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"I cannot do it!" she said half aloud. "And John, too! What will he say to me?" And at the thought of her husband's displeasure, the wife who had lacked moral courage to speak the truth began to feel that, rather than face those two outraged and indignant spirits, she would gladly flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, and be at rest. To be alone--to work for her bread--to suffer hardship in every miserable and even degrading fashion--all this appeared to Honor infinitely, ay, a thousand thousand times, preferable to putting her pretty neck again under the yoke of angry Mrs. Beacham's thrall, and to the endurance, from morning's dawn to evening's light, of that unpleasant old lady's disagreeable form of being good and useful.

WHAT, SELL ROUGH DIAMOND!

The breakfast meal at No. 13 Stanwick-street, not being either a varied or a luxurious one, did not occupy much of Colonel Fred Norcott's valuable time. It commenced, however, frequently at so late an hour, owing to the stay-out habits over night of the master of the house, that twelve o'clock often struck before the table was what Mrs. Norcott called "cleared," and the room ready for company.

"What then? Why, simply this: I'd rather sell the horse, upon my soul I would, than go on in this way. If Rough Diamond loses--"

"Well, if he does?"

"Nonsense, man, what's the use of asking? you know nearly as much of my affairs as I do. You know how devilishly I'm dipped, and how everything depends on my horse winning the Derby to-morrow."

"Well, and he will win it. Don't be a fool. I mean don't be out of heart. I'm sure if I thought there were the ghost of a chance against him, I should be pretty considerably down in the mouth too. Why, man, I've backed the favourite with every farthing I'm worth, and--"

"Ah, yes--I know; but my case is different. Only fancy if old Dub was to find out that the brute is mine, and has been all along; what a row there would be! And then there's that infernal fellow Nathan--it's ruinous work renewing--so ruinous that, by Jove, I sometimes think--though of course I couldn't decide anything without speaking to you. I sometimes think whether it wouldn't be better--you see it would never do for the old fellow to get wind of these confounded bills--I sometimes think whether it wouldn't be the best thing I could do to let Lord Penshanger have Rough Diamond, and so get out of the infernal bother of the business altogether."

"I did not mean to be unkind and cold," she stammered. "Quiet, Nellie!" . "It was all my fault for talking about going home; and, Mr. Vavasour--"

"Call me Arthur," he broke in impetuously; "even you, who grudge me every word that is not stiff and formal, even you can see no harm in--when we are alone together--calling me by my name? Honor, I--"

"Anything?" he asked, throwing as much meaning into the word as the human voice was capable of expressing; but Honor, who was far as the poles from comprehending the evil that was in his thoughts, said eagerly,

"Indeed yes! anything! I would be a governess--you know I was a governess before--I would go out to service--be a 'Lydia,'" and she smiled a little bitterly, "if I could only never, never see Mrs. Beacham's face again."

An expression which she took for amusement, but which was in reality indicative of very unholy triumph, passed over Arthur Vavasour's dark, handsome face.

Honor glanced at him with rather a puzzled look in her blue eyes. Strange as it may seem, she did not even now comprehend his meaning. That he was advising her to leave her home was too plain to be mistaken, but that there was to be sin--sin, that is to say, greater than that which she could not but feel would be incurred by deserting her husband and her duties--never occurred to this poor foolish child of nature. But although she did not comprehend, and could not fathom, the depths of her false friend's guilt, yet her womanly instinct led her to evade the responding to his suggestion. His last words also, and the tone of sadness in which they were spoken, riveted her attention, and, catching almost gladly at an excuse for changing the conversation, she said sympathisingly,

"And what? Tell me some more of my privileges, my delights; make me contented, if you can, with my lot. At present it seems dark enough, God knows; and if--but I am a fool, and worse, to talk to you of these things; only, if I thought that you--you, who are an angel of purity and love and peace--would sometimes think of me with pity, why, it would give me courage, Honor, would make me feel that I have still something to live for, something to bind me to an existence which I have begun to loathe!"

Honor listened to this outpouring of real or fancied sorrows like one who is not sure whether she dreams or is awake.

For a moment he looked at her doubtingly; and then, as though the words broke from him as in his own despite, he said in a low husky tone:

"What purpose would it answer, what good would it effect either for you or me, were you to learn that I am a villain?"

MEA CULPA.

