ALAS !  A Novel  BY RHODA BROUGHTON  AUTHOR OF ' COMETH UP AS A FLOWER , ' 'RED AS A ROSE IS SHE , ' 'SECOND THOUGHTS , ' ' GOOD-BYE , SWEETHEART !  , ' ' NANCY , '' DOCTOR CUPID , ' ETC.  A NEW EDITION  LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen 1891 [ All rights reserved ]  TO MRS. ANDREW SPOTTISWOODE  PART I .  Amelia .  CHAPTER I .  " If you will allow me , I shall have the pleasure of reading aloud to you some passages from ' Mrs .  Lirriper 'sLodgings , ' by Charles Dickens .  I do not know much about the book myself , as I have never read it .  I dare say that you know more about it than I do ; but I am given to understand " ( with a glance at the page before him ) " that Mrs. Lirriper was a lodging-house-keeper , that she kept lodgings in London .  She was a very good sort of woman , I believe " ( another hasty glance ) , " but she sometimes had trouble with her servants .  I am told that servants are troublesome sometimes " ( a slight nervous laugh , the more nervous because it does not seem to be followed by any echo from the audience ) .  " If you will allow me then , as I say , and if you think it will amuse you , I will read you a little of what she says about these troubles .  "  The foregoing remarks are uttered in a loud , shy , dogged voice by James Burgoyne to the " Oxford Women 'sProvident Association .  " His voice is loud because , being quite unused to public reading , he does not know how to modulate it ; it is shy from the same cause of unaccustomedness ; it is dogged because he is very much displeased with his present occupation , and has not been successful in concealing that displeasure .  When a man runs down to Oxford for a couple of nights , to see how the six years that have passed since he turned his undergraduate back upon the old place have treated her — runs down to a college chum unseen for the same six years — this is certainly not the way in which he expects to spend one of his two evenings .  " I hope you will not mind , Jim " — ominous phrase — the college friend has said ; " but I am afraid we shall have to turn out for half an hour after dinner .  It is rather a nuisance , particularly as it is such a wet night ; but the fact is , I have promised to read to the ' Oxford Women 'sProvident Association .  ' Ah , by-the-bye , that is new since you were here — we had no Provident Women in your day !  "  " On the other hand , we had a great many improvident men , " returns Jim dryly .  " Well , the fact is , my wife is on the committee , and a good deal interested in it , and we give them a sort of entertainment once a month through the winter terms — tea and buns , that kind of thing , sixpence a head ; they enjoy it far more than if we gave it them for nothing ; and after tea we get people to recite and read and sing to them .  I am sure I wish them joy of my reading to-night , for I do not see how I am to make myself audible ; I am as hoarse as a crow .  "  " I know those Oxford colds of old , " returns Burgoyne , with that temperate compassion in his voice which we accord to our neighbours 'minor diseases .  He is sorry that his friend has a cold ; but he little knows how much sorrier he will be in the course of the next hour as he adds : " Do not distress yourself about me ; I shall be quite happy in your den with a book and a cigarette .  Mrs. Brown does not object , does she ?  And I dare say you will not be very long away .  "  As he speaks he realizes , with a sort of pang — the pang we pay sometimes to our dead pasts — that , though it is only three hours since he was reunited to his once inseparable Brown , he is already looking forward with relief to the prospect of an hour 'sfreedom from his society — so terribly far apart is it possible to grow in six years .  But , before his half-fledged thought has had time to do more than traverse his brain , Brown has broken into it with the eager remonstrances of a mistaken species of hospitality .  " Leave you behind ?  Could not hear of such a thing !  Of course you must come too !  It will be a new experience for you ; a wholesome change .  Ha !  ha !  and we can talk all the way there and back ; we have had no talk worth speaking of yet .  "  Again it flashes across the other 'smind , with the same pensive regret as before , that talk worth speaking of is for ever over between them ; but , seeing that further attempts at evasion will seriously hurt the good-natured Brown , he acquiesces , with as fair a grace as he may .  While putting on his own mackintosh , he watches , with a subdued wonder , his friend winding himself into a huge white woollen comforter , and stepping into a pair of goloshes ( he had been rather a smart undergraduate in his day ) , while outside the opened hall door the rain is heard to swish , and the wind to bellow .  " Had not we better have a hansom ?  " suggests Burgoyne , blinking , as the slant gust sends two or three stinging drops into his eyes .  " A hansom !  nonsense !  " returns the other , laughing , and with difficulty unfurling an umbrella in the teeth of the blast .  " It is all very well for a bloated bachelor like you ; but a man whose family is increasing at the rate mine is cannot afford himself such luxuries ; come along , you are not sugar or salt .  "  Burgoyne feels that at this moment he can at all events conscientiously disclaim affinity with the first of the two .  It is indeed a wet night , wet as the one immortalized by Browning in " Christmas Eve and Easter Day ; " and who ever brought a wet night and wet umbrellas " wry and flapping " so piercingly home to us as he ?  The talk so cheerfully promised by Burgoyne 'ssanguine friend is rendered absolutely impossible by the riot of the elements .  It is a good step from the suburban villa , which is the scene of Brown 'smarried joys , to the room in the heart of the town where the Provident Matrons hold their sabbat ; and by the time that the two men have reached that room there is , despite his mackintosh , little of Burgoyne left dry except his speech .  They are under shelter at last , however , have entered the building , added their umbrellas to many other streaming wrecks of whalebone huddled in a corner , and exchanged the dark blustering drench for a flare of gas , a reek of tea , and a sultry stream of wet clothes and humanity .  The tea , indeed , is a thing of the past — all its apparatus has been removed .  The rows of chairs are all set to face the platform , and on those chairs the Provident Women sit , smiling , if damp , with here and there a little boy , evidently too wicked to be left at home , comfortably wedged between a couple of matronly figures .  The entertainment has already begun , and an undergraduate — damp , like everyone else — is singing , in a booming bass voice , something of a vaguely boastful nature about what he once did " In Bilboa 'sBay .  " Burgoyne has for the moment lost sight of his chaperon , and remains standing near the door , looking upon the scene around him with an eye from which philanthropy is all too criminally absent .  About him are grouped a few ladies and gentlemen — more of the former than the latter — who are obviously about to give their services , judging by their rolls of music and the books in their hands .  His look passes over them indifferently — he has no acquaintance among them .  He had never known many of the Oxford householders , and there is no place where a man becomes superannuated after so short a lapse of years .  Here are new arrivals .  He turns his head mechanically as the opening door reveals the advent of more umbrellaed and mackintoshed waterfalls .  Two men and a lady .  As his eye alights on the woman , he does not start — we Anglo-Saxons are not apt to make our slow grave bodies the indexes of our emotions — but he is conscious of an odd and puzzling sensation .  Where has he seen that face before ?  " Bilboa 'sBay " has come to an end without his perceiving it .  He is putting his memory through her paces , trying to find some niche in his three happy Oxford years in which to place that strangely known yet unknown figure .  There is no such niche .  It is not an Oxford memory at all .  What is it then ?  An earlier or a later one ?  His eyebrows are drawn together in the effort of recollection , making him look , if possible , crosser than before , when he is made aware of the return of Brown by finding his arm seized , and his friend 'svoice — a good deal hoarser even than when they left home — in his ear , " Jim , do you feel inclined to do a very good-natured thing ?  "  " Not in the least , " replies Burgoyne promptly ; " if anyone wishes to borrow £ 5 from me , I should advise him to choose a moment when I am drier about the legs .  "  Burgoyne has very often stood up to and over his knees in water for hours , watching for ducks among whistling reeds on winter mornings , and never thought himself at all to be pitied ; but he is thoroughly vexed now at his moist trousers .  Brown , however , is not so easily rebuffed .  " I should be awfully obliged to you , " he says croakily ; " you would be laying me under a very real obligation if you would — — " He stops to cough .  " If I would what ?  " returns the other curtly , and looking apprehensively at a book which Brown is expanding before his eyes .  " If you would read instead of me .  "  " I !  "  " Why , the fact is " — coughing noisily again as if to show that there is no imposition — " I suppose the fog must have got down my throat ; but I find I cannot speak above a whisper .  I should not be heard beyond the front row ; come , old man , do a good-natured thing for once in your life .  "  There is a pause ; Burgoyne is not very fond of being asked to do a good-natured thing .  He can do a big one every now and then , but he is not particularly fond of being asked to do a small one .  " Surely there must be many people here much better suited for it than I am , " he says presently , looking uncomfortably round in search of the little group of booked and musicked persons whom he had seen but now standing near him , but it had melted .  " That is just what there are not , " rejoins Brown , pressing his point with the more eagerness , as he thinks he sees signs of yielding ; " we are very short of hands to-night , and my wife has just heard that the girl upon whom she was counting for a couple of songs is in bed with influenza .  "  " Happy girl !  I wish I too was in bed with influenza , " says Jim sardonically , for he sees his fate about to overtake him .  And so it comes to pass that , five minutes later , as described at the opening of this chapter , he is seated on the platform with " Mrs. Lirriper 'sLodgings " before him , rows of Provident Matrons 'eyes fastened expectantly upon him , and horrid qualms of strange shyness racing over him .  Brown has indicated by a dog's-ear the page at which he is to begin ; so he is spared indecision on this head .  But has Brown indicated the page at which he is to stop ?  He is gnawed by a keen anxiety as to this point all through his performance .  It is hot upon the platform , the smell of tea potent , and the naked gas-jets close above his head throw an ugly yellow glare upon his book .  Having offered his prefatory observations in the manner I have indicated , he rushes in media res .  " Girls , as I was beginning to remark , are one of your first and your lasting troubles , being like your teeth , which begin with convulsions , and never cease tormenting you from the time you cut them till they cut you , and then you do not want to part with them , which seems hard , but we must all succumb , or buy artificial .  " ( Do his ears deceive him ?  Is there already a slight titter ?  