Yes;--yes, Miss Vavasor. I had thought of it. No doubt I had thought of it. But I had believed all through that you would assure me that there was no danger. I believed that you would have said that she was innocent." "And she is innocent," said Alice, rising from her chair, as though she might thus give emphasis to words which she hardly dared to speak above a whisper. "She is innocent. Who accuses her of guilt? You ask me a question on his behalf--" "On hers--and on his, Miss Vavasor." "A question which I feel myself bound to answer truly,--to answer with reference to the welfare of them both; but I will not have it said that I accuse her. She had been attached to Mr. Fitzgerald when your cousin married her. He knew that this had been the case. She told him the whole truth. In a worldly point of view her marriage with Mr. Fitzgerald would probably have been very imprudent." "It would have been utterly ruinous." "Perhaps so; I say nothing about that. But as it turned out, she gave up her own wishes and married your cousin." "I don't know about her own wishes, Miss Vavasor." "It is what she did. She would have married Mr. Fitzgerald, had she not been hindered by the advice of those around her. It cannot be supposed that she has forgotten him in so short a time. There can be no guilt in her remembrance." "There is guilt in loving any other than her husband." "Then, Miss Palliser, it was her marriage that was guilty, and not her love. But all that is done and past. It should be your cousin's object to teach her to forget Mr. Fitzgerald, and he will not do that by taking her to a house where that gentleman is staying." "She has said so much to you herself?" "I do not know that I need declare to you what she has said herself. You have asked me a question, and I have answered it, and I am thankful to you for having asked it. What object can either of us have but to assist her in her position?" "And to save him from dishonour. I had so hoped that this was simply a childish dread on her part." "It is not so. It is no childish dread. If you have the power to prevent her going to Lady Monk's, I implore you to use it. Indeed, I will ask you to promise me that you will do so." "After what you have said, I have no alternative." "Exactly. There is no alternative. Either for his sake or for hers, there is none." Thereupon Miss Palliser got up, and wishing her companion good night, took her departure. Throughout the interview there had been no cordiality of feeling between them. There was no pretence of friendship, even as they were parting. They acknowledged that their objects were different. That of Alice was to save Lady Glencora from ruin. That of Miss Palliser was to save her cousin from disgrace,--with perhaps some further honest desire to prevent sorrow and sin. One loved Lady Glencora, and the other clearly did not love her. But, nevertheless, Alice felt that Miss Palliser, in coming to her, had acted well, and that to herself this coming had afforded immense relief. Some step would now be taken to prevent that meeting which she had so deprecated, and it would be taken without any great violation of confidence on her part. She had said nothing as to which Lady Glencora could feel herself aggrieved. On the next morning she was down in the breakfast-room soon after nine, and had not been in the room many minutes before Mr. Palliser entered. "The carriage is ordered for you at a quarter before ten," he said, "and I have come down to give you your breakfast." There was a smile on his face as he spoke, and Alice could see that he intended to make himself pleasant. "Will you allow me to give you yours instead?" said she. But as it happened, no giving on either side was needed, as Alice's breakfast was brought to her separately. "Glencora bids me say that she will be down immediately," said Mr. Palliser. Alice then made some inquiry with reference to the effects of last night's imprudence, which received only a half-pronounced reply. Mr. Palliser was willing to be gracious, but did not intend to be understood as having forgiven the offence. The Miss Pallisers then came in together, and after them Mr. Bott, closely followed by Mrs. Marsham, and all of them made inquiries after Lady Glencora, as though it was to be supposed that she might probably be in a perilous state after what she had undergone on the previous evening. Mr. Bott was particularly anxious. "The frost was so uncommonly severe," said he, "that any delicate person like Lady Glencora must have suffered in remaining out so long." The insinuation that Alice was not a delicate person and that, as regarded her, the severity of the frost was of no moment, was very open, and was duly appreciated. Mr. Bott was aware that his great patron had in some sort changed his opinion about Miss Vavasor, and he was of course disposed to change his own. A fortnight since Alice might have been as delicate as she pleased in Mr. Bott's estimation. "I hope you do not consider Lady Glencora delicate," said Alice to Mr. Palliser. "She is not robust," said the husband. "By no means," said Mrs. Marsham. "Indeed, no," said Mr. Bott. Alice knew that she was being accused of being robust herself; but she bore it in silence. Ploughboys and milkmaids are robust, and the accusation was a heavy one. Alice, however, thought that she would not have minded it, if she could have allowed herself to reply; but this at the moment of her going away she could not do. "I think she is as strong as the rest of us," said Iphigenia Palliser, who felt that after last night she owed something to Miss Vavasor. "As some of us," said Mr. Bott, determined to persevere in his accusation. At this moment Lady Glencora entered, and encountered the eager inquiries of her two duennas. These, however,

injury

How many times the word 'injury' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

sundry

How many times the word 'sundry' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

papers

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"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

proclamation

How many times the word 'proclamation' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

pitcher

How many times the word 'pitcher' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

inquiringly

How many times the word 'inquiringly' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

about

How many times the word 'about' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

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"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

mock

How many times the word 'mock' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

side

How many times the word 'side' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

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"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

forces

How many times the word 'forces' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

obedient

How many times the word 'obedient' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

saved

How many times the word 'saved' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

land

How many times the word 'land' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

few

How many times the word 'few' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

fresh

How many times the word 'fresh' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

drama

How many times the word 'drama' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

commandeth

How many times the word 'commandeth' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

characteristic

How many times the word 'characteristic' appears in the text?