A villain! Arthur Vavasour--the "fine," noble-hearted, brilliant gentleman to whom this simple-minded Honor had so looked up, and of the loss of whose friendship she had been so afraid that she had "led him on"--the silly woman knew she had--to fancy that she loved him better than she did her husband--was he in very truth a man to be avoided, shunned, and looked on with contempt? She could not, did not think it possible. He was accusing himself unjustly, working on her compassion, speaking without reflection: anything and everything she could believe possible rather than that her friend should deserve the odious epithet which had just, to her extreme surprise, smote upon her ears. Before, however, she could give words to that surprise, Arthur spoke again, and with an impetuosity which almost seemed to take away his breath poured forth his explanation of the text.

He stopped for a moment to gulp down a sigh, and then proceeded thus:

"It was very bad," murmured Honor; "but I suppose that if Mr. Duberly had thought the contrary, he might have refused his consent to your marriage, and then his daughter would have been wretched. Still, indeed, indeed, you had better--don't you think so now?--have been quite open with him. If you had said--"

"And that chance?" put in Honor, imagining that he waited to be questioned.

"That chance is the winning of the Derby to-morrow by Rough Diamond. I have no bets, at least nothing but trifling ones, on the race; but if the horse wins, his value will, as of course you know, rise immeasurably, and with the money I can sell him for I shall be able, for a time, to set myself tolerably straight. Your father--whose horse you have, I suppose, hitherto fancied Rough Diamond to be--has, he tells me, backed him for all that he is worth. My reason for not doing so has been that I am not up to making a book, and that the debts of honour I already groan under are sufficiently burdensome without incurring others which I might not be able to pay."

"How anxious you must be and unhappy!" Honor said pityingly. "But there is one thing which puzzles me, and that is, how you could keep all this a secret from your wife. Surely she would have been silent; surely she might have softened her father, and made all smooth between you."

"She might; but I could not risk it. Sophy is very delicate; and then there has been such entire confidence between her and her father, that it would have been almost impossible for her to keep anything from him. No; as I have brewed, so I must bake. I can only hope the best; and that, or the worst, will very soon be no longer matter for speculation. The devil of it is--I beg your pardon, I am always saying something inexcusable--but really the worst of it is, that the fact of my mother's intention of fighting my grandfather's will is no longer a mystery. Old Duberly's fortune is, as all the world believes, very large; but at the same time he is known to be what is called a 'character,' and that his eccentricities take the turn of an extraordinary mixture of penuriousness and liberality has been often the subject both of comment and reproach with people who have nothing to do but to talk over the proceedings of their neighbours. In short--for I am sure you must be dreadfully tired of hearing me talk about myself--the world, my cursed creditors included, would be pretty well justified in believing that my worthy father-in-law would flatly refuse to pay a sum of something very like fourteen thousand pounds for a fellow whose extravagance and love of play were alone accountable for the debt; one, too, who has nothing--no, not even a 'whistle'--to show of all the things that he has paid so dear for. Disgusting, is it not? And now that you have heard the story,--I warned you, remember, that it was a vile one,--what comfort have you to bestow on me? And can you, do you wonder at my calling the world--my world, that is--a miserable one? and is it surprising that, in spite of outward prosperity, of apparent riches, and what you call good gifts, I should sometimes almost wish to exchange my lot with that of the poorest of the poor, provided that the man in whose shoes I stood had never falsified his word, or lived as I have done and do, with a skeleton in the cupboard, of which another--one, too , whom I not greatly trust--keeps, and must ever keep, the key?"

JOHN BEACHAM MAKES A DISCOVERY.

"The structure of majestic frame Which from the neighbouring Hampton takes its name."

With a feeling of desperation--had she delayed to strive for courage the letter would probably, for that night at least, have remained unread--she tore it open and perused the following lines, written in her husband's bold, hard, rather trade-like writing, and signed by the name of John Beacham:

John, who had heard with dilated and angry ears the main points of these disclosures, and who was very far from desiring to come in contact with the man whom upon earth he most despised and disliked, waited to hear no more, but, striding hastily away, surrendered himself, not only to the gloomiest, but to the most bitter and revengeful thoughts. That this man--unsuspicious though he was by nature, and wonderfully ignorant of the wicked ways of a most wicked world--should at last be roused to a sense of the terrible possibility that he was being deceived and wronged was, I think, under the circumstances, only natural; and in proportion to the man's previous security--in proportion to his entire trust, and complete deficiency of previous susceptibility regarding Honor's possible shortcomings--was the amount of almost uncontrolable wrath that burned within his aching breast. For as he left that door, as he walked swiftly down the street, and remembered how he had loved--ay, worshipped--in his simple, inexpressive way, the lovely creature who was no longer, he feared, worthy either of his respect or tenderness, no judgment seemed too heavy, no punishment too condign for her who had so outraged his feelings and set at naught his authority. Full of these angry feelings, and boiling over with a desire to redress his wrongs, John Beacham repaired to the tavern where he was in the habit, when chance or business kept him late in London, of satisfying the cravings of hunger. Alone, at the small table on which was served to him his frugal meal of beefsteak and ale, John brooded over his misfortunes, cursing in bitterness of spirit the hour when he first saw Honor Blake's bewildering face, and exaggerating--as the moments sped by, and his blood grew warmed with one or two unaccustomed "tumblers"--the offences of which she had been guilty.

Perhaps in all that crowded house--amongst that forest of faces that filled the boxes and gallery to the roof--there was not one, save that honest countryman, whose attention was not fixed and absorbed that night on one of the most sensational melodramas that have ever drawn tears from weak human eyes. At another time and under other circumstances John Beacham who, strong-bodied and iron-nerved man though he was, could never keep from what he called making a fool of himself at a dismal play, would not have seen unmoved the wondrous tragic acting of one of the very best of our comic actors: but John Beacham, on the night in question, was not in the mood to listen with interest to the divinest display of eloquence that ever burst from human lips. He was there for another and less exalted purpose: there as a spy upon the actions of another--there to feast his eyes on the wife who had defied his authority, and, possibly, made him an object of ridicule.

He had not been long in the unconspicuous place he had chosen before, not far removed from him--in a box, as I before said, on the pit tier--he descried his unsuspecting wife. Such a start as he gave when first he saw her! Such a start that, had not his neighbours on the next seat been fully occupied with the Stage, they must have perceived and wondered at his agitation. At first he could hardly bring himself to believe--so changed was she, and so wondrously beautified--that it could in reality be his own Honor whom he saw there, radiant in her glorious loveliness, and with that loveliness--ah, poor, poor John Beacham!--displayed, in a manner which almost took away his breath, to the gaze of hundreds upon hundreds of admiring eyes.

Until that moment--the moment when he saw her the admired of all beholders, in the evening toilet which so enhanced her attractions, it may be doubted whether John had ever entirely realised the exceeding beauty of the wife whom he had chosen. In her simple morning-dress, and especially in the little coquettish hat which he had sometimes seen her wear, the honest farmer was quite willing to allow that Honor was prettier by far than nine out of ten of the pretty girls that tread the paths of life; but it was in the dress, or rather undress, that evening dissipation rendered necessary that young Mrs. Beacham became--in her husband's eyes--not only a marvel and miracle of loveliness, but a source of such exceeding pain to that inexperienced rustic that in his agony of jealous susceptibility he clenched his muscular hands together till the blood well-nigh burst from his finger-ends with the strong though all involuntary compression of his fingers.

For there was more than the sight of those white shoulders to rouse the demon of anger in his breast; there was more than the memory of the woman's deceit to harden his heart against her; for beside, or rather behind her, leaning over those same white shoulders in most lover-like and devoted fashion, stood Arthur Vavasour, the man of whom his mother had in her rude fashion warned him, the man whose father had been not only his friend, but his benefactor!

Whispering in her ear, calling the crimson blush to her fair cheek--the husband saw it all! And ah, how at that moment poor John hated that dark handsome face--the face of one looking so like a tempter sent to try the faith and virtue of an angel only too ready, so it seemed, to fall!

When the curtain fell, and the rushing, rustling sound betokened that the spectators, over-wrought and excited, were stretching their limbs and refreshing their brains by a change of scene and posture, John Beacham, following a sudden and uncontrollable impulse, and with no fixed purpose within his brain or choice of words upon his lips, staggered like a drunken man to the box where Honor, breathless with eagerness and her fair face flushed with excitement, had just--in entire and happy ignorance of her husband's proximity--turned her glossy head to talk over the startling incidents of the play with Arthur Vavasour.

JOHN PROVES HIS RIGHT.