Have the simile of the convulsions and the necessity for a râtelier already struck a chord in the matrons 'breasts ?  ) " And , even where you get a will , nine times out of ten you get a dirty face with it , and naturally lodgers do not like good society to be shown in with a smear of black across the nose , or a smudgy eyebrow !  " ( Is he managing his voice alright ?  Is he mumbling , or is he bellowing ?  He rather inclines to a suspicion of the latter .  Why did not they laugh at the " smudgy eyebrow " ?  They ought to have done so , and he had paused to give them the opportunity .  Perhaps it is among them too familiar a phenomenon to provoke mirth .  ) " Where they pick the black up is a mystery I cannot solve , as in the case of the willingest girl that ever came into a house , half-starved , poor thing ; a girl so willing that I called her ' Willing Sophy ; ' down upon her knees scrubbing early and late , and ever cheerful , but always with a black face .  And I says to Sophy , ' Now , Sophy , my good girl , have a regular day for your stoves , and do not brush your hair with the bottoms of the saucepans , and do not meddle with the snuffs of the candles , and it stands to reason that it cannot be .  ' " ( Ah !  what welcome sound is this ?  " Willing Sophy " has produced an undoubted giggle , which Burgoyne hears spreading and widening through the room .  Heartened by this indication , he goes on in a more emphatic and hilarious voice : ) " Yet there it was , and always on her nose , which , turning up , and being broad at the end , seemed to boast of it , and caused warning from a steady gentleman , an excellent lodger , with breakfast by the week .  "  There can be no mistake about it now ; the giggle has changed into a universal resonant laugh , which goes on swelling and rising , until , in the final roar of approbation which greets the concluding paragraph , the reader 'svoice is drowned .  The matrons have all along been ready to be amused ; it is only that , owing to the gravity of his face and solemnity of his manner , it was some time before they recognised that his intention was comic .  As soon as they do so , they reward that intention with more than adequate mirth .  Burgoyne has reached the second dog's-ear , that dog's-ear which his eye has been earnestly searching for throughout .  His task then is ended .  He heaves a deep sigh of relief , and , with a reflection that , after all , he is glad he was obliging , is preparing to shut the volume , when he feels the inevitable Brown 'shand on his shoulder , and his husky voice in his ear .  " Capital !  you got on capitally !  Could not be better ; but you will not mind going on a little longer , will you ?  You have only read for ten minutes .  I want you to try something different this time — a little pathos , for a change .  I have marked the page .  Here !  "  What is there to do but acquiesce ?  Burgoyne , complying , finds himself at once in the middle of a melancholy tale of a poor young woman left ruined and deserted in Mrs. Lirriper 'sLodgings , and only rescued from suicide by the efforts of that good lady , who , however , is unable to save her from a tragic and premature death .  The reader has reached the point at which Mrs. Lirriper has met the poor creature on her way to the river .  " ' Mrs .  Edson , I says , my dear , take care !  However , did you lose your way , and stumble in a dangerous place like this ?  No wonder you 'relost , I 'msure .  ' " ( What is this sound ?  Is it possible that the giggle is rising again ?  the giggle which he was so glad to welcome a little while ago , but which is so disastrously out of place here .  He redoubles his efforts to put an unmistakably serious and pathetic tone into his voice .  ) " She was all in a shiver , and she so continued till I laid her on her own bed , and up to the early morning she held me by the hand and moaned , and moaned , ' Oh , wicked , wicked , wicked !  — -- '"  What can the Provident Matrons be made of ?  They are laughing unrestrainedly .  Too late Burgoyne realizes that he had not made it sufficiently clear that his intention is no longer comic .  The idea of his being a funny man has so firmly rooted itself in his hearers 'minds , that nothing can now dislodge it .  Such being the case , he feels that the best thing he can do is to reach the end as quickly as possible .  He begins to read very fast , which is taken for a new stroke of facetiousness , the result of which is that the last sigh of the poor young would-be suicide is drowned in a storm of hilarity even heartier and more prolonged than that which greeted " Willing Sophy 's" smudged nose .  In much confusion , greatly abashed by the honours so mistakenly heaped upon him , Burgoyne hastily leaves the platform .  Twenty thousand Browns shall not keep him there !  CHAPTER II .  " Tell me now in what hidden way is Lady Flora the lovely Roman ? Where is Hipparchia , and where is Thais ? Neither of them the fairer woman . Where is Echo beheld of no one , Only heard on river and mere ? She whose beauty was more than human , But where are the snows of yester-year ? "  " There is no reason why we should not go home now ; are you ready ?  " cries Brown , bustling up to his friend , who has not waited for this question to make straight , as the needle to the pole , for the corner where the collected umbrellas stand in their little area of lake .  Burgoyne would probably have laughed at the unconscious irony of this inquiry if he had heard it ; but he has not , his attention being otherwise directed .  On the same umbrella quest as himself , being helped on with her mackintosh by one of the two men who had accompanied her , a pepper-and-salt-haired , sturdy gentleman of an obviously unacademic cut , is the lady whose face had flashed upon him with that puzzling sense of unfamiliar familiarity .  Since they are now in close proximity , and both employed alike in struggling into their wraps , there is nothing more natural than that she should turn her eyes full upon him .  They are very fine eyes , though far from young ones .  Is it a trick of his imagination , or does he see a look of half-recognition dawn in them , such as must have been born in his own when they first alighted on her ?  At all events , if there is such a look of half-recognition in her eyes , she is determined that it shall not have a chance of becoming a whole one .  Either he is mistaken , and she has not recognised him , or she is determined not to acknowledge the acquaintance , for she looks away again at once , nor does she throw another glance in his direction .  Indeed , it seems to him that she hurries on her preparations with added speed , and walks out into the night accompanied by her double escort before him .  The weather has changed , and for the better .  The rollicking wind has lulled , the pattering rain ceased .  Between the ragged , black cloud-sheets star-points shine , and a shimmering moon shows her wet face reflected in the puddles .  Talk , which had been impossible on their way to the meeting , is not only possible but easy now , and Brown is evidently greatly inclined for it .  Burgoyne , on the other hand , had never felt more disinclined .  It is not so much that he is out of humour with his tiresome friend , though he is that too , as that his whole mind is centred on making his memory give up the secret of that face that has come back to him out of some vague cavern of his past .  Who is the woman whom he knows , and who knows him ( for on reflection he is sure that that look of hers was one of half — of more than half — recognition ) , and yet whose place in his history , whose very name , he seeks so vainly ?  She does not belong to his Oxford days , as he has already ascertained .  He has learnt from Brown that she does not belong to the Oxford of to-day , being apparently a stranger , and , with her husband , a visitor to the Warden of — — College , in whose company they had arrived .  He explores the succeeding years of his life .  In vain ; she has no place there ; in vain he dives and plunges into the sea of his memory ; he cannot fish up the pearl he seeks .  He must hark back to earlier days — his school-time , the six months he spent in Devonshire with a coach before he came up to New .  Ah !  he has it — he has it at last !  just as they have reached Brown 'sdoor , while he is fumbling with his latch-key for the keyhole , imprecating the moon for withdrawing her shining at the very instant he most needs her , Burgoyne has come up with the shy object of his chase .  It is conjured back into his mind by the word Devonshire .  " I have it , " he says to himself ; " her hair has turned white , that was why I did not recognise her ; it used to be raven-black .  But it is she — of course it is she !  To think of my not knowing her again !  Of course it is Mrs. Le Marchant .  "  What a door into the distance that name has opened !  — a door through which he passes into a Devonshire garden , and romps with rose-faced Devonshire children .  The very names of those children are coming back to him .  Tom and Charles , those were the schoolboys ; Rose and Miriam , and — Elizabeth .  He recalls — absurd trick of freakish memory — those children 'spets .  Tom and Charles had guinea-pigs ; Miriam had a white rat ; Rose — what had Rose ?  Rose must have had something ; and Elizabeth had a kangaroo .  Elizabeth 'skangaroo was short-lived , poor beast , and died about hay-time ; the guinea-pigs and the white rat have been dead too for ages now , of course .  And are Tom and Charles , and Rose and Miriam , and bright Elizabeth dead also ?  Absurd !  Why should they be ?  Nothing more unlikely !  Why , it is only ten years ago , after all .  He is roused from his meditations by Brown 'svoice , to find himself in Brown 'sstudy , where its owner is filling himself a pipe , and festally offering him whisky-and-water .  But it is only an abstracted attention that Burgoyne lends , either to the whisky or the whisky 'smaster ; and his answers are sometimes inattentively beside the mark , to talk , which indeed is not without some likeness to the boasted exploits in Clement 'sInn , and the affectionate inquiries after Jane Nightwork , of a more famous fool than he .  It is a relief to the guest when , earlier than he had expected — a blessing he , no doubt , owes to Mrs. Brown — his host breaks up the séance , and he is free to retire to his own room .  At once he is back in that Devonshire garden , he is there almost all night , between sleep and wake .  It is strange that persons and circumstances banished from his memory for ten long years should rush back with such tyrannous insistence now .  Such silly recollected trifles crowd back upon his mind .  The day on which Tom nearly choked himself by swallowing a barley beard ; the day on which the lop-eared rabbit littered — ah , rabbits , of course !  those were what Rose had !  — the day on which Tom pushed Miriam into the moat , and Elizabeth fell in , too , in trying to fish her out .  Elizabeth , the eldest , the almost grown-up one , embarrassed by her newly lengthened petticoats , so harassing at cricket , in races , in climbing apple-trees .  Elizabeth was sixteen ; he remembers the fact , because her birthday had fallen two days before his own departure .  He had given her a gold thimble set with turquoises upon the occasion ; it was not a surprise , because he recalls measuring her finger for the size .  He can see that small middle finger now .  Elizabeth must now be twenty-six years of age .  Where is she ?  What is she — maid , wife , or widow ?  And why has Mrs. Le Marchant 'shair turned snow-white ?  