"Without hope of absolution." "And you will make this tardy confession, my daughter, to His Grace's judges freely?" "Whenever it is deemed necessary I will make the confession to His Grace's judges freely." She swayed as if her senses were leaving her. Instinctively the Cardinal put out his arm to support her, but with a mighty effort she drew herself together, and looked down upon him with all the regal majesty of her own sublime self-sacrifice. But, flushed with victory, His Eminence cared nothing for the contempt of the vanquished. It had been a hard-fought battle. His Grace was saved from death and Queen Mary Tudor could not help but keep her word. It was a triumph indeed! He touched a hand-bell, a servant appeared. A few whispered instructions and the end was accomplished at last. But, God in Heaven, at what terrible cost! CHAPTER XXXIV WESTMINSTER HALL A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men, armed with halberds and tipstaves! A crowd come to gape and grin, some to sympathize--but only a very few of these. All come to see how the proudest gentleman in England would bear himself in a felon's dock. The dull grey light of an early November day came in ghostly streaks through the huge window of the Hall, throwing into bold relief the scarlet-clad figures of the twenty-four noble lords who were to be the Duke's triers, the gorgeous robes of the judges, and the dull black gowns of the attorneys and the minor dignitaries. Quick, excited whispers passed from mouth to mouth as now and then a familiar face detached itself from the crowd of all these awesome personages and was recognized by the people. "That's my lord Huntingdon," said an elderly merchant, pointing to a grey-bearded lord who had just taken his seat. "I mind him well when first he bought a pair of spurs in my father's shop." "Aye! and there's Lord Northampton," commented another, "and mightily thankful he should be not to be standing at the bar himself for high treason." "That's Mr. Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General," quoth one who knew. "Sh! sh! sh!" came in excited whispers all around, "here comes the Lord High Steward himself and all the judges." The procession awed the populace, for every new-comer--gorgeously apparelled though he was--wore a grave face and a saddened mien. The crowd, who had come for a day's pageant, a frolic not unlike the happy doings at East Molesey Fair, felt suddenly silenced and oppressed. Some of the women shivered beneath their thin kerchiefs; the devout ones made a quick sign of the cross, as if prayers were about to begin. It was all so solemn and so grand, in this dim winter's light, wherein shadows seemed to hover all around, hiding the remote corners of the Hall and dwelling mysteriously on that tall scaffold, whereon one by one these reverend personages took their allotted seats. The Queen's Serjeant carried the white rod, and escorted my Lord High Steward to the great chair, covered with a gorgeous cloth, which dominated the entire hall. To the right and left of him sat the twenty-four peers with their ermine-decked cloaks over their shoulders. Below them sat the Lord Chief Justice of England, the Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and also the rest of the minor judges. The Clerk of the Crown, in black gown and yellow hose, had been busy some time conversing with his secondary. Next to the judges sat several gentlemen of the Queen's household, their silken doublets of rich though sombre hues adding a crisp note of contrasting colour to the harmonies in scarlet and dull oak, which filled in the background of the picture. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sat close by with six of the Queen's Privy Councillors, also on their left the Master of Requests and other persons of note. Immediately facing the bar was the Queen's Serjeant, the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the Attorney-General of the Court of Wards. The Recorder of London had been given a special seat, also Mr. Thomas Norton, the Queen's printer, who wrote out the historical account of the trial, which has been preserved amongst the State papers. Then my Lord High Steward stood up bareheaded, holding the white rod in his hand, and the Serjeant-at-Arms stepped forward into the immediate centre of the Hall facing the crowd, and read out the proclamation as follows:-- "My Lord's Grace, the Queen's Majesty's Commissioner, High Steward of England, commandeth every man to keep silence on pain of imprisonment and to hear the Queen's Commission read." This was followed by the reading of the Queen's Commission by the Clerk of the Crown, after which--still standing--he read the indictment in a loud voice, so that all might hear. "Whereas Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, did on the night of the fourteenth of October of this year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and fifty-three, unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain . . ." The voice of the Clerk went droning on, the people amazed, horrified, tried not to lose one single word of this strange document which so loudly proclaimed the fact that a dastardly crime, unparalleled in its cowardice and ferocity, had been committed by one who until now had stood above all Englishmen as a model of honour, loyalty, and truth. With every fresh charge, skilfully woven together and intertwined with sundry depositions obtained from my lord Cardinal and his retinue, the crowd of spectators realized more and more that they were face to face with a weird and mysterious tragedy, not a pageant, but an appalling drama, the prologue of which was being enacted before them now. It seemed, as the Clerk pursued his reading, that he was slowly unfolding mesh by mesh a hideous web, in the midst of which the presence of a death-dealing and loathsome spider could as yet only be dimly guessed. A close, clinging web from which no man, be he the premier peer of England or the humblest commoner, could ever hope to escape. The web of a rough and misguided justice, of a law of the talion, retributive and blind, distributing with an impartial hand condemnations and punishments to guilty and innocent alike, to the martyr and to the felon, to the coward and the deceived. This was not a decadent, puny century, peopled with neurotics and feeble-minded weaklings, it was a century of men!--men who were giants alike in their virtues and their passions, their vices and their atrocities, narrow in their views, but staunch in their beliefs, savage in their creeds and prejudices--but MEN for all that. "The more heinous the offence the less chance shall the prisoner have of justifying his conduct." That was the dictate of the law. "For truly," said Sir Robert Catline, Lord Chief Justice of England, in the course of the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton for high treason, "justice must not be confused by sundry arguments in the prisoner's cause, which might lead to his acquittal and the non-punishment of so grave a fault." Witnesses were seldom, if ever, examined in the presence of the accused. Depositions were extorted--often by torture, always by threats--from persons who happened to be friends or associates of the prisoner. An acquittal?