As he opened the box-door, a ray of reason--there is often on such occasions something sobering in the mere presence of strangers--threw a composing light over John Beacham's troubled brain. He was not, as we already know, a man who loved excitement and "went in" for sensation; on the contrary, his country habits and his rather matter-of-fact nature unfitted him for taking part in any emotional scene, of what kind soever it might be.

White, ay, almost livid with rage, he wrenched away the hand that held the woman whom he delighted to protect, and would have spoken words of violence suited to the intemperate action, had not John Beacham, subdued for the moment by the sight of passions even stronger than his own, commanded him in a tone of startling energy to be silent.

"For your father's sake, young man," he said, laying his broad hand for an instant on Arthur's thin white lips--"for your dead father's sake, make no ugly scandal here. If I believed you worse than foolish, I would kill you as you stand there! but I do not believe such evil of your father's son. Go, sir, to your young wife; go and repent you of your sins; and when we meet again, God grant that I may have a better opinion than I hold now of the boy that Cecil Vavasour loved in his life so well!"

Startled, overcome, and terribly confused, Arthur stood as if transfixed; while John, after hastily wrapping the trembling Honor in her opera-cloak, led her, without another word spoken, from the box.

She was the first to speak--the woman usually is in embarrassing cases such as that I am describing. The man, who is as a rule less nervous and excitable, and who generally speaking has his senses more under his own command, is apt to hold his tongue, and rather dread the breaking of the ice--the prelude to the startling and unpleasant plunge from which he greatly doubts that any good can possibly result.

"You are a goose, my dear, and don't know when you are well off. There, there, don't cry any more. We are close upon the station now, and people will think I have been beating you."

The cab drew up to the entrance of the South-Western terminus as he spoke, and Honor, feeling that remonstrance was useless, allowed her arm to be passed through that of her legitimate guardian, and herself to be seated, with a very unwilling mind, in the carriage that was to convey her, luggageless and nervous, to the country home which she had learnt to loathe.

"AS WELL AS CAN BE EXPECTED."

These and sundry other such-like questions were easy enough--as tormenting questions usually are--to ask, but the responses to them were not in the present case forthcoming. Plodding on, with anything but a young man's elastic spring, Arthur wended his way to Hyde-park-gardens; and grievous as the truth must seem, there was not, in the certainty that one warm woman's heart would throb with joy at his return, a drop of balm to soothe the wounds from which he suffered. And reason good was there that so it should be, for those wounds were of his own inflicting--dealt by his own guilty hand, and not to be healed save by the slow and painful process of repentance and atonement. Slowly, then, and with a troubled spirit, this man, who to the world's eye appeared one of the most favoured of Fortune's adopted darlings, proceeded on his way. Arrived at the grand spacious house, with its marble portico, its solid pillars, and its sculptured ornamentation, which he called his home, he paused for a moment, looking up with some feeling of undefined surprise at the more than usual amount of light which found its way through the closed shutters of the several windows. Almost before, however, he had time to lay his hand on the bell, the door was softly opened by a servant who had evidently been on the watch for his arrival, and a low voice--the voice of the hall-porter, softened and subdued in compliment to the momentous occasion--informed the young master of the house that Mrs. Vavasour had half an hour before given birth to a fine boy, and was "as well as could" reasonably "be expected."

FROM LIVELY TO SEVERE.

Meanwhile, what was the reality regarding Honor Beacham's whereabouts, what her feelings, and how had her husband's sudden exertion of marital power affected her conduct?

Already, so kindly was the man's nature, and so strong was his dislike to being what he called "ill friends" with those about him,--already had his displeasure begun to subside, and already had he begun to accuse himself of harshness in thus summarily dealing out hard measures against his wife. As she sat there silently by his side, the outline of her perfect profile just visible under the scarlet hood of her opera-cloak, and her pale lips quivering with the effort to conceal her emotion and check the tears that from moment to moment were on the point of escaping from their "briny bed," it would have required but little to persuade the strong man near her that in his dealings with that frail but fairest flower he had been little better than a brute.

They were within a mile or two only of Leigh before the silence that reigned between them was broken, and then it was John's clear and rather loud voice that awoke the elderly sleeper, and startled Honor from a very perplexing and wretched train of thought.

If Hannah had seen that often-talked-of object of her awe and curiosity, an actual ghost, she could hardly have been frightened into a more violent start than that which jerked her stoutly-built person at the sight of her young mistress.

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