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from worrying thoughts. She forgot the same, as she had a horror of posiSelina and she "qualified" herself a tively hiding anything (Selina herself little-though for what she hardly knew. did that enough for two) it was her The day Mr. Wendover dined in Gros- purpose to mention at luncheon, on the venor Place they talked about St. Paul's, day of the event, that she had agreed which he expressed a desire to see, to accompany Mr. Wendover to St. wishing to get some ideas of the past, Paul's. It so happened, however, that as he said, in England, as well as of the Mrs. Berrington was not at home at this present. Laura mentioned that she repast; Laura partook of it in the comhad spent half an hour, the summer be- pany of Miss Steet and her young charfore, in the big black temple on Lud- ges. It very often happened now that gate Hill; whereupon he asked her if the sisters didn't meet in the morning, he might entertain the hope that-if for Selina remained very late in her it were not disagreeable to her to go room, and there had been a considerable again-she would serve as his guide intermission of the girl's earlier custhere. She had taken him to see Lady tom of visiting her there. It was SeliDavenant, who was so remarkable and na's habit to send forth from this fragworth a long journey, and now he rant sanctuary little hieroglyphic notes, should like to pay her back-to show in which she expressed her wishes or her something. The difficulty would gave her directions for the day. be that there was probably nothing she the morning I speak of her maid put hadn't seen, but if she could think of into Laura's hand one of these comanything he was completely at her ser- munications, which contained the words, vice. They sat together at dinner, and "Please be sure and replace me with she told him she would think of some- the children at lunch. I meant to give thing before the repast was over. A them that hour to-day. But I have a little while later she let him know that frantic appeal from Lady Watermouth; a charming place had occurred to her she is worse, and beseeches me to come -a place to which she was afraid to go to her, so I rush for the 12.30 train." alone and where she should be grateful These lines required no answer, and for a protector; she would tell him Laura had no questions to ask about more about it afterwards. It was then Lady Watermouth. She knew she was settled between them that on a certain tiresomely ill, in exile, condemned to afternoon of the same week they would forego the diversions of the season and go to St. Paul's together, extending calling out to her friends, in a house she their ramble as much further as they had taken for three months at Weyhad time. Laura lowered her voice for bridge (for a certain particular air) this discussion, as if the range of allu- where Selina had already been to see sion had had a kind of impropriety. her. Selina's devotion to her appeared She was now still more of the mind that commendable-she had her so much on Mr. Wendover was a good young man her mind. Laura had observed in her -he had such worthy eyes. His prin- sister, in relation to other persons and cipal defect was that he treated all sub- objects, these sudden intensities of charjects as if they were equally important; ity, and she had said to herself, watchbut that was perhaps better than treat- ing them-"Is it because she is bad ?— ing them with equal levity. If one took does she want to make up for it somean interest in him one might not de- how and to buy herself off from the spair of teaching him to discriminate. penalties?"

Laura said nothing, at first, to her sister about her appointment with him; the feelings with which she regarded Selina were not such as to make it easy for her to talk over matters of conduct, as it were, with this votary of pleasure at any price, or at any rate to report her arrangements to her as one would do to a person of fine judgment. All

Mr. Wendover called for his cicerone and they agreed to go in a romantic, Bohemian manner (the young man was very docile and appreciative about this) walking the short distance to the Victoria Station and taking the mysterious underground railway. In the carriage she anticipated the inquiry that she figured to herself he would presently

make, and said, laughing: "No, no, this is very exceptional; if we were both English-and both what we are, otherwise-we wouldn't do this."

"And if only one of us were English?"

"It would depend upon which one." "Well, say me."

"Oh, in that case I certainly-on so short an acquaintance-wouldn't go sight-seeing with you."