--perish the thought! Let the citizen look to himself ere he fell in the clutches of his country's justice; once there he had little or no chance of proving his innocence. Lest the guilty escape! Always that awful possibility! Rough justice demanded punishment--always punishment--lest the guilty escape! And the people as they listened knew that they had come to see a man's last day upon earth. Proud, rich, fastidious Wessex! this is the end of all things! Pomp and ceremony, gorgeous robes and costly apparels! these to speed thee on thy way; but as inevitably as the dull winter's night must follow this grey November morning, so will pomp and circumstance fade away into the past and leave thee with but one red-clad figure by thy side--that of the headsman with the axe. Justice to-day could make short work of her duties. Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, had confessed to his crime, why should Justice trouble herself to prove that which was already admitted? She had merely to think out the form and severity of the punishment for this man of high degree, who had sunk and stooped so low. For form's sake a few depositions had been taken, for this was an unusual event--a specially atrocious crime! the murder of a foreign envoy at the Court of the Queen of England, and at the hand of the premier peer of the realm! The Cardinal de Moreno, envoy in chief of His Majesty the King of Spain, had given the matter a political significance. In the name of his royal master he had demanded judgment on that most monstrous felony, and the exercise of the full rigour of the law. The Duke of Wessex had been a rival suitor for the hand of the Queen of England, and he had--presumably--wilfully removed a successful diplomatist who threatened to thwart his projects. And thus Wessex was arraigned for treason as well as for murder, and the indictment set forth the depositions of my lord Cardinal and those of his servant Pasquale, all of which His Grace had declined to peruse. He knew that these statements were lies, guessed well enough how his enemies would heap proof upon proof to bolster up his own brief confession. His Eminence had made a sworn statement that he heard angry voices 'twixt Don Miguel and His Grace some little time before the Marquis was found dead. Well, that was true enough! There _had_ been a deadly quarrel, and though this did not aggravate the case, it helped to establish the facts, if public opinion was like to sway the judges or if disbelief in Wessex' guilt was too firmly rooted in the minds of his peers. The indictment was a masterpiece, well could the Solicitor-General pride himself on the perfection of the document. A dull, oppressive silence had fallen upon this vast concourse of people. Interest, which was at fever-pitch, had forcibly to be kept in check, but now, as the Clerk's final words echoed feebly through the vast hall, a great sigh of eager excitement rose from the entire multitude. Everything so far had been but preliminary, the somewhat dull, lengthy prologue of the coming palpitating drama. But at last the curtain was about to rise on the first act, and the chief actor was ready to step upon the stage. Already from afar loud murmurs and excited cries proclaimed the approach of the prisoner. "He hath arrived from the Tower," whispered the 'prentices to one another. The distant murmurs grew in volume, then came nearer and nearer. All necks were craned to see the Duke arrive, and even the repeated calls of the Serjeant-at-Arms demanding silence were now left unheeded. Whispers passed from lip to ear. Comments and conjectures flew through the crowd. Was not this the most interesting moment of this interesting day? "How would he carry himself?" "How would he look?" "How doth a nobleman look when he becomes a felon?" "Silence! Here they come!" The Serjeant-at-Arms once more stood up before the people and loudly read a proclamation, calling upon the Lieutenant of the Tower of London to return his precept and bring forth his prisoner. This was responded to by a call of "Present!" from outside, followed by a loud tumult. The next moment the great doors of the Hall were thrown open, six armed men entered and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the bar. Behind them appeared the Lieutenant of the Tower of London, with Lord Rich, and between them was Robert d'Esclade, fifth Duke of Wessex, the prisoner. Dressed all in black, he looked distinctly older than the crowd had remembrance of him. A sigh of excited anticipation went all along the line, a regular bousculade ensued; the people behind trying to catch a nearer glimpse of the Duke and pushing those who were in front. The 'prentices, who were squatting in the foremost rank on the ground, were violently jerked forward, some fell on their faces right up against the Lieutenant and my lord Rich, seeing which and the general excited confusion the Duke was observed to smile. A woman in the crowd murmured-- "The Lord bless his handsome face!" "Heaven ward Your Grace!" added another. The women's pity--and that only momentarily. And the awful publicity of it all! Among the men wagers were offered and taken in his hearing as he passed, whether sentence of death would be passed on him or not. "Will they hang him, think you?" "No, no, 'tis always the axe for noble lords; but they'll have him drawn and quartered for sure." "God help Your Grace!" sighed the women. Indeed, if pride was a deadly sin, how deadly was its punishment now. The crowd was not hostile, only indifferent, curious, eager to see; and every remark made by these stolid gapers must have cut the prisoner like a blow. They watched him cross the entire length of the hall, commenting on his appearance, his clothes, his past life, a coarse jest even came to his ears now and again, a laugh of derision or an exclamation of satisfied envy. Fallen Wessex indeed! He tried with all his might not to show what he felt, and evidently he succeeded over well, for Mr. Thomas Norton, in his comments on the trial, states placidly:-- "The prisoner seemeth not to understand the gravity of his position and careth naught for the heinousness of his crime. Truly this indifference marketh a godless soul or else the supreme conceit of wealth and high rank, he having many friends among his peers and being confident of an acquittal." Lord Rich alone, who walked by the side of the Duke, and stood close to him throughout the awful ordeal, has noted in his interesting memoirs how deeply the accused was moved when he realized that he would have to stand at the bar on a raised dais, in full view of all the crowd. "Meseemed that his hand trembled when first he rested it on the bar," adds his lordship in his chronicles. "He being passing tall he could be seen by all and sundry, which was trying to his pride. But anon His Grace caught my eye, and I doubt not but that he read therein all the sympathy which I felt for him, for he