Laid up in Lavender. Weyman Stanley John
their day-old Times, and took it from him. "You must not do that yet," the doctor said. "My daughter can read to you, if you like, but not for long."
She asked what she should read. He chose a review of a historical work, and gently rejected the passing topics-even a speech by Lord Hartington. This gave her an idea, and she privately searched the back numbers of the paper, but could not find that any one who resembled him was missing. Yet he had been with them almost three weeks; he had received no letters, he had sent none. How could such a man pass from his circle and cause no inquiry? Here at the Old Hall they knew no more of him than on his coming. He had not offered to disclose his name, and his host, who had fallen under his spell, had not plucked up courage to ask for it, or for an explanation-had come, indeed, to no understanding with him at all.
It is possible that of himself the doctor might have gone on unsuspicious to the last. But one afternoon, as he made up his books at the old bureau in the hall-the door being open and a flood of sunshine pouring through it-he was aware on a sudden of a shadow cast across the boards. He looked up. A middle-sized fair man, with a goatee beard and a fresh complexion, was setting down a bag on the floor and beginning to take off his gloves. "Why, Woolley!" exclaimed the doctor, gazing at him feebly, "is it you? We did not expect you until Monday."
"No, but you see I have come to-day," the traveller answered. It was a peculiarity of this young man-he was not very young, say thirty-eight-that when he was not well pleased he smiled. He smiled now.
The doctor rubbed his hands to hide a little embarrassment. "Yes, I see you have come," he said. "But how? Did you walk from Sheffield?"
"I came with Nickson."
The doctor stopped rubbing, then went on faster, as his thoughts flew from Nickson to the tall gentleman, and for some mysterious reason from the tall gentleman to Pleasance. He had never consciously traced this connection before, but something in his assistant's face helped him to it now.
"He tells me," Woolley continued, making a neat ball of his gloves and smiling at the floor, "that you had a strange case here, a case he was mixed up with, and that you made a cure of it."
"Yes."
"The fellow has cleared out, I suppose?"
"Well, no," the doctor stammered, feeling warm. How odd it was that he had never seen into what a pit of imprudence he was sinking! He had been harbouring a lunatic, or one who had acted as a lunatic-a criminal certainly; in no light a person fit to associate with his daughter. "No, he is still here," he stammered. "I think-I suppose he will be leaving in a day or two!"
"Here still, is he?" Woolley said with a sneer. "A queer sort of parlour-boarder, sir. May I ask where he is at present?"
"I think he is out of doors somewhere."
"Alone?"
When the doctor thought over the scene afterwards he whistled when his memory brought him to that "Alone." He knew then that the fat was in the fire. He saw that Woolley had pumped the carrier-who had been to the house several times since the affair-and drawn his own conclusions. "I rather think," he ventured, "I am not sure, but I think-"
"I do not think," the other said dryly, "I see."
He pointed through the open door, and alas! the tall gentleman and Pleasance were visible approaching the house. They had that moment emerged from the shrubbery, and were crossing the lawn. The girl was carrying a basket full of marsh marigolds, the man had a great bush of hawthorn on the end of his stick. They were both looking at the front of the house without a thought that other eyes were upon them. Pleasance's face, on which the light fell strongly, was far from gay, her smile but a sad one; yet there was a tenderness in the one and the other which was not calculated to reassure a jealous onlooker.
"So!" Woolley muttered, his fingers closing like a vise on the doctor's arm. "Let me deal with this."
CHAPTER III
The walk which roused so much indignation in Edgar Woolley's breast had been one of more than common interest; as perhaps something in the faces of the returning couple assured him. There is a point in the journey towards intimacy at which one or other of the converging pair turns the conversation inwards, disclosing his or her hopes, fears, ambitions. Pleasance in the purest innocence had reached this stage to-day; arriving at it by the road of that silence which is tolerable only when some progress has been made towards friendship, and which even then invites attack. The tall gentleman, having lopped and picked at her bidding, gathered up the last scraps of the hawthorn which he had ruthlessly broken from the tree. He turned to find his companion gazing into distance with a shadow on her face. "Your thoughts are not pleasant ones, I fear," he said, half lightly, half seriously. "A penny were too much for them."
"I was thinking of Mr. Woolley," she answered simply.
"Indeed!" he said, surprised. He was more surprised when she poured out of a full heart the story of her father's debt to his assistant, and of the mortgage on the old house which the Partridges had owned for generations, and which was to her father as the apple of his eye. She let fall no word of Woolley's position in regard to herself. But the voice has subtle inflections, and men's apprehensions are quick where they are interested-and he was interested here. Her story omitted little which he could not conjecture.
"I am sorry to hear this," he said, after a pause. "But money troubles-after all, money troubles are not the worst troubles." He raised his hat and walked for a moment bareheaded.
"But this is not merely a money trouble," she answered warmly. She was wrapped up in her own distresses, and did not perceive at the moment that he had reverted to his. "We shall lose that."
They had reached the crown of the hill, and as she spoke she pointed to the Old Hall lying below them, its four gables, its stone front, its mullioned windows warmed into beauty by lichens and sunlight. "We shall lose that!" she repeated, pointing to it.
"Yes," the stranger said, with a quick glance at her. "I understand. And I do not wonder that it grieves you. It has always been your home, I suppose?" She nodded. "And your father thinks it must go?" he continued, after a pause given to deep thought, as it seemed.
"He thinks so."
"Something should be done!" he replied, in a tone of decision. "I conclude from what you say that Mr. Woolley is pressing for his money?"
She nodded again. Her eyes were full of tears, which the sight of the house had brought to them, and she could not trust herself to speak. His sympathy seemed natural to her, so that she saw nothing at this minute strange in his position. She forgot that only a few days or weeks earlier he had been in the blackness of despair himself. He talked now as if he could help others!
They were close to the house, and he had referred to the mouldering shield over the doorway, and she was telling its story when she checked herself and stood still. Edgar Woolley had emerged, and was standing before them with a flush of triumph on his check. The tall gentleman could scarcely be in doubt who he was; nor could Woolley well take Pleasance's involuntary cry for a sign of gladness-though he strove to force the smile which was habitual to him.
"Miss Pleasance," he said, "will you step inside? Your father is asking for you."
"Where is he?" she asked. He had used no form of greeting, neither did she. Something-perhaps not the same thing in each-was at work, kindling the one against the other.
"He is in the hall," he answered, chafing at her delay.
She turned to her companion. "I will take your flowers in, if you please," she said. She held out her arms as she spoke, and he laid the pile in them, Woolley looking on the while. The assistant's gaze was bent on her, and he did not see what she saw-that some strong emotion was distorting the tall gentleman's face. He turned a livid white, his nostrils twitched, and a little pulse in his cheek beat wildly.
She changed her mind, seeing that. "No, do you take them in," she said. "Will you take them in, please?" she repeated peremptorily; and she pushed the hawthorn into his arms, and held out her basket. The stranger took the things with reluctance, but without demur, and went into the house.
"Now," she said, turning rapidly upon Woolley, "what do you want?"
"My