Brian Walford came back to The Knoll after the younger members of the family had gone to their rooms.

‘Where have you been all this time?’ asked the Colonel, who was strolling on the broad gravel drive in front of the house, soothing his nerves with a cheroot, after the agitations of the last hour. ‘You are to have your old room, I believe; I heard it was being got ready.’

‘You are very kind. I walked half way to the Abbey with my cousin. We had a smoke and a talk.’

‘I should be glad of a little more talk with you. This business of to-night is not at all pleasant, you know, Brian. It does not redound to anybody’s credit.’

‘I never supposed that it did; but it is not my fault that there should be this fuss. If my wife had been true to me all would have gone well.’

‘I don’t think you had a right to expect things to go well, when you had so cruelly deceived her. It was a base thing to do, Brian.’

‘You ought not to say so much as that, sir, knowing so little of the circumstances. I did not deliberately deceive her.’

‘That’s skittles,’ said the Colonel, flinging away the end of his cigar.

‘It is the truth. The business began in sport. Bessie asked me to pretend to be my cousin, just for fun, to see if Ida would fall in love with me. Ida had a romantic idea about my cousin, it appears, that he was an altogether perfect being, and so on. Well, I was introduced to her as Brian of the Abbey, and though she may have been a little disappointed — no doubt she was — she accepted me as the perfect being. As for me — well, sir, you know what she is — how lovely, how winning. I was a gone coon from that moment. We kept up the fun — Bess, and the boys, and I— all that evening. I talked of the Abbey as if it were my property, swaggered a good deal, and so on. Then Bess, knowing that I often stayed up the river for weeks on end, asked me to go and see Ida, to make sure that old Pew was not ill-using her, that she was not going into a decline, and all that kind of thing. So I went, saw Ida, always in the company of the German teacher, and took no pains to conceal my affection for her. But I said not another word about the Abbey. I never swaggered or put on the airs of a rich man; I only told her that I loved her, and that I hoped our lives would be spent together. I did not even suggest our marriage as a fact in the near future. I knew I was in no position to maintain a wife.’

‘You should have told her that plainly. As a man of honour you were bound to undeceive her.’

‘I meant to do it, but I wanted her to be very fond of me first. Then came the row; old Pew expelled her because she had been carrying on a clandestine flirtation with a young man. Her character was compromised, and as a man of honour I had no course but to propose immediate marriage.’

‘Her character was not compromised, because Miss Pew chose to act like a vulgar old tyrant. The German governess, everybody in the school, knew that Miss Palliser was unjustly treated. There was no wound that needed to be salved by an imprudent marriage. But in any case, before proposing such a marriage, it was your bounden duty to tell her the truth about your circumstances, not to marry her to poverty without her full consent to the union.’

‘Then I did not do my bounden duty,’ Brian Walford answered sullenly. ‘I believed in her disinterested affection. Why should she be more mercenary than I, who was willing to marry her without a sixpence in her pocket, without a second gown to her back? How could I suppose she was marrying me for the sake of a fine place and a fine fortune? I thought she was above such sordid considerations.’

‘You ought to have been sure of that before you married her; you ought to have trusted her fully,’ said the Colonel. ‘However, having married her, why did you consent so tamely to let her go? Having let her go, why do you come here to-night to claim her?’

‘Why did I let her go? Well she shrewed me so abominably when she found out my lowly position that my pride was roused, and I told her she might go where she pleased. Why did I come here to-night? Well, it was an impulse that brought me. I am passionately fond of her. I have lived without her for nearly a year — angry with her and with fate — but to day was the anniversary of our first meeting. I knew from Bessie that my wife was here, happy. There was even some hint of a flirtation between her and the real Brian,‘— these last words were spoken with intense bitterness — ‘and I thought it was time I should claim my own.’

‘I think so to,’ said Colonel Wendover, severely; ‘you should have claimed her long ago. Your whole conduct is faulty in the extreme. You will be a very lucky man if your married life turns out happy after such a bad beginning.’