then threw back his head and scanned the crowd right fearlessly, and more like a king ready to read a proclamation than a felon awaiting his trial. Then, as he looked all around him, his eyes lighted on my lord the Cardinal de Moreno and on a veiled female figure who sat close to the Spanish envoy. He then became deathly pale, and I, fearing that he might swoon, caught him by the arm. But he pressed my hand and thanked me, saying only that the heat of the room was oppressive." It is evident that my lord Rich was a hot partisan of the accused. He and the Lieutenant of the Tower stood close beside the Duke throughout the trial, the Tower guard forming a semicircle round the bar, and the Chamberlain of the Tower holding the axe with its edge from the prisoner and towards Lord Rich. Mr. Thomas Norton tells us that at this point of the proceedings the excitement was intense. Lord Chandois himself seemed unable to keep up the rigid dignity of his office. The peers who were the triers were eagerly whispering to one another. The Clerk seemed unable to clear his throat before calling on the accused. The crowd too felt this acute tension. The people had already noticed the veiled female figure, clad in sombre kirtle and black paniers, who had entered the Hall a little while ago, accompanied by His Eminence the Cardinal, and had since then sat, dull and rigid, beside him, seemingly taking no notice of the proceedings. A hurried conversation carried on in whispers between His Eminence and my lord High Steward had been noted by everybody--yet no one dared to ask a question. It seemed as if an invisible presence had suddenly made itself felt, a spirit from the land of shadows, that awesome precursor of death which is called "Retribution," and that from his ghostly lips there had fallen--unheard yet felt by every heart--the mighty dictate of an almighty will: "Thou shalt do no murder!" Had the spirit really passed? Who can tell? But the soul of every man and woman there was left quivering. There was not a hand that now did not slightly tremble, not one lid that failed to move, for the supreme moment had come for the accomplishment of an irreparable wrong. The spectators had before them the picture of that solemn Court, the Lord High Steward with chain and sword of gold, the judges in their red robes, the peers with their ermine, and here and there quaint patches of unexpected colour as the wintry sun struck full through the coloured facets of the huge window beyond and alighted on a black gown or the leather jerkins of the guard. They saw the halberds of the men-at-arms faintly gleaming in the wan, grey light, the Cardinal's purple robes, a brilliant note amidst the dull mass of browns and blacks; the blue doublet of Sir Henry Beddingfield, a jarring bit of discord between the sable-hued garb of the other gentlemen there. And there, amongst them all, the tall, erect figure, the one quiet, impassive face in this surging sea of excitement--the prisoner at the bar! CHAPTER XXXV THE TRIAL The excitement, great as it was, had perforce to be kept in check. The Clerk of the Crown had collected his papers: he now stood up and called upon the accused: "Robert, Duke of Wessex and of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe and Edbrooke, Premier Peer of England, hold up thy right hand." The prisoner having done so, Mr. Barham, the Queen's Sergeant, opened the contents of the indictment. "Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, thou art therefore to make answer to this charge of murder. I therefore charge thee once again: art thou guilty of this crime, whereof thou art indicted, yea or nay?" "I am guilty," replied Wessex firmly, "and I have confessed." "By whom wilt thou be tried?" "By God and by my peers." "Before we proceed," continued the Sergeant, "what sayest thou, Robert, Duke of Wessex, is that which thou hast confessed true?" "It is true." "And didst thou confess it willingly and freely of thyself, or was there any extortion or unfair means to draw it from thee?" "Surely I made that confession freely," replied the prisoner, "without any constraint, and that is all true." "And hast thou read the depositions of those who were witness of thy crime, and who have added their testimony to that which thine accusers, the Queen's Commissioners, already know?" "I have not read those depositions, as there was no one present when Don Miguel died save I--his murderer--and God!" As Wessex made this last bold declaration, the Queen's Serjeant turned towards His Eminence as if expecting guidance from that direction, but as nothing came he continued-- "I would have thee weigh well what thou sayest. Thine answers and confessions, if spoken truthfully, will do much to mitigate the severity of the punishment which thy crime hath called forth." "I will make mine own confession," retorted Wessex, with a sudden quick return to his own haughty manner. "I pray you teach me not how to answer or confess. But because I was not cognizant whether my peers did know it all or not, I have made a short declaration of my doings with Don Miguel. That is the truth, my lords," he added, addressing his triers and judges on the bench, "everything else which hath been added contrary to mine own confession is a lie and a perjury, as God here is my witness." "Thy confession is but a brief record of the fact, as the Clerk of the Crown will presently read. There is neither circumstance nor detail." "And is it for circumstance or detail that I am being tried?" rejoined Wessex, "or for the murder of Don Miguel de Suarez, to which I hereby plead guilty?" The Queen's Serjeant looked to Sir Robert Catline for guidance. The Lord Chief Justice, however, was of opinion that the prisoner's confession must be read first, before any further argument about it could be allowed. The Clerk of the Crown then rose and began to read:-- "The voluntary confession of Robert Duke of Wessex, now a prisoner in the Tower, and accused of murder, treason, and felony: made at the Tower of London on the fifteenth day of October, 1553. I hereby acknowledge and confess that on the fourteenth day of October I did unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, by stabbing him in the back with my dagger. For this murder I plead neither excuse nor justification, and submit myself to a trial by my peers and to the justice of this realm. So help me God." The bench, the entire hall, was crowded with the Duke's friends; with the exception of a very small faction, who for reasons they deemed good and adequate desired the Spanish alliance, and the death of the man at the bar, not a single man or woman present believed that that confession was an expos of the truth. The Serjeant himself, the Clerk of the Crown, the Attorney and Solicitor-General who represented the prosecution, knew that some mystery lurked behind that monstrous self-accusation. But it was so straightforward, so categorical, that unless some extraordinary event occurred, unless Wessex himself recanted that confession, nothing could save him from its dire consequences. Oh! if Wessex would but