Had it been merely gray he would not have complained , though he would have deplored the loss of the fine smooth inky sweep he remembers .  She has a fair right to be gray ; Mrs. Le Marchant must be about forty-six or forty-seven , bien sonné .  But white , snow-white — the hue that one connects with a venerable extremity of age .  Can it be bleached ?  He has heard of women bleaching their hair ; but not Mrs. Le Marchant , not the Mrs. Le Marchant he remembers .  She would have been as incapable of bleach as of dye .  Then why is she snow-haired ?  Because Providence has so willed it is the obvious answer .  But somehow Burgoyne cannot bring himself to believe that she has come fairly by that white head .  With the morning light the might of the Devonshire memories grows weaker ; and , as the day advances , the Oxford ones resume their sway .  How can it be otherwise , when all day long he strays among the unaltered buildings in the sweet sedate college gardens , down the familiar " High , " where , six years ago , he could not take two steps without being hailed by a jolly fresh voice , claiming his company for some new pleasure ; but where now he walks ungreeted , where the smooth-faced boys he meets , and who strike him as so much more boyish than his own contemporaries had done , pass him by indifferently , unknown to the whole two thousand as he is .  He feels a sort of irrational anger with them for not recognising him , though they have never seen him before .  Yes , there is no place where a man is so quickly superannuated as in Oxford .  He is saying this to himself all day , is saying it still as he strolls in the afternoon down Mesopotamia , to fill up the time before the hour for college chapel .  Yes , there is no place where men so soon turn into ghosts .  He has been knocking up against them all day at every street-corner ; they have looked out at him from every gray window in the Quad at New — jovial , athletic young ghosts , so much painfuller to meet than rusty , century-worn old ones .  They are rather less plentiful in Mesopotamia than elsewhere ; perhaps , because in his day , as now , Mesopotamia on Sundays was given over to the mechanic and the perambulator .  Oh , that Heaven would put it into the head of some Chancellor of the Exchequer to lay a swingeing tax upon that all-accursed vehicle !  But not even mechanic and perambulator can hinder Mesopotamia from being fair on a fine February day , when the beautiful floods are out , the floods that the Thames Conservators and the Oxford authorities have combined to put down , as they have most other beautiful things within their reach .  But they have not yet quite succeeded .  To-day , for instance , the floods are out in might .  Burgoyne is pacing along a brown walk , like a raised causeway , with a sheet of white water on either hand , rolling strong ripples to the bank .  Gnarled willows stand islanded in the coldly argent water .  A blackbird is flying out of the bushes , with a surprised look at finding himself turned into a sea-bird .  No sun ; an even sweep of dull silver to right and left .  No sun ; and yet as he looks , after days of rain , the " grand décorateur , " as someone happily called him , rides out in royalty on a cleared sky-field , turning the whole drenched country into mother-of-pearl — a sheet of opal stretched across the drowned meadows ; the distance opal too , a delicate , dainty , evanescent loveliness snatched from the ugly brown jaws of winter .  Burgoyne is leaning over the wooden bridge beneath which , in its normal state , the water of the lasher rushes down impetuously ; but it is now raised to such a height that it lies level , almost flush with the planking .  He is staring across the iridescent water-plain to where , in the poetic atmosphere of sun and mist , dome , and schools and soaring spires stand etherealized .  " Dear old place !  " he says , under his breath , " everybody is dead ; and I am dead ; and Brown is deader than anyone .  I am glad that you , at least , are still alive !  "  Are these more ghosts coming round the corner ?  A man and a woman ghost strolling along , and looking about them as strangers look .  When they are within a pace or two of him the woman says something — something about the floods — to her companion , and at the sound Burgoyne starts .  " She did not speak last night ; if she had spoken I should have known her at once .  She always had such a sweet voice .  "  He raises his arms from the bridge-top , and , turning , meets them face to face , eye to eye , and in an instant he has seen that both recognise him .  At the same instant he is aware of a simultaneous inclination on the part of man and wife to avert their heads , and pass him without claiming his acquaintance .  Perhaps , if he had had time to reflect , he would have allowed them to do so , but the impulse of the moment forbids it .  Why should they wish to cut him ?  What has he done to deserve it ?  Ten years ago , they were his very good friends , and he was the familiar comrade of their children , the daily guest at their table .  What has the unavoidable lapse of those years done to make him less fit for their company at twenty-nine than he was at nineteen ?  There must be some misconception , which a moment will set right .  " I am afraid that you do not remember me , Mrs. Le Marchant , " he says , lifting his hat .  This is not quite true , as he is perfectly convinced that they are as much aware of his identity as he is of theirs .  But what formula has a man to employ in such a case ?  They both look back at him with a sort of irresolution .  To his astonishment , in their eyes is a velleity of flight , but apparently she — women 'sminds moving more quickly than men 's— is the first to realize that flight is out of the question .  " I am sure that you have no intention of cutting me , " Jim goes on , with a smile , seeing that she is apparently struggling with a difficulty in utterance ; " at least , you must be very much changed from what you were ten years ago if you have .  My name is — — "  " I know — I know !  " she interrupts , finding speech at last — speech low and hurried .  " I remember perfectly .  You are Mr. Burgoyne .  "  Her confusion — she used always to be such a placid , even-mannered woman — is so patent , born of whatever unaccountable feeling it may be , that he now heartily wishes he had let the poor woman pass unmolested .  But such repentance is too late .  He has arrested her ; she is standing on the gravel path before him , and though he feels that her extraordinary shyness — mauvaise honte , whatever it may be — has infected himself , he must make some further remark to her .  Nothing better occurs to him than the obvious one :  " It is a long time — it is ten years since we met .  "  " Yes , ten years ; it must be quite ten years , " she assents , evidently making a great effort to regain composure .  She does not feign the slightest pleasure in the meeting , and Burgoyne feels that the one thought that occupies her mind is how she can soonest end it .  But his roused curiosity , together with the difficulty of parting without further observation after having forced his presence upon them , combine to prevent her succeeding .  " And how is the Moat ?  " he asks , reflecting that this , at least , is a safe question ; a brick and mortar house , at all events , cannot be dead .  " How is Devonshire ?  "  Apparently it is not so harmless a question as he had imagined ; at least , Mrs. Le Marchant is obviously quite incapable of answering it .  Her husband , for the first time , comes to her rescue .  " The Moat is let , " he says , in a dry voice ; " we have left Devonshire a long while — nine , nine and a half years ago .  "  The Moat let !  Judging by the light of Burgoyne 'srecollections , it would have seemed less surprising to him to hear that Windsor Castle had been turned into a Joint Stock Company Hotel .  It is probably , then , some money trouble that has turned Mrs. Le Marchant 'shair white — snow white , as he now sees it to be .  But no ; he rejects the explanation as insufficient .  She is not the woman to have taken a diminished income so much to heart .  Good manners forbid him to ask , " Why is the Moat let ?  " so all that he says is , " Nine and a half years ago ?  Why , that must have been very soon after I left Devonshire .  "  He addresses his remark involuntarily rather to the wife than the husband , but she does not answer it .  Her eyes are fixed upon the bubbles sailing so fast upon the swollen river , which is distinguishable only by its current from the sameness of the surrounding water .  A lark — there is always a lark in Mesopotamia — a tiny , strong-throated singer , that never seems to have to stop to take breath , fills up the silence , shouting somewhere out of sight among the black clouds , in and out of which the uncertain sun is plunging .  Whether of a moneyed nature or not , there is evidently something very unpleasant connected with their leaving their native county and their immemorial home , so he had better get away from the subject as fast as possible .  " Anyhow , " he says , with a rather nervous smile , " I hope that the world has been treating you kindly — that things have gone well with you since those dear old days when you were so good to me .  "  There is an instant 'spause — perhaps he would not have noticed it had not his suspicions been already roused — before the husband , again taking upon him the task of replying , answers , with a sort of laboured carelessness :  " Oh , yes , thanks ; we do not complain .  It has not been a very rosy time for landlords lately , as you are aware .  "  " And you ?  " cries the wife , striking in with a species of hurry in her voice — a hurry due , as his instinct tells him , to the fact of her fear of his entering into more detailed inquiries .  " And you ?  We must not forget you .  Have you been well , flourishing , all this long time ?  Do you still live with your — — "  She stops abruptly .  It is apparent that she has entirely forgotten what was the species of relation with whom he lived .  There is a little tinge of bitterness in his heart , though not in his tone , as he supplies the missing word " aunt .  " After all , he had forgotten her name ; why should not she forget his aunt ?  " With my aunt ?  Well , I never exactly lived with her ; I made , and make my headquarters there when I am in England , which is not very often .  I have been a rolling stone ; I have rolled pretty well round the world since we parted .  "  They do not care in the least where he has rolled , nor how much nor how little moss he has collected in the process .  They are only thinking how they can best get rid of him .  But the past is strong upon him ; he cannot let them slide out of his life again for another ten — twenty years perhaps , without finding out from them something about his five merry playmates .  His inquiry must needs be a vague one .  Who dares ask specifically after this or that man , woman , or even child , when ten years have rolled their tides between ?  " And you are all well ?  " he says , with a certain wistfulness lurking in the indifferent banal phrase .  " Dear me , what a jolly party we used to be !  I suppose that — that they are all out in the world now ?  "  His eyes are fixed apprehensively upon the mother of those young comrades , to whom he thus cautiously alludes .  Perhaps , carefully as he has worded his question , he may have touched some terrible raw .  Her face is turned aside , presenting only its profile to him , but she answers almost at once :  " Yes ; we are all scattered now .  