"Well, I am glad I'm American," said Mr. Wendover, sitting opposite to her. Yes, you may thank your fate. It's much simpler," Laura added. "Oh, you spoil it!" the young man exclaimed-a speech of which she took no notice but which made her think him brighter, as they used to say at home. He was brighter still after they had descended from the train at the Temple station (they had meant to go on to Blackfriars, but they jumped out on seeing the sign of the Temple, fired with the thought of visiting that institution too) and got admission to the old garden of the Benchers, which lies beside the foggy, crowded river, and looked at the tombs of the crusaders in the low Romanesque church, with the cross-legged figures sleeping so close to the eternal uproar, and lingered in the flagged, homely courts of brick, with their much-lettered door-posts, their dull old windows and atmosphere of consultation-lingered to talk of Johnson and Goldsmith and to remark how London opened one's eyes to Dickens; and he was brightest of all when they stood in the high, bare cathedral, which suggested a dirty whiteness, saying it was fine, but wondering why it wasn't finer, and letting a glance as cold as the dusty, colorless glass fall upon epitaphs that seemed to make most of the defunct bores even in death. Mr. Wendover was decorous, but he was increasingly gay, and these qualities appeared in him in spite of the fact that St. Paul's was rather a disappointment. Then they felt the advantage of having the other place the one Laura had had in mind at dinner-to fall back upon that perhaps would prove a compensation. They entered a hansom now (they had to come to that, though they had walked also from the Temple to St. Paul's) and

drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields, Laura making the reflection, as they went, that it was really a charm to roam about London under valid protection-such a mixture of freedom and safety-and that perhaps she had been unjust, ungenerous, to her sister. A good-natured, positively charitable doubt came into her mind-a doubt that Selina might have the benefit of. have the benefit of. What she liked in her present undertaking was that it was unconventional, and perhaps it was simply the same happy sense of getting the laws of London-once in a way—off her back, that had led Selina to go over to Paris to ramble about with Captain Crispin. Possibly they had done nothing worse than go together to the Invalides and Notre Dame; and if any one were to meet her driving that way, so far from home, with Mr. Wendover-Laura, mentally, didn't finish her sentence, overtaken as she was by the reflection that she had fallen again into her old assumption (she had been in and out of it a hundred times), that Mrs. Berrington had met Captain Crispinthe idea she so passionately repudiated. She at least would never deny that she had spent the afternoon with Mr. Wendover; she would simply say that he was an American and had brought a letter of introduction.

The cab stopped at the Soane Museum, which Laura Wing had always wanted to see, a compatriot having once told her that it was one of the most curious things in London, and one of the least known. While Mr. Wendover was discharging the vehicle she looked over the wide handsome square (which led her to say to herself that London was endlessly big and one would never know all the places that made it up) and saw a great bank of cloud hanging above it-a definite portent of a summer storm. "We are going to have thunder; you had better keep the cab," she said; upon which her companion told the man to wait, so that they shouldn't afterwards, in the wet, have to walk for another conveyance. The heterogeneous objects collected by the late Sir John Soane are arranged in a fine old dwelling-house, and the place gives one the impression of a sort of Saturday afternoon of one's youth-a long, rummaging visit, under indulgent

care, to some eccentric and rather alarming old travelled person. Our young friends wandered from room to room and thought everything queer and some few objects interesting; Mr. Wendover said it would be a very good place to find a thing you couldn't find anywhere else-it illustrated the prudent virtue of keeping. They took note of the sarcophagi and pagodas, the curious old maps and medals. They admired the fine Hogarths; there were uncanny, unexpected objects that Laura edged away from, that she didn't like to be in the room with. They had been there half an hour --it had grown much darker-when they heard a tremendous peal of thunder and became aware that the storm had broken. They watched it awhile from the upper windows-a violent June shower, with quick sheets of lightning and a rainfall that danced on the pavements. They took it sociably, they lingered at the window, inhaling the odor of the fresh wet that splashed over the sultry town. They would have to wait till it had passed, and they resigned themselves serenely to this idea, repeating very often that it would pass very soon. One of the keepers told them that there were other rooms to see-that there were very interesting things in the basement. They made their way down--it grew much darker and they heard a great deal of thunder-and entered a part of the house which presented itself to Laura as a series of dim, irregular vaults-passages and little narrow avenues-encumbered with strange vague things, obscured for the time, but some of which had a wicked, startling look, so that she wondered how the keepers could stay there. "It's very fearful-it looks like a cave of idols!" she said to her companion, and then she added-"Just look there is that a person or a thing?" As she spoke they drew nearer to the object of her reference-a figure in the middle of a small vista of curiosities, a figure which answered her question by uttering a short shriek as they approached. The immediate cause of this cry was apparently a vivid flash of lightning, which penetrated into the room and illuminated both Laura's face and that of the mysterious person. Our young lady recognized her sister, as Mrs. Berrington had

evidently recognized her. "Why, Selina!" broke from her lips before she had time to check the words. At the same moment the figure turned quickly away, and then Laura saw that it was accompanied by another, that of a tall gentleman with a light beard, which shone in the dusk. The two persons retreated. together-dodged out of sight, as it were, disappearing in the gloom, or in the labyrinth of the objects exhibited. The whole encounter was but the business of an instant.

