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58 - -
- FOR~ CASH ONLY.
' to have been brought about by overtrading.
There are enormous liabilities. I am afraid ‘t
" is nothing short of a catastrophe.”
“‘Then, after all, it is better that your—I
mean Clare’s money should have been with-
drawn from the business?”
Herbert nodded, with shut lips.
“* Poor Mildred!” sighed Clare.
“Yes, she is not a young lady formed to
shine in adversity,” observed Miss Darrell. _
** Hush, hush! for shame, Nannie!” said Clare,
~ in reproof of the other’s tone rather than of her
words. ‘ ‘‘ Think of what my case might have
been, and of what you yourself were saying of
it an hour ago. Do you really think that the
firm is ruined, Herbert?”
“Indeed I am afraid so. People have had
their suspicions of something wrong for some
time. The mill, indeed, has not stopped work-
ing, but I expect to hear of it by the next post.
Mr. Oldcastle promised to write last night.
There may be a letter even now at my lodg-
ings,” Miss Darrell was nodding at him as
though she would nod her head off. “Tl just
step round, and then come back again.”
“Do, Herbert; we shall be very anxious to
hear your news.”
He did not need the speaker's significant
- glance at Clare to tell him who would be the
most anxious. .
He rose quickly, and, accompanied by his
hostess, left the room. Then the pent-up
tears began to fall down Clare’s pale cheeks,
She had been infamously used, but all her
ill-usage was forgotten now. - It was no thanks
to Sir Peter and his people that she had not
been reduced—and. as she believed, fraudulent-
ly reduced—to penury; but it was not of her|-
possible misfortune she was thinking, but of
their real one. ‘‘ Poor Mildred! what a wretch-
ed fate is yours !” she murmured. A knowledge
of the weakness of the girl’s character, and even
- its duplicity, only swelled her pity for her,
With her artificial views, and love of wealth and
show for their own sake, how would she ever
bear such areverse of fortune? And then, but
“under her breath, as though she dared not
breathe his name even to herself, she added,
“‘ Poor Percy !” . .
CHAPTER XLII.
SECOND LOVE,
Ir was more than an hour before Miss Darrell
rejoined her guest. She came in very quickly,
and, sitting down by her side, took out her
knitting-needles and worked away in silence,
waiting to be spoken to like any ghost.
“Had Herbert anything else to say about—
about this sad business, Nannie ?” ‘
“Yes, my dear, a great deal. His heart js so
tender and his feelings so delicate, that he did
not like to speak to you more fully, for a reason
that you can guess.” /
“J3 it anything about Percy?” |
“«Of course itis, returned Miss Darrell, snap-
pishly. She was angry that Clare did not so
much as assent to her eulogy on her young
favorite’s good taste. ‘Percy has been be-
having most infamously. It is quite true that
- the firm has been overtrading, which seems to
- and to spare!” ©
have been Sir Peter’s fault, who was always for
greed; but that was not the cause, or, at all
events, the chief cause, of the failure. Percy
has been pledging the credit of the firm upon
his own account; he has lost thousands and
thousands.” ’ .
** Lost—how lost ?. How could he lose money,
if it was Sir Peter’s fault ?”
. “Jt was not in trade; it wasonthe turf. For
years and years, itseems, he has been gambling
on the race-course. He has been running horses
of his own under false colors; his turf name, it
seems, is Jennings. I always said he was a
fibber. Ob, my darling, from what a fate have
you escaped!”
“How could he—could he do so?” moaned
the girl, taking no notice of this course’of con-
gratulation. “As if he had not money enough
“Not enough; my dear, that’s just where it
is. Noone has ever enough money in Stoke-
ville. I grant they are very liberal with it—
~ _—
that is, some of them—but they are always
wanting more. Their motto is, ‘For. cash
only.” : : -
“‘True, and that should make us charitable,
Nannie, to the failings of those who have been
brought up among such surroundings.”
“Not a bit of it!” exclaimed the old lady;
‘‘that is, I mean the losing money in the way
of business is very different from losing itfon a
race-horse. If your thirty thousand pounds’
worth of railway debentures were to go wrong,
that would be your misfortune, not your fault;
but if you put the money on the favorite for the
Derby, it would not be ‘uncharitable,’ I con-
clude, to call you a gambler.”
‘*Of course not. Women, however, unless
they are very great ladies, indeed (this she put
in with a faintzsmile of deprecation), are not ex-
posed to that sort of temptation. We cannot
understand it, and therefore our condemnation
should be less severe.”
‘*Then the same thing must be true of drink-
ing,” observed the old lady. ‘‘ When one meets
a sot, one ought to say, instead of ‘ How shock-
ing? ‘Well, after all, one does not know how
nice it is to get intoxicated.’ ”
“T think there is a difference,” pleaded
Clare; ‘‘though I am far from defending Percy’s
conduct.” ;
‘Well, that only shows how people may be
mistaken,” observed Miss Darrell, implacably.
“T really thought you were excusing it.. To
my mind his passing under an alias is not a
creditable feature in the affair; but, as you
suggest, one cannot understand the tempta-
tion that besets some folks to pass under an
alias.”
«<The man is down,” said Clare, lifting up her
head for the first time, and confronting her
friend with great displeasure; ‘‘why trample
on him? Such conduct is unworthy of you,
Nannie.”
“Tdo not trample on him, but I do not pity
him; and I confess it makes me mad to see
you waste your sympathy’on so base an object.