recant! No one would have disbelieved him then--not that fickle, motley crowd surely, who with its own characteristic inconsequence had suddenly taken the accused to its heart. "'Tis not true, Wessex!" shouted a manly voice from the body of the hall. "Deny it! deny it!" came in a regular hubbub from the compact mass of throats in the rear. The Duke smiled, but did not move. Lord Rich, in his memoirs, here points out that "His Grace seemed all unconscious of his surroundings and like unto a wanderer in the land of dreams." But the confession had aroused the opposition of the crowd, it was truly past honest men's belief. Every one murmured, and some chroniclers aver that there was a regular tumult, more than encouraged by the Duke's friends, and not checked even by the Lord High Steward himself. In the turn of a hand public opinion had veered round. Forgetting that a while ago they were ready to hoot and mock the prisoner, the men now were equally prepared to make a rush for the bar and drag him away from that ignominious place, which they suddenly understood that he never should have occupied. The Serjeant-at-Arms had much ado to make himself heard. The guard had literally to make an onslaught on the crowd. It was fully five or ten minutes before the noise subsided; then only did murmurs die down like the roar of the sea when the surf recedes from the shore. It was a brief lull, and Mr. Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, having once more enjoined silence on behalf of Her Majesty's Commissioner, and on pain of imprisonment, was at last able to continue his duties. "It appeareth before you, my lords," he resumed in a loud, clear voice, "that this man hath been indicted and arraigned of a most heinous crime, and hath confessed it before you, which is of record. Wherefore there resteth no more to be done but for the Court to give judgment accordingly, which here I require in the behalf of the Queen's Majesty." The Lord High Steward rose and a gentleman usher took the white wand from him. He stood bareheaded, and every one in the Hall could see him. "Robert, Duke of Wessex," he said, and his voice trembled as he spoke, "Duke of Dorchester, Earl of Launceston, Wexford, and Bridthorpe, Baron of Greystone, Ullesthorpe, and Edbrooke, premier peer of England, what have you to say why I may not proceed to judgment?" The last words almost sounded like an appeal, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade. Lord Chandois' kindly eyes were fixed in deep sorrow on the man whom he had loved and honoured sufficiently to wish to see him on the throne of England. There was an awed hush in the vast hall, and then a voice, clear and distinct--a woman's voice--broke the momentous silence. "The Duke of Wessex is innocent of the charge brought against him, as I hereby bear witness on his behalf." Even as the last bell-like tones echoed through the great chamber a young girl stepped forward, sable-clad and fragile-looking, but unabashed by the hundreds of eyes fixed eagerly upon her. In the centre of the room she paused, and, throwing back the dark veil which enveloped her face, she looked straight up at my Lord High Steward. "Who speaks?" he asked in astonishment. "I, Ursula Glynde," she replied firmly, "daughter of the Earl of Truro." At sound of her voice Wessex had started. His face became deathly pale and his hand gripped the massive bar of wood before him, until every muscle and sinew in his arm creaked with the intensity of the effort. It was only after she had spoken her own name that he seemed to pull himself together, for he said-- "I pray your lordships not to listen. I desire no witnesses on my behalf." His temples had begun to throb, a wild horror seized him at thought of what she might do. And her appearance, too, had set his heart beating in a veritable turmoil of emotions. For she stood now before him, before them all, as the vision of purity and innocence which he had first learnt to worship: that other self of hers, that mysterious, half-crazed being who had fooled and mocked him and then committed the awful crime for which he stood self-convicted, that had vanished, leaving only this delicate, ethereal being, the one whom he had clasped in his arms, whose blue eyes had gazed lovingly into his, whose lips had met his in that one mad, passionate embrace. When he interposed thus coldly, impassively, she shuddered slightly but she did not turn towards him, and he could only see the dainty outline of her fine profile, cut clear against a dark background of moving figures beyond. From the table at which she herself had been sitting and waiting all this while, and which was now in full view of the spectators, two advocates rose and joined the bench of judges. One of them, after a brief consultation with the Clerk of the Crown, turned respectfully towards the Lord High Steward. "I humbly beseech your lordship," he said firmly, "and you, my lords, to hear the evidence of the Lady Ursula Glynde. There has been no time to obtain a written deposition from her, for God at the eleventh hour hath thought fit to move her to speak that which she knows, so that a dreadful error may not be committed." "This is a great breach of customary procedure," said Mr. Thomas Bromley, the Solicitor-General, with a dubious shake of the head. "Not so great as you would have us think, sir," commented Sir Robert Catline, "for e'en in the trial of the late-lamented Queen Catherine of blessed memory, my lord of Uppingham, whose depositions could not be taken previously, was nevertheless allowed to bear witness on behalf of the accused." But the opinion of the most learned lawyer in England would not now have been listened to, if it had been adverse to the present situation. Lords and judges, noblemen and spectators clamoured with every means at their command, short of absolute contempt of Court, that this new witness should be heard. "How say you, my lords?" said the Lord High Steward eagerly, "bearing in mind the opinion of our learned colleague, ought we to hear this lady or no?" "Aye! aye!" came from every voice on the bench. "By Our Lady! I protest!" said Wessex loudly. "We will hear this lady," pronounced the Lord High Steward. "Let her step forward and be made to swear the truth of her assertions." Ursula came forward a step or two. Mr. Thomas Wilbraham, Attorney-General of the Court of Wards, who was sitting close by, held out a small wooden crucifix towards her. She took it and kissed it reverently. "You are the Lady Ursula Glynde," queried Lord Chandois, "maid-of-honour to the Queen's Majesty?" "I am." "Then do I charge you to speak the truth, the whole truth, and naught but the truth, so help you God." "My lords," protested Wessex hotly, for his brain was in a whirl. He could not allow her to speak and accuse herself of her crime--she, the angel side of her, taking upon herself the evil committed by that mysterious second self over which she had no control. It was too horrible! And all these people gaping at her made his blood tingle with shame. What he had readily borne himself, the disgrace, the