Charlie is planting oranges in Florida — he does not mind the heat ; you know he always said no weather could be too hot for him ; and Tom has an ostrich farm in Australia ; and Rose has been married two years — she has a dear little baby ; and Miriam is married too ; we have just come down from her wedding .  "  " Miriam married !  " repeats Burgoyne in a tone of wonder .  " Miriam with a husband instead of a white rat !  "  The mother laughs .  It is the first time that he has heard her laugh , and she used to laugh so often .  " I think she likes the exchange .  "  There is another little pause , again filled by the lark 'scrowding notes .  There are two words battering against the gate of Burgoyne 'slips for egress — two words that he dares not utter .  " And Elizabeth ?  " She was the eldest .  She would naturally have been mentioned first ; but neither first nor last is there any speech of her .  She must , then , be dead — dead long ago , too ; for there is no trace of mourning in her parents 'dress .  Elizabeth is dead — bright Elizabeth , the beauty and the pet !  Charles Lamb 'stender lines come pensively back to him —  " My sprightly neighbour gone before To that unknown and silent shore , Shall we not meet as heretofore , Some summer morning ? "  Is it only fancy that he sees in the eye of Elizabeth 'smother a dread lest he shall ask tidings of her , as she says , hastily , and with a smile , " Well , I am afraid we must be going ; it has been very pleasant meeting you again , but I am afraid that the Warden will be expecting us " ?  She adds to her parting hand-shake no wish for a repetition of that meeting , and he watches them down the Willow Walk with a sort of sadness in his heart .  " Elizabeth is dead !  Elizabeth is undoubtedly dead !  "  CHAPTER III .  " Do you know that Willy has been sent down again ?  "  Six weeks have passed since Burgoyne 'seye followed his quondam friends down Mesopotamia , and he is not in Oxford now .  He left it , indeed , twenty-four hours after the rencounter described ; left it with something of a determination never to revisit it .  This , too , in spite of the good Brown 'svociferously reiterated invitation to him to run down for another Sunday , whenever he should feel inclined , and which he accepted civilly , knowing that he should never feel inclined .  At the present moment he is pacing up and down the still wintry , north-windswept walks of a country-house garden in Shropshire , in the company of a lady whom he has known as long as he can remember ; a lady who would have been a friend of circumstance , even if she had not been one of choice , since her home has been in the immediate neighbourhood of the only one he has ever had ; a lady whose friendship he has tested by letters on thin paper from New Guinea and Central Africa all about himself ; at whose feet he has laid on his return more heads , and skins , and claws than she has well known what to do with ; whose husband he thought a very good fellow , and to whom he wrote a very nice letter on that husband 'sdeath ; lastly , concerning whose only child has been made the communication that opens this chapter — " Do you know that Willy has been sent down again ?  "  " I did not know it ; but I am very sorry now that I do know .  "  " You need not be , " returns she cheerfully ; " he does not mind it in the least ; indeed , happily for him , most of his friends have been sent down too .  "  " What has he been doing this time ?  Putting the porter into the fountain ?  or screwing up the Dean ?  or what other playful little pleasantry ?  "  " You need not speak in that nasty sarcastic voice , " says she , half laughing and half vexed .  " After all , you must know that young men will be young men , or , at least , if you do not know it now , you must have known it once .  "  " If you take that tone to me , " retorts Burgoyne , smiling , " I shall have to souse your gardener in your fountain , to prove my juvenility ; but come , what has he done ?  "  " Absolutely nothing , as far as I can make out , " replies she , spreading out her hands as if to emphasize the statement .  " Do you mean to say that the authorities have sent him down de gaieté de cœur , without any provocation at all ?  " asks Burgoyne , in a tone out of which he is unable to keep a shade of incredulity .  " I mean to say , " replies she , nettled , " that he had a few men to supper , and I suppose they were making a little noise ; did you ever in your day hear of an undergraduate supper where there was not noise ?  However , in this case , from what he tells me , Willy was taking positively no part in it .  "  " He was sitting in a corner , with cotton-wool in his ears , reading Aristotle , " suggests Burgoyne teasingly .  " And it seems , " continued she , not deigning to notice the interruption , " that the Proctor came in , and was very rude , and Willy was told to go to the Dean next morning , and he either was a little late , or mistook the hour , or some trifle of that sort ; and when he did go he was told that he was sent down .  However " — with some triumph in her voice — " it did not matter in the least — he did not mind ; in fact , he was rather glad , as he has long wanted to go to Italy in the spring .  "  " To Italy ?  Then perhaps we shall meet ; I too am going to Italy .  "  " Are you ?  " she says .  " Why should you go to Italy ?  There is nothing to kill there , is there ?  Is not it at Naples that they go out in full chasseur uniform to shoot tomtits ?  " Which speech is her revenge for his sarcasms upon her son .  But Burgoyne 'sface has taken on a rather careworn look ; and her little arrow misses its mark .  " You see , Amelia is at Florence , " he says explanatorily ; " her father , Mr. Wilson , had a clergyman 'sthroat in the autumn , and was obliged to give up duty , so they all went abroad .  They have been abroad all the winter ; you know that I have not seen her since I came back from the Rockies .  "  They are now walking in a winding shrubbery path , whose laurels protect them from the pinching wind .  They have turned several corners , and traversed half a quarter of a mile before either again breaks silence .  It is the lady who does so finally .  " Jim , how long have you been engaged to Amelia ?  "  There is a sigh mixed with his answer .  " Eight years — eight years this next June ; it was the second summer term after I came up .  "  " And as far as you can see , you are likely to be engaged for another eight years ?  "  " As far as I can see — yes ; but then I cannot see far .  "  Perhaps his companion is a fanciful woman ; but she notices that this time he does not sigh .  " Poor Amelia !  " she says , half under her breath .  " Poor Amelia !  " repeats he sharply ; " why poor ?  — for being engaged to me ?  You are not very complimentary , Mrs. Byng .  "  She looks up friendlily at him .  " For being engaged to you , or being only engaged to you ?  — which ?  I leave you a choice of interpretation .  "  But either Jim is too ruffled by the pity expressed in her tone towards his betrothed , or her remarks have provoked in him a train of thought which does not tend towards loquacity .  The loud rooks , balancing themselves on improbably small twigs above their heads , and , hoarsely melodious , calling out their airy vernal news to each other , make for some time the only sound that breaks the silence of the cold spring afternoon .  It is again Mrs. Byng who at last infringes it .  " If you and Willy are both going to Italy , why should not you go together ?  "  Jim does not immediately answer ; the project is sprung upon him with such suddenness that he does not at once know whether it is agreeable to him or the reverse .  " You do not like the idea ?  " continues the mother , trying , not very successfully , to keep out of her tone the surprise she feels at his not having jumped at a plan so obviously to his own advantage .  " I did not say so .  I did not even think so .  "  " Willy is an ideal fellow-traveller , " says she , " excepting in the matter of punctuality ; I warn you " — laughing — " that you would always have to drag him out of bed .  "  " But , " suggests Jim slowly , " even supposing that I embraced your design with the warmth which I see you think it deserves , how can you tell that it would meet with his approbation ?  He has probably made up a party with some of the other innocent victims of a corrupt University system .  "  " No , he has not ; the friend with whom he was to have gone has thrown him over ; at least , poor man , that is hardly the way to express it , for he has broken his leg ; but anyhow he is hors de combat .  If you went with Willy , " she adds , after a pause , and with a rather wistful air , " I should be sure of knowing if anything went wrong .  "  " I am to dry-nurse him , in fact , only I stipulate that , if he brings you home a Contadina daughter-in-law , or ' commits himself with a countess , ' like the commercial gentleman at Todgers 's, you are not to hold me responsible .  "  And so it came to pass that a fortnight later , while April is still young , Burgoyne , en route to his Amelia , is standing at a window of the Hotel de Gênes at Genoa , noisiest of hotels , though , to be sure , that is its only fault .  He is looking out at the gay market that is held in the piazza below — the gay market that is over and gone by nine o'clock .  It seems odd that so many women , so many umbrellas , so many baskets , so many oranges and lemons — each lemon with a glossy green leaf still adhering to its inch of stalk — so many fresh vegetables can be swept away in so short a time .  But they are ; all the gay kerchiefs are fled , and have been replaced by a row of fiacres with sad droop-headed horses , a good hour before Byng appears — appears radiantly well washed and apologetic .  " How many morning chapels did you attend last term ?  " asks Burgoyne with some dryness .  " It is a vile habit , " replies the other sweetly , sitting down at a little table , and unfolding his breakfast napkin .  " I do not mean going to chapel , but being so late ; however , I really am improving .  I am a quarter of an hour — twenty minutes earlier than I was yesterday , and , thank God , we have no train to catch to-day .  "  Burgoyne is rather inclined to echo the thanksgiving a little later in the day , as they stroll with the pleasant vagueness with which one strays about a little-known foreign town , not exactly knowing whither , through the streets of the queenly city , with which neither of them has much acquaintance ; Byng 'stwenty-two years of school and college , of cricket , and grouse , and stalking , having left not much margin for aught else ; and Burgoyne being in the case of some widely-wandered shots and explorers , to whom the Nyanza Lake and the Australian Bush are more familiar than Giotto 'sCampanile or the Lagoons .  There is a grayish-looking English sky , with now and then little sprays of rain , and now and then flashes of warm sun .  Neither of the young men knows much Italian , and such as they possess they are ashamed to air before each other in asking their way , so they wander wherever chance or fancy leads them .  They look curiously into churches , they walk down deep narrow streets , whose houses have for three centuries been threatening to embrace each other across the strait sky strip far , far above their heads .  They glance at palace-fronts , and wonder at the sculptured portals where fresco and fruit garland and fine tracery speak of a time at more leisure for delicate work that has no end but beauty , than this breathless one .  Everywhere in the gardens they see budding green , untrained roses making bowers , ripe oranges hanging over the walls .  