"Was it Mrs. Berrington?" Mr. Wendover asked, with interest, while Laura stood staring.

"Oh, no, I only thought it was at first," she managed to reply, very quickly. She had recognized the gentleman

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he had the fine fair beard of Captain Crispin--and her heart seemed to her to jump up and down. She was glad her companion couldn't see her face, and yet she wanted to get out, to rush up the stairs where he would see it again, and escape from the place. She didn't wish to be there with them-she was overwhelmed with a sudden horror. She has lied-she has lied again-she has lied!"-that was the rhythm to which her thought began to dance. She took a few steps one way and then another; she was afraid of running against the dreadful pair again. She remarked to her companion that it was time they should go off, and then, when he showed her the way back to the staircase, she said she hadn't half seen the things. She pretended suddenly to a deep interest in them, and lingered there, roaming and prying about. She was flurried still more by the thought that he would have seen her flurry, and she wondered whether he believed the woman who had shrieked and rushed away was not Selina. If she wasn't Selina why had she shrieked? and if she was Selina what would Mr. Wendover think of her behavior, and of her own, and of the strange accident of their meeting? What must she herself think of that? so astonishing it was that in the immensity of London so infinitesimally small a chance should have got itself enacted. What a queer place to come to--for people like them! They would get away as soon as possible, of that she

could be sure; and she would wait a lit- marked-she wished she had let him tle to give them time.

Mr. Wendover made no further remark-that was a relief; though his silence itself seemed to show that he was puzzled. They went up-stairs again, and on reaching the door found, to their surprise, that their cab had disappeared —a circumstance the more singular as the man had not been paid. The rain was still coming down, though with less violence, and the square had been cleared of vehicles by the sudden storm. The doorkeeper, perceiving the dismay of our friends, explained that the cab had been taken up by another lady and gentleman, who had gone out a few minutes before; and when they inquired how he had been induced to depart without the money they owed him, the reply was that there evidently had been a discussion (he hadn't heard it, but the lady seemed in a fearful hurry) and the gentleman had told him that they would make it all up to him and give him a lot more into the bargain. The doorkeeper hazarded the candid surmise that the cabby would make ten shillings by the job. But there were plenty more cabs; there would be one up in a minute, and the rain moreover was going to stop. "Well, that is sharp practice!" said Mr. Wendover. But he made no further allusion to the identity of the lady.

IX.

THE rain did stop while they stood there, and a brace of hansoms was not slow to appear. Laura told her companion that he must put her into one she could go home alone; she had taken up enough of his time. He deprecated this course, very respectfully; urged that he had it on his conscience to deliver her at her own door; but she sprang into the cab and closed the apron with a movement that was a sharp prohibition. She wanted to get away from him-it would be too awkward, the long, pottering drive back. Her hansom started off, while Mr. Wendover, smiling sadly, lifted his hat. It wasn't very comfortable, even without him; especially as before she had gone a quarter of a mile she felt that it had been too

come.

His puzzled, innocent air of wondering what was the matter, annoyed her; and she was in the absurd situation of being angry at a discretion which she would have been still more angry if he had departed from. It would have comforted her (because it would seem to share her burden) and yet it would have covered her with shame if he had guessed that what she saw was wrong. It wouldn't occur to him that there was a scandal so near her, because he didn't easily think such things; and yet, since there was— but since there was, after all, Laura scarcely knew what attitude would sit upon him most gracefully. As to what he might be prepared to suspect by having heard what Selina's reputation was in London, of that Laura couldn't judge, not knowing what was said, because, of course, it wasn't said to her. Lionel would undertake to give her the benefit of this any moment she would allow him, but how in the world could he know either, for how could things be said to him? Then, in the rattle of the hansom, passing through streets the girl didn't see, "She has lied, she has lied, she has lied!" kept repeating itself. Why had she written and signed that wanton falsehood about her going down to Lady Watermouth? How could she have gone to Lady Watermouth when she was making so very different and so extraordinary a use of the hours she had announced her intention of spending there? What had been the need of that misrepresentation, and why did she lie before she was driven to it?