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"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

prowlers

How many times the word 'prowlers' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

instant

How many times the word 'instant' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

behaviour

How many times the word 'behaviour' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

taken

How many times the word 'taken' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

pails

How many times the word 'pails' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

remarkably

How many times the word 'remarkably' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

now

How many times the word 'now' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

among

How many times the word 'among' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

sustaining

How many times the word 'sustaining' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

off

How many times the word 'off' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

hang

How many times the word 'hang' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

listened

How many times the word 'listened' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

premier

How many times the word 'premier' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

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How many times the word 'ca' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

soberly

How many times the word 'soberly' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

ely

How many times the word 'ely' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

torpor

How many times the word 'torpor' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

making

How many times the word 'making' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

maybe

How many times the word 'maybe' appears in the text?

"You have certainly had your little time, Jack, and it's been a perfectly good little time, too! What are you going to do when you are cleaned out?" "That's part of the puzzle, Marsh, that's the very hell and all of it." "Well, you have had your fun--lots of it!" said Langham, swabbing his face. North noticed the embroidered initial in the corner of the handkerchief. "Fun! Was it fun?" he demanded with sudden heat. "You took it for fun. Personally I think it was a pretty fair imitation." "Yes, I took it for fun, or mistook it; that's the pity of it! I can forgive myself for almost everything but having been a fool!" "That's always a hard dose to swallow," agreed Langham. He was willing to enter into his friend's mood. "Have you ever tried to swallow it?" asked North. "I can't say I have. Some of us haven't any business with a conscience--our blood's too red. I've made up my mind that, while I may be a man of moral impulses I am also a creature of purest accident. It's the same with you, Jack. You are a pretty decent fellow down under the skin; there's still the divine spark in you, though perhaps it doesn't burn bright enough to warm the premises. But it's there, like a shaft of light from a gem, a gem in the rough--though I believe I'm mixing my metaphors." "Why don't you say a pearl in the mire?" "But that doesn't really take from your pearlship, though it may dim your luster. No, Jack, the accidents have been to your morals instead of your arms and legs. That's how I explain it in my own case, and it's saved me many a bad quarter of an hour with myself. I know I'd be on crutches if the vicissitudes of which I have been the victim could be given physical expression." "Marsh," said North soberly, "I am going away." "You are going to do what, Jack?" demanded the lawyer. "I am going to leave Mount Hope. I am going West for a bit, and after I am gone I want you to sell the stuff in my rooms for me; have an auction and get rid of every stick of the fool truck!" "Why, what's wrong? Going away--when?" "At once, to-morrow--to-night maybe. I don't know quite when, but very soon. I want you to get rid of all my stuff, do you understand? Before long I'll write you my address and you can send me whatever it brings. I expect I'll need the money--" "Why, you're crazy, man!" cried Langham. North moved impatiently. He had not come to discuss the merit of his plans. "On the contrary I am having my first gleam of reason," he said briefly. "Of course you know best, Jack," acquiesced Langham after a moment's silence. "You'll do what I ask of you, Marsh?" "Oh, hang it, yes." He hesitated for an instant and then said 'frankly. "You know I'm rather in your debt; I don't suppose five hundred dollars would square what I have had from you first and last." "I hope you won't mention it! Whenever it is quite convenient, that will be soon enough." "Thank you, Jack!" said Langham gratefully. "The fact is the pickings here are pretty small." Again the lawyer mopped his brow and again North moved impatiently. "Don't say another word about it, Marsh," he repeated. "McBride has agreed to take the last of my gas bonds off my hands; that will get me away from here." "How many have you left?" asked Langham curiously. "Ten," said North. Langham whistled. "Do you mean to tell me you are down to that? Why, you told me once you held a hundred!" "So I did once, but it costs money to be the kind of fool I've been! said North. "Well, I suppose you are doing the sensible thing in getting out of this. Have you any notion where you are going or what you'll do?" North shook his head. "Oh, you'll get into something!" the lawyer encouraged. "When shall you see McBride?" "This afternoon. Why?" "I was going to say that I was just there with Atkinson. He and McBride have been in a timber speculation, and Atkinson handed over three thousand dollars in cash to the old man. I suppose he has banked it in some heap of scrap-iron on the premises!" said Langham laughing. "I think I shall go there now," resolved North. While he was speaking he had moved to the door leading into the hail, and had opened it. "Hold on, John!" said Langham, detaining him. "Evelyn is home. She came quite unexpectedly to-day; you won't leave town without getting up to the house to see her?" "I think I shall," replied North hastily. "I much prefer not to say good-by." "Oh, nonsense!" cried Langham. "No, Marsh, I don't intend to say good-by to any one!" North quietly turned back into the room. "I had intended having you up to the house to-night for a blow-out," urged Langham, but North shook his head. "You and Gilmore, Jack; and by the way, this puts me in a nice hole! I have already asked Gilmore, and he's coming. Now, how the devil am to get out of it? I can't spring him alone on the family circle, and I don't want to hurt his feelings!" "Call it off, Marsh; say I couldn't come; that's a good enough excuse to give Gilmore. Why, that fellow's a common card-sharp, you can't ask Evelyn to meet him!" A slight noise in the hall caused both men to glance toward the door, where they saw just beyond the threshold the swarthy-faced Gilmore. There was a brief embarrassed silence, and then North nodded to the new-comer, but the salutation was not returned. "Well, good-by, Marsh!" he said, and turned to the door. As he brushed past the gambler their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant Gilmore's face turned livid with rage. "I'll fix you for that, so help me God, I will!" he said, but North made no answer. He passed down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the street. McBride's was directly opposite on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that corner time out of mind. He was an austere unapproachable old man, having no relatives of whom any one knew; with few friends and fewer intimates; a rich man, according to the Mount Hope standard, and a miser according to the Mount Hope gossip, with the miser's traditional suspicion of banks. It was rumored that he had hidden away vast sums of money in his dingy store, or in the closely-shuttered rooms above, where the odds and ends of the merchandise in which he dealt had accumulated in rusty and neglected heaps. The old man wore an air of mystery, and this air of mystery extended to his place of business. It was dark and dirty and ill-kept. On the brightest summer day the sunlight stole vaguely in through grimy cobwebbed windows. The dust of years had settled deep on unused shelves and, in abandoned corners, and whole days were said to pass when no one but the ancient merchant himself entered the building. Yet in spite of the trade that had gone elsewhere he had grown steadily richer year by year. When North entered the store he found McBride busy with his books in his small back office, a lean black cat asleep on the desk at his elbow. "Good afternoon, John!" said the old merchant as he turned from his high desk, removing as he did so a pair of heavy steel-rimmed spectacles, that dominated a high-bridged nose which in turn dominated a wrinkled and angular face. "I thought I should find you here!" said North. "You'll always find me here of a week-day," and he gave the young fellow the fleeting suggestion of a smile. He had a liking for North, whose father, years before, had been one of the few friends he had made in Mount Hope. The Norths had been among the town's earliest settlers, John's grandfather having taken his place among the pioneers when Mount Hope had little but its name to warrant its place on the map. At his death Stephen, his only son, assumed the family headship, married, toiled, thrived and finished his course following his wife to the old burying-ground after a few lonely heart-breaking months, and