They jostle against women , each made charming , even the ugliest of them , by the black lace kerchief tied about her head .  " Henry James says that an English crowd is the best-looking in the world , " says Byng , in a tone of strong dissent , following with his eyes a little tripping figure , and with an expression of pronounced approbation in those eyes , which gives Burgoyne a momentary twinge of misgiving as to his chaperonship .  " I should put it the other way up , and say that they are the ugliest .  "  " All crowds are ugly , and most individuals , " replies Burgoyne , misanthropically looking up from his guide-book .  They are sauntering down the Via Garibaldi , street of palaces that deserves an antiquer name than that of the somewhat shoddy and recent hero who has god-fathered it .  Noblest Via , down whose stately length great towering bulks succeed each other in solid majesty on either hand ; bulks on whose high fronts , lofty-portaled , o'errun with fresco , glorified by brush and chisel , strength and beauty take hands in unending wedlock .  Into the noblest of all , up the echoing stone stairs , down which the feet of the masters have for ever ceased to tread , they enter .  As we all know , it has been given to the city of Genoa — lovely queen-city meriting so great a gift — by the dying hand of its latest possessor , the last of that high and beautiful race — if we may judge of the dead by their pictures — who paced its floors , and went forth in final funeral pomp through its worthy-to-be-imperial portals .  Burgoyne and Byng are standing before the great Vandyke .  The custode , opening a shutter , and throwing wider a door , casts a brighter ray of light for the staring Britons — several others have joined themselves to our friends — to gape at it by .  What does the stately gentleman on his great white horse , whom Vandyke has made able to set at naught death 'seffacement , think of them , as the custode slowly swings him forward on his hinges , so that the day-beams may bring out more clearly still the arresting charm of his serious face , his outstretched arm , and grave , gallant bearing ?  Looking at him , whose heart among us is not besieged by an ache of longing that that " young and princely " gentleman on the brave white charger should ride down to us out of his frame , and bring back his world with him ?  probably not a better world than ours , but surely , surely a handsomer one .  After awhile the other tourists drift away , but the two men still stand and gaze .  Into Burgoyne 'smind has come a sense of disgust with the present , a revolt against steam trams and the Cromwell Road — most perfect symbol of that bald , unending , vulgar ugliness , which , in some moods , must seem to everyone the dominant note of nineteenth-century life .  The light-hearted Byng , who always takes his colour from his surroundings , is hushed into a silence that is almost reverent too .  " What a difference there is between his Italian and his English pictures , " he says presently .  " Do you remember the Marchesa Balbi , and those divine Balbi children in the Grosvenor , last year ?  Oh , no !  by-the-bye , you were in America .  The fog seemed to get into his brush whenever he painted an Englishwoman , always excepting Henrietta Maria , who was not an Englishwoman , and whom he was obviously rather in love with .  "  " Is that a piece of scandal of your own invention , or is it founded on fact ?  " asks Burgoyne , rousing himself , and looking over his shoulder towards the entrance to the next frescoed , mirrored , pictured room , whence he hears the sound of approaching voices .  In his eye is an idle and mechanical curiosity , mixed with vexation that his short respite from his fellow-countrymen is ended ; in this case , it is fellow-countrywomen , for the tones that are nearing are those of a woman , a woman who is saying in a key of satisfaction , " Oh , here it is !  I thought I remembered that it was in this room .  "  At the same moment the speaker , as well as the person addressed , came into sight ; and in an instant out of Burgoyne 'seye has raced away the lack-lustre curiosity , and has given way to an expression of something beyond surprise , of something more nearly verging on consternation ; and yet , after all , there is nothing very astonishing in the fact that it is Mrs. Le Marchant who is the woman in search of the Vandyke .  There is nothing more surprising in her being at Genoa than in his being there himself .  At that mart of nations it can never be matter for wonder to meet anyone ; but who is this to whom her observation is addressed ?  It is not Mr. Le Marchant , it is not a man at all ; it is a slight woman —  " White as a lily , and small as a wand " —  like Lance 'ssister , dressed with that neat , tight , gray-tinted simplicity , severe yet smart , which marks the well-bred Englishwoman on her travels .  Is it one of the younger ones , who has grown up so startlingly like her ?  Miriam ?  Rose ?  or is it , can it be , the dead Elizabeth ?  CHAPTER IV .  In a ripe civilization such as ours there are formulas provided to meet the requirements of every exigency that may possibly arise ; but amongst them there is not one which teaches us how to greet a person come back from the dead , because it is held impossible that such a contingency can occur .  Perhaps this is the reason why Jim Burgoyne , usually a docile and obedient member of the society to which he belongs , now flies in the face of all the precepts instilled into him by that society 'scode .  At the sight of Elizabeth Le Marchant entering the room , clad in a very neat tailor gown , instead of the winding-sheet with which he had credited her , he at first stands transfixed , staring at her with a hardness of intensity which is allowed to us in the case of Titian 's" Bella , " or Botticelli 's" Spring , " but has never been accounted permissible in the case of a more living loveliness .  Then , before he can control , or even question the impulse that drives him , it has carried him to her .  " Elizabeth !  " he says , in that sort of awed semi-whisper with which one would salute a being plainly returned from the other side , fearing that the fulness of a living voice might strike too strongly on his disused ear — " is it really Elizabeth ?  "  Had Burgoyne been quite sure , even now , of that fact ; if he had had his wits well about him , he would certainly not have addressed her by her Christian name .  But from the dead the small pomps and ceremonies of earth fall off .  We think of them by their naked names — must we not then appeal to them by the same when they reappear before us ?  The girl — for she does not look much more — thus rudely and startlingly bombarded , drops her Baedeker out of her slim-gloved hand , and with a positive jump at the suddenness of the address , looks back apprehensively at her interlocutor .  In her eyes is , at first , only the coldly frightened expression of one discourteously assailed by an insolent stranger ; but in a space of time as short as had served him to note the same metamorphosis in the case of her parents , he sees the look of half — three-quarter — whole recognition dawn in her eyes , followed — alas !  there can be no mistake about it — by the same aspiration after flight .  There is no reason why she should not recognise him again at once .  He has fallen a prey neither to hair nor fat — the two main disguisers and disfigurers of humanity .  His face is as smooth and his figure as spare as when , ten years ago , he had given the pretty tomboy of sixteen lessons in jumping the ha-ha .  And as to her identity , no shadow of doubt any longer lingers in his mind .  The violence and shock of his attack have made her crimson , have matched her cheeks with those long-withered damasks in the Moat garden , with which they used to vie in bloomy vividness .  But even yet he does not treat her quite as if she were really and veritably living ; he has not yet got back his conventional manners .  " I thought you were dead , " he says , his voice not even yet raised to its ordinary key , some vague awe still subduing it .  It must be a trick of his excited imagination that makes it seem to him as if she said under her breath , " So I am !  "  But before he has had time to do more than distrust the testimony of his ears , Mrs. Le Marchant strikes in quickly —  " We cannot help what Mr. Burgoyne thinks , " says she , with a constrained laugh ; " but you are not dead , are you , Elizabeth ?  We are neither of us dead ; on the contrary , we are very much alive .  Who can help being alive in this heavenly place ?  And you ?  When did you come ?  What hotel are you at ?  Have you been here long ?  Do you make a long stay ?  "  She pours out her questions with such torrent-force and rapidity , as gives to her auditor the conviction that it is her aim to have a monopoly of them .  After one look of unbounded astonishment at his companion 'sonslaught , Byng has withdrawn to a discreet distance .  " You never mentioned her when I met you in Oxford , " says Burgoyne , disregarding her trivial and conventional questions , and turning his eyes away with difficulty from his old playfellow .  Mrs. Le Marchant laughs again , still constrainedly .  " Probably you never asked after her .  "  " I was afraid , " he says solemnly ; " after ten years one is afraid ; and as you did not mention her — you know you mentioned all the others — I thought you had lost her !  "  A sort of slight shiver passes over the woman 'sframe .  " No , thank God !  No !  "  During the foregoing little dialogue about herself , Elizabeth has stood with her eyes on the ground ; but at the end of it she lifts them to smile lovingly at her mother .  They are very pretty eyes still , but surely they seem to have cried a good deal ; and now that the hurrying blood has left her cheek again , Burgoyne sees that she looks more nearly her age than he had imagined at the first glance .  He has not heard her voice yet ; she has not spoken , unless that first shaken whisper — so much more likely to be the freak of his own heated fancy — could count for speech .  He must hear her tones .  Do they keep an echo of the other world , as he still imagines that he sees a shade from it lying lingeringly across her face ?  " Do you ever climb apple-trees now ?  " he asks abruptly .  She starts slightly , and again , though with a weaker red wave , her rather thin cheeks grow tinged .  " Did I ever climb them ?  " she says , with a bewildered look , and speaking in a somewhat tremulous voice .  " Yes " — slowly , as if with an effort of memory — " I believe I did .  "  " You have forgotten all about it ?  " cries Jim , in an accent of absurdly disproportioned disappointment .  " Have you forgotten the kangaroo too ?  have you forgotten everything ?  "  Perhaps she is putting her memory to the same strain as he had done his in the case of her mother 'sname on the occasion of their Oxford meeting .  At all events , she leaves the question unanswered , and the elder woman again hurries to her help against this persistent claimant of reminiscences .  " You must not expect us all to have such memories as you have , " she says with a touch of friendliness in her look .  " I must own that I too had quite forgotten the kangaroo ; and so I fear had Robert , until you reminded us of it in Mesopotamia .  "  " How is Mr. Le Marchant ?  " inquires Jim , thus reminded to put his tardy query — " is he with you ?  "  " No , he is not very fond of being abroad ; it is not " — smiling — " ' dear abroad ' to him , but I think that he will very likely come out to Florence to fetch us .  "  " You are going to Florence ?  " cries the young man eagerly .  " So am I !  oh , hurrah !  then we shall often meet .  "  But the touch of friendliness , whose advent he had hailed so joyfully , has vanished out of Mrs. Le Marchant 'svoice , or , at least , is overlaid with a species of stiffness , as she answers distantly , " We do not intend to go out at all in Florence — I mean into society .  "  " But I am not society , " replies he , chilled , yet resolute .  " I wish " — glancing rather wistfully from one to the other — " that I could give you a little of my memory .  If I could , you would see that , after being so infinitely good to me at the Moat , you cannot expect me to meet you as total strangers now .  "  In the sense of ill-usage that fills his breast , the fact of how almost entirely oblivious he had been of the persons before him , during the greater part of the long interval that had parted them , has — such is human nature — quite slipped his recollection .  It is brought back to him in some degree with a twinge by Mrs. Le Marchant saying in a relenting tone , and with an accent of remorse , " And you have remembered us all these years ?  "  He cannot , upon reflection , conscientiously say that he has ; but is yet disingenuous enough to allow a speaking silence to imply acquiescence .  " And you are on your way to Florence too ?  " continues she , mistaking the cause of his dumbness ; the tide of compunction evidently setting more strongly towards him , in her womanly heart , at the thought of the entire want of interest she has manifested in the case of one whose long faithfulness to her and her family had deserved a better treatment .  " Yes .  "  His face clouds so perceptibly as he pronounces this monosyllable , that his interlocutor inquires , with a growing kindness :  " Not on any unpleasant errand , I hope ?  "  He laughs the uneasy laugh of an Anglo-Saxon obliged to tell , or at all events telling , some intimate detail about himself .  " I am going to see my young woman — the girl I am engaged to .  "  " Well , that is a pleasant errand , surely ?  " ( smiling ) .  " C'est salon ! " replies Jim gloomily .  " I have a piece of ill-news to tell her ; " then , with a half-shy effort to escape into generalities , " which way do you think that ill-news read best — on paper or vivâ voce ?  "  She shivers a little .  " I do not know .  I do not like them either way .  "  Then , taking out her watch , with the evident determination to be surprised at the lateness of the hour , she cries , " It is actually a quarter to two !  Are not you famished , Elizabeth ?  I am !  "  There is such apparent and imminent departure in her eye that Burgoyne feels that there is no time to be lost .  " Have you decided upon your hotel in Florence ?  " he asks precipitately .  " We have decided against them all , " is her answer .  " We have taken a little apartment — a poor little entresol ; but it is such a poor little one , that I should be ashamed to ask any of my friends to come and see me there .  "  She accompanies the last words , as if to take the sting out of them , with as sweet and friendly a smile as any he remembers in the Devonshire days .  But the sting is not taken out , all the same ; it lingers , pricking and burning still , after both the tall , thin , black figure , and the slim , little gray one have disappeared .  The moment that this is the case , Byng rejoins his friend ; a curiosity and alert interest in his young eyes , which his companion feels no desire to gratify .  He is unable , however , to maintain the entire silence he had intended upon the subject , since Byng , after waiting for what , to his impatience , appears a more than decent interval , is constrained to remark —  " Did I hear you tell that lady , when first you spoke to her , that she was dead ?  "  " I thought she was .  "  " Had you heard it ?  "  " No. "  " Did you see it in the papers ?  "  " No. "  A pause .  " I wonder why you thought she was dead .  "  The other makes a rather impatient movement .  " I had no reason — none whatever .  It was an idiotic inference .  "  Byng draws a long breath of satisfaction .  " Well , at all events , I am very glad that she is not .  "  Jim turns upon him with something of the expression of face worn by Mrs. Sarah Gamp on hearing Mrs. Prig express her belief that it was not by Mrs. Harris that her services would be required .  " Why should you be glad of that , Betsy ?  She is unbeknown to you except by hearing .  Why should you be glad ?  "  As Byng 'scase is a more aggravated one than Mrs. Prig 's, seeing that Elizabeth Le Marchant is ' unbeknown ' to him even by hearing , so is the warmth , or rather coldness , with which his friend receives his remark not inferior to that of " Sairey .  "  " I do not quite see how it affects you .  Why are you glad ?  "  " Why am I glad ? " replies the younger man , with a lightening eye .  " For the same reason that I am glad that Vandyke painted that picture " — pointing to it — " or that Shakespeare wrote As You Like It .  The world is the richer by them all three .  "  But to this poetic and flattering analogy , Jim 'sonly answer is a surly " Humph !  "  CHAPTER V.  " There are no more by-path meadows where you may innocently linger , but the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave . You may think you had a conscience and believed in God ; but what is conscience to a wife ? ... . To marry is to domesticate the Recording Angel . Once you are married , there is nothing left for you — not even suicide — but to be good . "  There is no particular reason why Burgoyne should not impart to his companion what he knows — after all it is not very much — about their two countrywomen .  Upon reflection he had told himself this , and conquered a reluctance , that he cannot account for , to mentioning their name ; and to relating the story of those shadowy idyllic two months of his life , which form all of it that has ever come into contact with theirs .  So that by the time — some thirty-six hours later — when they reach Florence , the younger man is in possession of as much information about the objects of their common interest as it is in the power of the elder one to impart .  To neither of them , meanwhile , is any second glimpse vouchsafed of those objects , eagerly — though with different degrees of overtness in that eagerness — as they both look out for them among the luggage-piles and the tweed-clad English ladies at the station .  It had been the intention of Burgoyne that he and his friend should put up at the same hotel as that inhabited by his betrothed and her family ; hut , finding that it is full , he orders rooms at the Minerva , and in the fallen dusk of a rather chill spring night , finds himself traversing the short distance from the railway to that hotel .  As he and Byng sit over their coffee after dinner in the salle à manger , almost its only tenants at that late hour , the younger man remarks matter-of-factly , as if stating a proposition almost too obvious to be worth uttering —  " I suppose you are off to the Anglo-Américain now .  "  " I think not , " replies Jim slowly ; " it is past ten , you see , and they are early people .  " He adds a moment later , as if suspecting his own excuse of insufficiency , " Mr. Wilson is rather an invalid , and there is also an invalid or semi-invalid sister ; I think that I had better not disturb them to-night .  "  Byng has never been engaged to be married , except in theory , and it is certainly no business of his to blow his friend 'sflagging ardour into flame , so he contents himself with an acquiescent observation to the effect that the train must have been late .  But at all events the next morning finds Burgoyne paying his fiacre at the door of the Anglo-Américain , with the confidence of a person who is certain of finding those he seeks , a confidence justified by the result ; for , having followed a waiter across a courtyard , and heard him knock at a door on the ground-floor , that door opens with an instantaneousness which gives the idea of an ear having been pricked to catch the expected rap , and the next moment , the intervening garçon having withdrawn , Jim stands face to face with his Amelia .  Her features are all alight with pleasure , but her first words are not particularly amorous .  " Would you mind coming into the dining-room ?  Sybilla is in the drawing-room already this morning .  She said she was afraid it was going to be one of her bad days , so I thought " ( rather regretfully ) " that possibly she would be a little later than usual in coming down ; but , on the contrary , she is much earlier .  "  It is possible that an extremely ardent love may be independent of surroundings ; may burn with as fierce a flame , when its owner or victim is seated on a hard horsehair chair beside a dining-room table , in a little dull hotel back room , as when the senses are courted by softly-cushioned lounges , penetrating flower-scents , and cunningly arranged bric-à-brac ; but perhaps Jim 'spassion is not of this intense and Spartan quality .  At all events a chill steals over him as Amelia leads the way into that small and uncheerful chamber where the Wilson family daily banquet .  He is not so lost to all sense of what England and Amelia expect of him as not to take her in his arms and kiss her very kindly and warmly , before they sit down on two hard chairs side by side ; and even when they have done so , he still holds her hand , and kisses it now and then .  He has a great many things to say to her , but " out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh " is not invariably true .  Sometimes that very abundance clogs the utterance , and , after a ten months 'separation , the hinges of even lovers 'tongues are apt at first to be somewhat rusty .  " And are you really glad to see me again ?  " asks the woman — she is scarcely a girl , having the doubtful advantage of being her betrothed 'ssenior by two years .  The horsehair chairs are obviously powerless to take the edge off her bliss ; and she can scarcely command her voice as she asks the question .  " I decline to answer all such futile inquiries , " replies he , smiling not unkindly ; but there is no tremor in his voice .  " Even if I did not discourage them on principle , I should have no time to answer them to-day ; I have so much to say to you that I do not know where to begin .  "  " After ten months that is not very surprising , " rejoins she , with a stifled sigh .  There is no sentimental reproach in her words or tone ; but in both lurks a note of wistfulness which gives his conscience a prick .  " Of course not !  of course not !  " he rejoins hastily ; " but it is not really ten months — no , surely — — "  " Ten months , one week , two days , four hours and a half !  "  Against such exactitude of memory what appeal has he ?  He attempts none , and only thinks with a faint unjust irritation that she might have spared him the odd hours .  " And how are things going ?  How are you all getting on ?  " he asks , precipitating himself upon a fresh subject , since he feels prevented by circumstances from saying anything likely to bring him much distinction upon the old one .  " Your father ?  "  " His throat is better " — with an accent of hesitating filial piety , as if there were something else about him that was not better .  " And Sybilla ?  "  " Oh , poor Sybilla !  she has her bad days now and then .  "  " And , like the early Christians , she resolves to have all things in common .  I expect that her family have their bad days too , " says Jim dryly .  " Well , we do sometimes , " replies Amelia with reluctant admission ; " but she really does try to control herself , poor thing ; she is hardly ever unbearable now .  "  " And Cecilia ?  "  " She is rather in trouble just now ; I fear there is no doubt that the man she was engaged to has thrown her over .  You never saw him ?  Oh no !  Of course , the affair came on after you left England .  "  Burgoyne 'seyebrows have gone up , and his face has assumed an expression less of surprise than admiration at this piece of news .  " How many does that make ?  Four ?  Well , courage !  There is luck in odd numbers ; perhaps she will land the fifth .  "  " She will tell you about it herself , " says Amelia ; " she tells everybody ; she likes talking about it — it is very odd , but she does .  When you throw me over " — rubbing his hand which she holds , with shy and deprecating caressingness , against her own cheek — " I shall tell nobody ; I shall keep my misfortune very dark .  "  " When I do !  " repeats he with laughing emphasis ; but to his own ear both the emphasis and the laughter sound flat .  This is perhaps the cause why he , a second time , runs away from his subject ; or , more probably , he is really in haste to get to the new one .  " Meanwhile , " he says , his eyes involuntarily dropping to the carpet , as if he had rather not see the effect of his words upon her ; " meanwhile , someone has thrown me over .  "  " You ?  "  " Yes , me ; I did not write it to you , because I do not see much use in putting down bad news in black and white , and even with this little delay , I am afraid , " with a dry smile , " that you will have plenty of time to enjoy it .  "  He pauses for an instant , and she does not hurry him with any teasing questions ; but waits , with meek patience , till he feels inclined to go on .  " My aunt is going to be married .  "  If he has wished that his news shall produce the effect of a torpedo , he has no cause to complain of his want of success .  His placid Amelia vaults to her feet .  " Married !  " she repeats with a gasp .  " Why , she is quite , quite old !  "  " She is sixty-five !  "  The colour has flooded all Amelia 'sface ; the blazing colour that means not pleasure , but consternation .  It is some moments before she can frame her next query .  " And is he ?  — do you ?  — has she chosen wisely , I mean ?  "  Jim laughs again .  " Can one choose wisely at sixty-five ?  Well , whether she has or no is a matter of opinion ; she has chosen the curate of the parish , who , by reason of his extreme juvenility , is still in deacon 'sorders .  "  Miss Wilson 'slimbs are shaking so that she cannot maintain her standing attitude .  She sinks down by the dining-table again in her hard chair .  It is a very hard chair on which to receive such ill news .  " And cannot you hinder it , cannot you dissuade her ?  " she asks falteringly .  " I shall not try ; poor old woman !  After all , she has a right to pursue her own happiness in her own way , only I wish that she had made up her mind twenty years ago ; though , to be sure , how could she ?  " — with another smile — " since , at that time , her bridegroom was not much more than born .  "  A dead silence supervenes — a silence of shocked stupefaction on the one side , of rather dismal brooding on the other .  At length Amelia nerves herself to put a question upon which it seems to her , not very incorrectly , that her whole future hangs .  She does it in such a low voice that none but very sharp ears could have caught it .  Jim 'sears are so ; practised as they are in listening for the stealthy tread of wild animals , and for the indescribable sounds of mountain solitudes at night .  " Will it — will it — make a great difference to you ?  "  Burgoyne lifts his eyes , which have been idly bent on the floor , and looks straight and full at her across the corner of the table .  " It will make all the difference !  " he answers slowly .  Poor Amelia is holding her handkerchief in her hand .  She lifts it to her mouth and bites a corner of it to hide the quivering of her lips and chin .  She does not wish to add to his pain by any breakdown on her own part .  But Jim divines the quivering even under the morsel of cambric , and looks away again .  " Her money is almost entirely in her own power , " he continues , in an unemotional voice ; " and when she announced her marriage to me , she also announced her intention of settling the whole of it upon her — her " — he pauses a second , as if resolved to keep out of his voice the accent of satire and bitterness that pierces through its calm — " her husband .  "  Amelia has dropped both shielding hand and handkerchief into her lap .  She has forgotten her effort to conceal the blankness of her dismay .  Unless she conceals the whole of her face , indeed , the attempt would be in vain , since each feature speaks it equally .  " Her whole fortune ?  " she repeats , almost inaudibly .  " All ? "  " What , all my pretty chickens and their dam ? "  says Jim , oppressed by her overwhelmed look into an artificial and dreary levity , and in not particularly apt quotation .  " My dear , do not look so broken-hearted .  I am not absolutely destitute ; I need not become a sandwich man .  I have still got my £ 800 a year , my very own , which neither man nor mouse , neither curate nor vicar , can take from me .  I can still go on rioting upon that ; the question is " — his words coming more slowly , and his tone growing graver — " have I any right to ask you to riot on it too ?  "  Her hand has gone in feverish haste out to his for answer , and her eyes , into which the tears are welling , look with an intense dumb wistfulness into his ; but , for the moment , it remains dumb .  There is something painful to Burgoyne in that wistfulness , almost more painful than the telling of that news which has produced it .  He looks down upon the tablecloth , and , with his disengaged hand , the one not imprisoned in his betrothed 'sfond hold , draws patterns with a paper-knife accidentally left there .  " The one thing that I blame her for , " he continues , not following up the branch of the subject that his last speech had begun to open up , and speaking with a composure which , to the stricken Amelia , appears to evidence his attainment of the highest pinnacle of manly fortitude , " the only thing I blame her for , is her having hindered my adopting any profession .  Poor old woman , it was not malice prepense , I know ; she had not seen her Jessamey then , probably had not even a prophetic instinct of him , but as things turned out " — stifling a sigh — " it would have been kinder to have put me in the way of earning my own living .  "  Amelia 'shead has sunk down upon his hand — he feels her hot tears upon it ; but now that the theme has no longer reference to herself , she can speak .  She straightens herself , and there is a flash , such as he has very seldom seen there , in her rather colourless orbs .  " It was monstrous of her !  " she cries , with the almost exaggerated passion of a usually very self-controlled person .  " After having always told you that you were to be her heir !  "  " But had she told me so ?  " replies Jim , passing his hand with a perplexed air over his own face .  " That is what I have been trying to recall for the last few days .  I never remember the time when I did not believe it , so I suppose that someone must have told me so ; but I could not swear that she herself had ever put it down in black and white .  However , " tossing his head back with a gesture as of one who throws off his shoulders a useless burden , " what does that matter now ?  I am not her heir , I am nobody 'sheir ; we must look facts in the face !  Amelia , dear " — in a tone of reluctant tender affection , as of one compelled , yet most unwilling , to give a little child , or some other soft , helpless creature , pain — " we must look facts in the face !  " There is something in his voice that makes Amelia 'sheart stand still ; but she attempts no interruption .  " It is very hard for me , dear , after all these " — he pauses a second ; he is about to say " weary years 'waiting , " but his conscience arrests him ; to him they have not been weary , so , after a hardly-perceptible break , he goes on — " after all these many years 'waiting , to have come to this , is not it ?  "  He had not calculated on the effect which would be produced by his melancholy words and his caressing tone .  She buries her face on his shoulder , sobbing uncontrollably .  " They were not long !  " she murmurs brokenly .  " Nothing is , nothing can be , long to me as long as I have you , or the hope of you !  "  CHAPTER VI .  It is , perhaps , fortunate for Amelia that she cannot see the expression of the face which looks out above her prostrate head into space , with a blankness equal to what has been her own , a blankness streaked , as hers was not , with remorse .  He would give anything to be able to answer her in her own key , to tell her that , as long as he can keep her , the going or coming of any lesser good hurts him as little as the brushing past his cheek of a summer moth or windblown feather .  But when he tries to frame a sentence of this kind , his tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth .  He can only hold her to him in an affectionate clasp , whose dumbness he hopes that she attributes to silencing emotion .  She herself indulges in no very prolonged manifestation of her passion .  In a few moments she is again sitting up beside him with wiped eyes , none the handsomer , poor soul , for having cried , and listening with a deep attention to an exposition of her lover 'sposition and prospects , which he is at no pains to tinge with a factitious rose colour .  " Have you realized , " he says , " that I shall never be better off than I am now ?  never !  never ! For though of course I shall try to get work , one knows how successful that quest generally is in the case of a man with no special aptitudes , no technical training , and who starts in the race handicapped by being ten years too late !  "  But the dismalness of this panorama raises no answering gloom in the young woman 'sface .  She nods her head gently .  " I realize it .  "  " And this is what I have brought you to , after all these years 'waiting , " he continues , in a tone of profound regret .  " All I can offer you at the end of them is a not particularly genteel poverty , not even a cottage with a double coach-house !  " — laughing grimly .  " I do not want a double coach-house , nor even a single one !  " replies Amelia stoutly , and laughing too , a little , through returning tears .  " Do not you know that I had rather drive a costermonger 'sbarrow with you than go in a coach and six without you !  "  This is the highest flight of imagination of which Jim has ever known his matter-of-fact Amelia guilty , and he can pay her his thanks for it only in compunctious kisses .  Perhaps it is they , perhaps it is the thought which dictates her next hesitating speech , that bring a light into Amelia 'stear-reddened eyes .  " If you will never be better off — — " She stops .  " Yes , dear , go on ; ' if I shall never be better off ' — I certainly never shall ; I feel sure that you will be able to put my earnings for the next ten years into your eye , and see none the worse for them !  "  " If — you — will — never — be — better — off — — " she repeats again , more slowly , and breaking off at the same place .  " Well , dear ?  "  " If you will never be better off " — this time she finishes her sentence ; but it is rendered almost inaudible by the fact of her flushed face and quivering lips being pressed against his breast — " why should we wait any longer ?  "  Why should we wait any longer ? To most persons , granted the usual condition of feeling of a betrothed couple , this would seem a very natural and legitimate deduction from the premises ; but , strange to say , it comes upon Burgoyne with the shock of a surprise .  He has been thinking vaguely of his change of fortune as a cause for unlimited delay , perhaps for the rupture of his engagement , never as a reason for its immediate fulfilment .  He gives a sort of breathless gasp , which is happily too low for Amelia with her still hidden face to hear .  To be married at once !  To sit down for all time to Amelia and £ 800 a year !  To forego for ever the thrilling wandering life ; the nights under the northern stars , the stealthy tracking of shy forest creatures ; the scarce coarse delicious food , the cold , the fatigue , the hourly peril , that , since its probable loss is ever in sight , make life so sweetly worth having — all , in short , that goes to make up so many an Englishman 'sideal of felicity ; that has certainly hitherto gone to make up Jim 's.  To renounce it all !  There is no doubt that the bitterness of this thought comes first ; but presently , supplanting it , chasing it away , there follows another , a self-reproachful light flashing over his past eight years , showing him his own selfishness colossal and complete for the first time .  In a paroxysm of remorse , he has lifted Amelia 'sface , and , framing it with his hands , looks searchingly into it .  " I believe , " he says in a shaken voice , " that you would have married me eight years ago , on my pittance , if I had asked you !  "  No " Yes " was ever written in larger print than that which he read in her patient pale eyes .  Even at this instant there darts across him a wish that they were not quite so pale , but he detests himself for it .  " And I never suspected it !  " he cries compunctiously .  " I give you my word of honour , I never suspected it !  I thought you looked upon my poverty in as prohibitory a light as I did myself .  "  " I do not call it such great poverty , " replies Amelia , her practical mind resuming its habitual sway over her emotions .  " Of course , it is an income that would require a little management ; but if we cut our coat according to our cloth , and did not want to move about too much , we might live either in a not very fashionable part of London , or in some cheap district in the country very comfortably .  "  Despite his remorse , a cold shiver runs down Burgoyne 'sspine at the picture that rises , conjured up with too much distinctness by her words , before his mind 'seyes ; the picture of a snug Bayswater villa , with a picturesque parlour-maid , or the alternative cottage in some dreary Wiltshire or Dorsetshire village , with a shrubbery of three aucuba bushes , and a kitchen-garden of half an acre .  It may be that , her frame being in such close proximity to his , she feels the influence of his shiver , and that it suggests her next sentence , which is in a less sanguine key .  " But it would not be fair ; it would be asking you to give up too much .  "  The meek abnegation of her rather worn voice brings his remorse uppermost again on the revolving wheel of his feelings .  " Is not it my turn to give up something ?  " he asks tenderly ; " and besides , it is time for me to settle !  I am — I am tired of wandering !  "  As this atrocious lie passes his lips , he catches his breath .  Tired of the Sierras !  Tired of the bivouacs among the dazzling snow !  Tired of the august silence of the ever-lasting hills !  Heaven forgive him for saying so !  Perhaps there is no great air of veracity in his assertion , for she looks at him distrustfully ; so distrustfully that he reshapes his phrase : " At least , if I am not , I ought to be !  "  But still she gazes at him with a wistful and doubting intentness .  " If I could only believe that that was true !  "  " It is true , " replies he , evading her look ; " at least , true enough for all working purposes ; we all know that life is a series of compromises , a balancing of gain and loss .  I shall lose something , I do not deny that , but I gain more — I gain you !  "  " That is such a mighty gain , is it not ?  " she says with a melancholy smile , as that intuition of the truth which sometimes comes to unloved or tepidly loved women flashes upon her .  " A matter of taste — a mere matter of taste !  " rejoins he hurriedly ; aware of the unreal ring in his own words , and trying , with all his might , to feel as well as speak light-heartedly .  She shakes her head in a way which tells him how poorly he has succeeded .  In a desperate if not very well-judged attempt to convince her of his sincerity , his next speech is uttered .  " Why should not we be married at once ?  to-morrow ?  the day after to-morrow ?  at the Consulate — of course there is a Consulate — or the English church ; I suppose there are half a dozen English churches .  Why not ?  We have nothing to wait for , and we are both of age !  "  He has had no unkindly intention in the last words , but the moment that these are out of his mouth , a glance at Amelia 'sunblooming face and unyouthful figure tell him that they were not happily chosen .  At the first instant that the suggestion of an immediate marriage reaches the hearer 'sbrain , it sends a dart of joy over her features .  To be married at once !  To put an end for ever to the interminable waiting , to enter at last — at last upon the possession of the so long deferred Canaan .  But in a second , that first bright flash is chased away , and gives place to a look of almost humiliation .  " You must be making fun of me , to suggest such a thing !  " she says in a wounded voice ; " you know how wildly impossible it would be that I should leave them all — my father — Sybilla — without any preparation .  "  " Without any preparation !  " replies Jim , raising his eyebrows .  " Have not you been preparing them for the last eight years ?  "  He feels a vague unjust irritation with her for opposing his proposition , though deep down in his heart he knows that he would have felt a much greater annoyance had she eagerly closed with it .  As she does not answer a question , which the moment that it is uttered he feels to have been rather brutal , he goes on , against his will , in the same sarcastic key :  " I am afraid that you will have to leave them all some day ; I am afraid that our Bayswater mansion — by-the-bye , I am sure it will not be a mansion , for I am sure it will not have a back-door — will not be likely to contain all .  Your father — Sybilla — Sybilla and her physic bottles take up a good deal of room , do not they ?  "  It is fortunate for Amelia that she is too preoccupied by the thought of her own next speech to take in the full acerbity of the last remark .  " If you would consent to wait till we get home — father does not mean to stay in Italy beyond the end of next month — we might be married in June ; that " ( with a pink flush of happiness ) " would not be so long to wait .  "  In a second a sum of the simplest description executes itself in Burgoyne 'shead .  It is now the second week of April ; they are to be married in June , he has then eight weeks left .  It shocks himself to find that this is the way in which he puts it .  All the overt action that he permits himself , however , is to say with a shrug :  " As you will , then , as you will !  " adding , since he feels that there is something discourteous even to unchivalry in so bald an acquiescence in his prospective bliss , " Of course , dear , the sooner I get you the better for me !  "  No lover could have been overheard giving utterance to a more proper or suitable sentiment ; so that it is lucky that this is just the moment that Cecilia chooses for entering .  " Do not be afraid , " she says , with a laugh .  " I will not stay a minute , but I just wanted to say ' How do you do ?  ' How well you are looking !  and how young !  " — with an involuntary glance of comparison from him to her sister ; a glance of which they are both rather painfully conscious .  " Ah !  " ( sighing ) " with all your Rocky Mountain experiences , it is evident that you have been having an easier time than we have !  "  " Are you alluding to Sybilla ?  " asks Jim gravely .  " I have no doubt , from what I know of her powers in that line , that she has been extremely trying .  "  " Yes , partly , " replies the girl doubtfully ; " but I have had troubles of my own too .  I dare say that Amelia has told you , or probably " ( with a second and heavier sigh ) " you have been more pleasantly employed .  "  " Amelia did hint at some disaster , " replies Jim , struggling to conceal the rather grim smile which is curving his mouth , a feat the more difficult since he has no moustache to aid him ; " but I have been waiting to hear all the details from yourself .  "  " I know that you are apt to think I fancy things , " says Cecilia , sitting down on a third hard chair , " but there could be no fancy in this case ; I am sure I was as much engaged as any girl ever was .  I had chosen the drawing-room paper and bought the dining-room grate !  "  " That is further than we ever got , is not it , Amelia ?  " says Jim , breaking , at the relation of this prosaic fact , into the laugh he has been with difficulty swallowing ; " but , Cis , if I were you , I should keep the grate ; one does not know how soon its services may be required again !  "  " It is all very well for you to joke , " returns Cecilia , with an offended air ; " it may be play to you , but it is — — "  " Not death , not quite death to you !  " interrupts Burgoyne , glancing with an expressive smile at her buxom outline .  " I think you will live to fight another day , will not you ?  But I really am extremely sorry ; tell me all about it .  "  " He was perfectly right when we left England , " says Cecilia , mollified at once , and apparently relieved by the invitation to unbosom herself of her woes ; " nobody could have been more so ; he came to see us off at Folkestone , and the tears were in his eyes ; they were really , it was not my imagination , was it , Amelia ?  And at first he wrote all right , and said all the usual things ; but then his letters gradually grew fewer and fewer , and after I had written and telegraphed a great many times — I do not know how many times I did not telegraph to ask whether he was ill , and you know how expensive foreign telegrams are — he sent me a few lines , oh , such cruel lines , were not they , Amelia ?  to say that , on reflection , he feared that the feeling he had for me was not such as to justify his entering on so sacred an engagement as marriage with me ; but he ought to have thought of that before , ought not he ?  "  " Undoubtedly !  "  " I will never engage myself to a clergyman again , " says Cecilia pensively .  Burgoyne 'sthoughts have strayed at the mention of the cloth of his sister-in-law elect 'struant admirer , to that member of the same profession who has lately robbed him of his heritage , and he replies with a good deal of feeling :  " They do play one dirty turns now and then , do not they ?  Yes , Cis , stick to laymen for the future !  "  Cecilia receives this counsel with a melancholy sigh , fixing her large eyes on the carpet , but presently resumes the conversation in a livelier key .  " Let us talk about something pleasanter , " she says .  " Had you a good journey ?  Do you like your travelling companion ?  Why did not you bring him with you ?  Is he nice ?  "  " At all events , he is not a clergyman , " replies Jim , with a rather malicious smile ; " but no , my dear , do not let your thoughts turn in that direction !