There is one infinitely more worthy of your
sympathy——”
She stopped, disconcerted by the look of gen-
uine astonishment in the other’s face. She had
meant to take her to task for her conduct to
Herbert Newton; to accuse her of coldness and
ingratitude; to’ point out to her that here, in-
deed, was a man worthy of a woman’s love, but
whom she treated at best only with friendly
regard; but the conviction thus suddenly borne
in upon her that Clare might be in total -ig-
norance of Herbert’s feelings towards her closed
her lips. If this was so the language of reproof
would be out of place and injudicious; nay, the
very worst means of recommending him as a
lover. Even as it wasshe feared she had in-
jured Herbert’s interests by declaiming against
his rival. ~ “
*-Of whom are you speaking ?” asked Clare,
earnestly. ‘‘Who has a greater claim upon my
pity than this unhappy man?”
‘*The man he has wronged—Frank Farrer.”
** What has Percy to do with Frank Farrer ?”
Notwithstanding this inquiry, it was plain
that Clare had guessed what had happened.
Her’ face had turned deathly pale; her hand
was pressed tightly against her heart, as though
to still its forebodings;-her voice had sunk al-
most to a whisper.
«We has carried off his bride from him; de-
ceived him; fooled him. Percy is Mildred’s
husband.” :
Clare gave a little start, then turned her face
away from her companion and listened without
speech or movement. - :
‘‘When Mildred went up to town to-buy her
trousseau, and though the very day for her
wedding with Mr. Farrer was actually fixed, she |
was privately married to Percy Fibbert., It is
supposed they have been in love with one an-
other for a long time; or rather, I should say,”
said Miss Darrell, hastily correcting herself,
‘that Mildred has always had a penchant for
her cousin. I wish him joy of her!”
*‘J am afraid, indeed, she will make an in-
different wife for a poor man,” observed Clare,
speaking very slowly and distinctly—like one
who essays a foreign and unfamiliar tongue.
**Oh, as to that, Mr. Fibbert has taken care
that his nest is well feathered. Sir Peter settted
a large sum of money.on his daughter years”
ago, of which, no doubt, his nephew was aware.
The old man is said to be more irate about this
clandestine union than even about the loss of
his money.” ‘
*« Poor man! poor man!”
‘Yes, one feels much more sorry for him than
for’Mr. Farrer, who, indeed, has: had a most
fortunate escape. It seems he was informed of
the marriage by Mildred herself, but was pre-
vailed on to keep it secret. He must be a very
weak young man.”
“* Or else a very chivalrous one,” put in Clare.
‘* Perhaps he really loved her.” \
‘‘ That is possible, of course,” said Miss Dar-
rell. .‘* One can be certain, however, that Perey
didn’t.”
“‘Why?” inquired Clare, gently.
‘* Because Percy Fibbert is incapable of lov-
ing any human being except himself,” was the
uncompromising reply. :
Clare answered only with a sigh. At the
bottom.of her woman’s heart there had been,
perhaps, a hope that her companion’s. reply
would have been different. Love was dead
within her, but she remembered the days when
it had been alive, and surely not in her own
bosom only. To hear that Percy had never
loved her was what in a lesser nature would
have been a wound to its amour propre. . She
fell into a reverie which Miss Darrell—upon
whose shoulders Fluff had just established him-
self—was careful, on all accounts, not to dis-
turb; the memories ofher former passion throng-
ed her thoughts from dawn till night. Like
some pagan, ‘suckled in a creed outworn,” and
mvinced of its falsehood; who revisits. the
sacred objects of his former worship, she gazed
on the deserted temples, the shattered shrine of
her dead love, for the last time.
Her case was worse than that of the skeptic:
for the conviction was at last brought home to
her that the object of her worship had not
only been a false god but a bad one. How
strange it seemed that all the happiness of her
life—or certainly its greatest happiness—had up
to lately been evoked under a misapprehension
grounded on a mistake, and was in fact an illu-
sion! Illusions of this kind cost some women
their lives, but she was not one of that descrip-
tion. She knew that she had escaped a fate,
of the wretchedness of which she was fully
cognizant, by a mere hair’s-breadth. And yet,
alas! this afforded her no ground for congratu-
lation.. She felt like a gambler who has lost.
his all to sharpers for no possible gain. Her
youth, her love, her trust had all been flun,
away, as it were, into the gutter. How shoul
she have known, how should. she have guessed
what manner of man he was? Then she re-
membered how her father had warned her
against Percy and what Herbert had once been
on the point of saying in the garden at Oak
Lodge, when she had silenced him with, “I
will not listen to one word against him.”
Presently there was a ring at the bell, which
announced her cousin’s return,
“Tf to see him—to see anybody, I mean—dis-
tresses you just now, darling,” whispered Miss:
Darrell, tenderly, ‘‘I will make your excuses.”
Clare shook her head. ‘‘It does not distress
me; besides, Herbert would think it unkind if I
were to run away.”
‘No; he would wish you to do what is best.
for yourself; that is the peculiarity of Herbert;
he is always thinking of others.. Did you not
notice how Fluff took to him? That is an in-
fallible sign.”
‘“But he doesn’t take to me,” smiled Clare;
‘the has not once jumped upon my shoulder.”
‘‘That is becasue you wear arufile. I didn’t
like to mention it, but those nasty crimped col-
lars tickle the poor darling.—Well, what news,
Herbert?” ‘ «
“Tam sorry to say, bad news. The mill is
stopped; the firm have suspended payment.”
“Well, they were not nice people, any of
them,” observed Miss Darrell; ‘‘but I am sorry
for it.” : :
‘Poor Sir Peter!” sighed Clare; ‘‘ what a ter. ;
rible downfall for him! I2%cannot fancy Sir
Peter as otherwise than prosperous. Surely in
Stokeville, where he has done so much, some-