leaving John without kin, near or far, but with a good name and fair riches. "I have brought you those gas bonds, Mr. McBride," said North, going at once to the purpose of his visit. The old merchant nodded understandingly. "I hope you can arrange to let me have the money for them to-day," continued North. "I think I can manage it, John. Atkinson and Judge Langham's boy, Marsh, were just here and left a bit of cash. Maybe I can make up the sum." While he was speaking, he had gone to the safe which stood open in one corner of the small office. In a moment he returned to the desk with a roll of bills in his hands which he counted lovingly, placing them, one by one, in a neat pile before him. "You're still in the humor to go away?" he asked, when he had finished counting the money. "Never more so!" said North briefly. "What do you think of young Langham, John? Will he ever be as sharp a lawyer as the judge?" "He's counted very brilliant," evaded North. He rather dreaded the old merchant when his love of gossip got the better of his usual reserve. "I hadn't seen the fellow in months to speak to until to-day. He's a clever talker and has a taking way with him, but if the half I hear is true, he's going the devil's own gait. He's a pretty good friend to Andy Gilmore, ain't he--that horse-racing, card-playing neighbor of yours?" He pushed the bills toward North. "Run them over, John, and see if I have made any mistake." He slipped off his glasses again and fell to polishing them with his handkerchief. "It's all right, John?" he asked at length. "Yes, quite right, thank you." And North produced the bonds from an inner pocket of his coat and handed them to McBride. "So you are going to get out of this place, John? You're going West, you say. What will you do there?" asked the old merchant as he carefully examined the bonds. "I don't know yet." "I'm trusting you're through with your folly, John; that your crop of wild oats is in the ground. You've made a grand sowing!" "I have," answered North, laughing in spite of himself. "You'll be empty-handed I'm thinking, but for the money you take from here."' "Very nearly so." "How much have you gone through with, John, do you mind rightly?" "Fifteen or twenty thousand dollars." "A nice bit of money!" He shook his head and chuckled dryly. "It's enough to make your father turn in his grave. He's said to me many a time when he was a bit close in his dealings with me, 'I'm, saving for my boy, Archie.' Eh? But it ain't always three generations from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves; you've made a short cut of it! But you're going to do the wise thing, John; you've been a fool here, now go away and be a man! Let all devilishness alone and work hard; that's the antidote for idleness, and it's overmuch of idleness that's been your ruin." "I imagine it is," said North cheerfully. "You'll be making a clever man out of yourself, John," McBride continued graciously. "Not a flash in the pan like your friend Marshall Langham yonder. It's drink will do for him the same as it did for his grandfather, it's in the blood; but that was before your time." "I've heard of him; a remarkably able lawyer, wasn't he?" "Pooh! You'll hear a plenty of nonsense talked, and by very sensible people, too, about most drunken fools! He was a spender and a profligate, was old Marshall Langham; a tavern loafer, but a man of parts. Yes, he had a bit of a brain, when he was sober and of a mind to use it." One would scarcely have supposed that Archibald McBride, silent, taciturn, money-loving, possessed the taste for scandal that North knew he did possess. The old merchant continued garrulously. "They are a bad lot, John, those Langhams, but it took the smartest one of the whole tribe to get the better of me. I never told you that before, did I? It was old Marshall himself, and he flattered me into loaning him a matter of a hundred dollars once; I guess I have his note somewhere yet. But I swore then I'd have no more dealings with any of them, and I'm likely to keep my word as long as I keep my senses. It's the little things that prick the skin; that make a man bitter. I suppose the judge's boy has had his hand in your pocket? He looks like a man who'd be free enough with another's purse." But North shook his head. "No, no, I have only myself to blame," he said. "What do you hear of his wife? How's the marriage turning out?" and he shot the young fellow a shrewd questioning glance. "I know nothing about it," replied North, coloring slightly. "She'll hardly be publishing to the world that she's married a drunken profligate--" This did not seem to North to call for an answer, and he attempted none. He turned and moved toward the front of the store, followed by the old merchant. At the door he paused. "Thank you for your kindness, Mr. McBride!" "It was no kindness, just a matter of business" said McBride hastily. "I'm no philanthropist, John, but just a plain man of business who'll drive a close bargain if he can." "At any rate, I'm going to thank you," insisted North, smiling pleasantly. "Good-by," and he extended his hand, which the old merchant took. "Good-by, and good luck to you, John, and you might drop me a line now and then just to say how you get on." "I will. Good-by!" "I know you'll succeed, John. A bit of application, a bit of necessity to spur you on, and we'll be proud of you yet!" North laughed as he opened the door and stepped out; and Archibald McBride, looking through his dingy show-windows, watched him until he disappeared down the street; then he turned and re ntered his office. Meanwhile North hurried away with the remnant of his little fortune in his pocket. Five minutes' walk brought him to the building that had sheltered him for the last few years. He climbed the stairs and entered the long hail above. He paused, key in hand, before his door, when he heard behind him a light footfall on the uncarpeted floor and the swish of a woman's skirts. As he turned abruptly, the woman who had evidently followed him up from the street, came swiftly down the hall toward him. "Jack!" she said, when she was quite near. The short winter's day had brought an early twilight to the place, and the woman was closely veiled, but the moment she spoke North recognized her, for there was something in the mellow full-throated quality of her speech which belonged only to one voice that he knew. "Mrs. Langham!--Evelyn!" he exclaimed, starting back in dismay. "Hush, Jack, you needn't call it from the housetops!" As she spoke she swept aside her veil and he saw her face, a superlatively pretty face with scarlet smiling lips and dark luminous eyes that were smiling, too. "Do you want to see me, Evelyn?" he asked awkwardly. But she was neither awkward nor embarrassed; she was still smiling up into his face with reckless eyes and brilliant lips. She pointed to the door with her small gloved hand. "Open it, Jack!" she commanded. For a moment he hesitated. She was the one person he did not wish to see, least of all did he wish to see her there. She was not nicely discreet, as he well knew. She did many things that were not wise, that were, indeed, frankly imprudent. But clearly they could not stand there in the hallway. Gilmore or some of Gilmore's friends might come up the stairs at any moment. Langham himself might be of these. Something of all this passed through North's mind as he stood there hesitating. Then he unlocked the door, and standing aside, motioned her to precede him into the room. This room, the largest of several, he occupied, was his parlor. On entering it he closed the door after him, and drew forward a chair for Evelyn, but he did not himself sit down, nor did he remove his overcoat. He had known Evelyn all his life, they had played together as children; more than this, though now he would have been quite willing to forget the whole episode and even more than willing that she should forget it, there had been a time when he had moped in wretched melancholy because of what he had then considered her utter fickleness. Shortly after this he had been sent East to college and had borne the separation with a fortitude that had rather surprised him when he recalled how bitter a thing her heartlessness had seemed. When they met again he had found her more alluring than ever, but more devoted to her pleasures also; and then Marshall Langham had come into her life. North had divined that the course of their love-making was far from smooth, for Langham's temper was high and his will arbitrary, nor was he one to bear meekly the crosses she laid on him, crosses which other men had borne in smiling uncomplaint, reasoning no doubt, that it was unwise to take her favors too seriously; that as they were easily achieved they were quite as easily forfeited. But Langham was not like the other men with whom she had amused herself. He was not only older and more brilliant, but was giving every indication that his professional success would be solid and substantial. Evelyn's father had championed his cause, and in the end she had married him. In the five years that had elapsed since then, her romance had taken its place with the accepted things of life, and she revenged herself on Langham, for what she had come to consider his unreasonable exactions, by her recklessness, by her thirst for pleasure, and above all by her extravagance. Through all the vicissitudes of her married life, the smallest part of which he only guessed, North had seen much of Evelyn. There was a daring dangerous recklessness in her mood that he had sensed and understood and to which he had made quick response. He knew that she was none too