It was because she was false altogether, and deception came out of her with her breath; she was so depraved that it was easier to her to fabricate than to let it alone. Laura wouldn't have asked her to give an account of her day, but she would ask her now. She shuddered at one moment, as she found herself saying ---even in silence-such things of her sister, and the next she sat staring out of the front of the cab at the queer problem presented by Selina's turning up with the partner of her guilt, at the Soane Museum, of all places in the world. The girl turned this fact about in various ways, to account for it—not unconscious, as she did so, that it was a pretty exer

cise of ingenuity for a nice girl. Plainly, it was a rare accident; if it had been their plan to spend the day together the Soane Museum had not been in the original programme. They had been near it, they had been on foot, and they had rushed in to take refuge from the rain. But how did they come to be near it, and, above all, to be on foot? How could Selina do anything so reckless, from her own point of view, as to walk about the town-even an out-of-the-way part of it with her suspected lover? Laura Wing felt the want of proper knowledge to explain such anomalies. It was too little clear to her where ladies went, and how they proceeded, when they consorted with gentlemen in regard to their meetings with whom they had to lie. She didn't know where Captain Crispin lived; very possibly for she vaguely remembered having heard Selina say of him that he was very poor -he had chambers in that part of the town, and they were either going to them or coming from them. If Selina had neglected to take her way in a fourwheeler, with the glasses up, it was through some chance that wouldn't seem natural till it was explained, like that of their having darted into a public institution. The explanation most exact would probably be that the pair had snatched a walk together (in the course of a day of many edifying episodes) for the "lark" of it, and for the sake of the walk had taken the risk, which in that part of London, so detached from all gentility, had appeared to them small. The last thing Selina could have expected was to meet her sister in such a strange corner-her sister with a young man of her own!

She was dining out that night with both Selina and Lionel-a conjunction that was rather rare. She was by no means always invited with them, and Selina often went without her husband. Appearances, however, sometimes got a sop thrown them; three or four times a month Lionel and she entered the brougham together, like people who still had forms, who still said "my dear." This was to be one of those occasions, and Mrs. Berrington's young unmarried sister was included in the invitation. When Laura reached home she learned,

on inquiry, that Selina had not come in, and she went straight to her own room. If her sister had been there she would have gone to hers instead-she would have cried out to her as soon as she had closed the door: "Oh, stop, stop-in God's name, stop, before you go any further, before exposure and ruin and shame come down and bury us!" That was what was in the air-the vulgarest disgrace, and the girl, harder now than ever about her sister, was conscious of a more passionate desire to save herself. But Selina's absence made the difference that during the next hour a certain chill fell upon this impulse from other feelings; she found, suddenly, that she was late, and she began to dress. They were to go together, after dinner, to a couple of balls, and this diversion struck her as ghastly for people who carried such horrors in their breasts-ghastly the idea of the drive of husband, wife, and sister, in pursuit of pleasure, with falsity and detection and hate between them. Selina's maid came to her door to tell her that she was in the carriage-an extraordinary piece of punctuality, which made her wonder, as Selina was always dreadfully late for everything. Laura went down as quickly as she could, passed through the open door, where the servants were grouped in the foolish majesty of their superfluous attendance, and through the file of dingy gazers who had paused at the sight of the carpet across the pavement and the waiting carriage, in which Selina sat in pure white splendor. Mrs. Berrington had a tiara on her head and a proud patience in her face, as if her sister were really a sore trial. When the girl had taken her place, she said to the footman: "Is Mr. Berrington there?"

to which the man replied: "No, ma'am, not yet." It was not new to Laura that if there was anyone later, as a general thing, than Selina, it was Selina's husband. "Then he must take a hansom. Go on." The footman mounted, and they rolled away.

There were several different things that had been present to Laura's mind, during the last couple of hours, as destined to mark-one or the other-this present encounter with her sister; but the words Selina spoke the moment the brougham began to move were of course exactly

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