happy with Langham, and although he had been conscious of no wish to wrong the husband he had never paused to consider the outcome of his intimacy with the wife. Evelyn was the first to break the silence. "You wonder why I came here, don't you, Jack?" she said. "You should never have done it!" he replied quickly. "What about my letters, why didn't you answer them?" she demanded. "I hadn't one word from you in weeks. It quite spoiled my trip East. What was I to think? And then you sent me just a line saying you were leaving Mount Hope--" she drew in her breath sharply. There was a brief silence. "Why?" she asked at length. "It is better that I should," he answered awkwardly. He felt a sudden remorseful tenderness for her; he wished that she might have divined the change that had come over him; even how worthless a thing his devotion had been, the utter selfishness of it. "Why is it better?" she asked. He was near enough for her to put out a small hand and rest it on his arm. "Jack, have I done anything to make you hate me? Don't you care any longer for me?" "I care a great deal, Evelyn. I want you to think the best of me." "But why do you go? And when do you think of going, Jack?" The hand that she had rested there a moment before, left his arm and dropped at her side. "I don't know yet, my plans are very uncertain. I am quite at the end of my money. I have been a good deal of a fool, Evelyn." Something in his manner restrained her, she was not so sure as she had been of her hold on him. She looked up appealingly into his face, the smile had left her lips and her eyes were sad, but he mistrusted the genuineness of this swift change of mood, certainly its permanence. "What will there be left for me, Jack, when you go? I thought--I thought--" her full lips quivered. She was realizing that this separation which her imagination had already invested with a tragic significance, meant much less to him than she believed it would mean to her; more than this, the cruel suspicion was certifying itself that in her absence from Mount Hope, North had undergone some strange transformation; was no longer the reckless, dissipated, young fellow who for months had been as her very shadow. "I am going to-night, Evelyn," he said with sudden determination. She gave a half smothered cry. "To-night! To-night!" she repeated. He changed his position uncomfortably. "I am at the end of my string, Evelyn," he said slowly. "I--I shall miss you dreadfully, Jack! You know I am frightfully unhappy; what will it be when you go? Marsh has made a perfect wreck of my life!" "Nonsense, Evelyn!" he replied bruskly. "You must be careful what you say to me!" "I haven't been careful before!" she asserted. He bit his lips. She went swiftly on. "I have told you everything! I don't care what happens to me--you know I don't, Jack! I am deadly desperately tired!" She paused, then she cried vehemently. "One endures a situation as long as one can, but there comes a time when it is impossible to go on with the falsehood any longer, and I have reached that time! It is my life, my happiness that are at stake!" "Sometimes it is better to do without happiness," he philosophized. "That is silly, Jack, no one believes that sort of thing any more; but it is good to teach to women and children, it saves a lot of bother, I suppose. But men take their happiness regardless of the rights of others!" "Not always," he said. "Yes, always!" she insisted. "But you knew what Marsh was before you married him." "It's a woman's vanity to believe she can reform, can control a man." She glanced at him furtively. What had happened to change him? Always until now he had responded to the recklessness of her mood, he had seemed to understand her without the need of words. Her brows met in an angry frown. Was he a coward? Did he fear Marshall Langham? Once more she rested her hand on his arm. "Jack, dear Jack, are _you_ going to fail me, too?" "What would you have me say or do, Evelyn?" he demanded impatiently. She regarded him sadly. "What has made you change, Jack? What is it; what have I done? Why did you not answer my letters? Why did you not come to see me?" "I only learned that you were in town this afternoon," he said. "Yes, but you had no intention of coming, I know you hadn't! You would have left Mount Hope without even a good-by to me!" "It is hard enough to have to go, Evelyn!" "It isn't that, Jack. What have I done? How have I displeased you?" "You haven't displeased me, Evelyn," he faltered. "Then why have you treated me as you have?" "I thought it would be easier," he said. "Have you forgotten what friends we were once?" she asked softly. "You always helped me out of my difficulties then, and you told me once that you cared--a great deal for me, more than you should ever care for any woman!" "Yes," he answered shortly, and was silent. He would scarcely have admitted to himself how foolish his early passion had been, for it was at least sincere and there could have been no sacrifice, at one time, that he would not have willingly made for her sake. His later sentiment for her had been a disgracing and a disgraceful thing, and he was glad to think of this boyish love, since it carried him back to a time before he had wrought only misery for himself. She misunderstood his reticence, she could not realize that she had lost the power that had once been hers. "What a mistake I made, Jack!" she cried, and stretched out her hands toward him. He fell back a step. "Nonsense!" he said. He glanced sharply at her. "How stupid you are!" she exclaimed. She half rose from her chair with her hands still extended toward him. For a moment he met her glance, and then, disgusted and ashamed, withdrew his eyes from hers. Evelyn sank back in her chair, and her face turned white and she covered it with her hands. North was the first to break the silence. "We would both of us better forget this," he said quietly. She rose and stood at his side. The color had returned to her cheeks. "What a fool you are, John North!" she jeered softly. "And I might have made the tragic mistake of really caring for you!" She gave a little shiver of dismay, and then after a moment's tense silence: "What a boy you are,--almost as much of a boy as when we used to play together." "I think there is nothing more to say, Evelyn," North said shortly. "It is growing late. You must not be seen leaving here!" She laughed. "Oh, it would take a great deal to compromise me; though if Marsh ever finds out that I have been here he'll be ready to kill me!" But she still lingered, still seemed to invite. North was silent. "You must be in love, Jack! You see, I'll not grant that you are the saint you'd have me think you! Yes, you are in love!" for he colored angrily at her words. "Is it--" He interrupted her harshly. "Don't speak her name!" "Then it is true! I'd heard that you were, but I did not believe it! Yes, you are right, we must forget that I came here to-day." While she was speaking she had moved toward the door, and instinctively he had stepped past her to open it. When he turned with his hand on the knob, it brought them again face to face. The smile had left her lips, they were mere delicate lines of color. She raised herself on tiptoe and her face, gray-white, was very close to his. "What a fool you are, Jack, what a coward you must be!" and she struck him on the cheek with her gloved hand. "You _are_ a coward!" she cried. His face grew as white as her own, and he did not trust himself to speak. She gave him a last contemptuous glance and drew her veil. "Now open the door," she said insolently. He did so, and she brushed past him swiftly and stepped out into the long hall. For a moment North stood staring after her, and then he closed the door. CHAPTER THREE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS When North quitted Marshall Langham's office, Gilmore, after a brief instant of irresolution, stepped into the room. He was crudely, handsome, a powerfully-built man of about Langham's own age, swarthy-faced and with ruthless lips showing red under a black waxed mustache. His hat was inclined at a "sporty" angle and the cigar which he held firmly between his strong even teeth was tilted in the same direction, imparting a rakish touch to Mr. Gilmore's otherwise sturdy and aggressive presence. "Howdy, Marsh!" said his new-comer easily. From his seat before his desk Langham scowled across at him. "What the devil brings you here, Andy?" he asked, ungraciously enough. Gilmore buried his hands deep in his trousers pockets and with one eye half closed surveyed the lawyer over the tip of his tilted cigar. "You're a civil cuss, Marsh," he said lightly, "but one wouldn't always know it. Ain't I a client, ain't I a friend,--and damn it all, man, ain't I a creditor? There are three excuses, any one of which is: sufficient to bring me into your esteemed presence!" "We may as well omit the first," growled Langham, wheeling his chair back from the desk and facing Gilmore. "Why?" asked Gilmore, lazily tolerant of the other's mood. "Because there is nothing more that I can do for you," said Langham shortly. "Oh, yes there is, Marsh, there's a whole lot more you can do for me. There's Moxlow, the distinguished prosecuting attorney; without you to talk sense to him he's liable to listen to all sorts of queer people who take more interest in my affairs than is good for them; but as long as he's got you at his elbow he won't forget my little stake in his election." "If you wish him not to forget it, you'd better not be so particular in reminding him of it; he'll get sick of you and

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