‘Come, Colonel, we are both young,’ remonstrated Brian, with that careless lightness which seemed natural to him, as a man who could hardly take the gravest problems of life seriously; ‘there is no reason why we should not shake down into a very happy couple by-and-by.’

‘And pray how are you to live?’ inquired the Colonel. ‘You are taking this girl from a most comfortable home — a position in which she is valued and useful. What do you intend to give her in exchange for the Homestead? A garret and a redherring?’

‘Oh, no, sir; I hope it will be a long time before we come to that — though Beranger says that at twenty a man and the girl he loves may be happy in a garret. I think we shall do pretty well. My literary work widened a good deal while I was in Paris. I wrote for some of the London magazines, and the editors are good enough to think that I am rather a smart writer. I can earn something by my pen; I think enough to keep the pot boiling till briefs begin to drop in. My cousin was generous enough to offer me an income just now — four or five hundred a year so long as I should require it — but I told him that I thought I could support my wife with my pen for the next few years.’

‘Your cousin is always generous,’ said the Colonel.

‘Yes, he is an open-handed fellow. I suppose you know that he helped me while I was in Paris.’

‘I did not know, but I am not surprised.’

‘Very kind of him, wasn’t it? The fact is, I was dipped rather deeply, in my small way — tailor, and hosier, and so on — before I left London; and I could not have come back unless Brian had helped me to settle with them, or I should have had to go through the Bankruptcy Court; and I daresay some of you would have thought that a disgrace.’

‘Some of us!’ exclaimed the Colonel; ‘we should all have thought so. Do you suppose the Wendovers are in the habit of cheating their creditors?’

‘Oh, but it was not a question of cheating them, only of paying them a rather insignificant dividend. My only assets are my books and furniture, and unluckily some of those are still unpaid for.’

‘Assets? You have no assets. You are a spendthrift and a scamp!’ protested his uncle, angrily. ‘I am deeply sorry for your wife. Good night. If you want any supper after your journey there are plenty of people to wait upon you.’

And with that the Colonel turned upon his heel and went into the house, leaving his nephew to follow at his leisure.

’Comme il est assommant, le patron,‘ muttered Brian, strolling after his kinsman.

Brian Walford was not ordinarily an early riser, but he was up betimes on the morning after Bessie’s birthday; breakfasted with the family, and strolled across dewy fields to the Homestead a little after nine o’clock. But although this was a late hour in Miss Wendover’s household, his young wife was not prepared to receive him. It was Aunt Betsy who came to him, after he had waited for nearly a quarter of an hour, prowling restlessly about the drawing-room, looking at the books, and china, and water-colours.

‘I have come for Ida,’ he said abruptly, when he had shaken hands with his aunt. ‘There is a train leaves Winchester at twenty minutes past eleven. She will be ready for that I suppose?’

He was half prepared for reproaches from his aunt, and wholly prepared to set her at defiance. But if she were civil he would be civil: he did not court a quarrel.

‘I don’t know that she can be ready.’

‘But she must. I have made up my mind to travel by that train. Why should there be any delay? Everybody is agreed that we are to begin our lives together, and we cannot begin too soon.’

‘You need not be in such a hurry. You have contrived to live without her for nearly a year.’

‘That is my business. I am not going to live without her any longer. Please tell her she must be ready by half-past ten.’

‘I will tell her so. I am heartily sorry for her. But she must submit to fate. What home have you prepared for her?’

‘At present none. We can go to an hotel for a day or two, and then I shall take lodgings in South Kensington, or thereabouts.’

‘Have you any money?’

‘Yes enough to carry on,’ answered Brian.

‘Truthfulness was not his strong point, although he was a Wendover, and that race deemed itself free from the taint of falsehood. There may have been an injurious admixture of races on the maternal side, perhaps; albeit his mother personally was good and loyal. However this was, Brian Walford had, even in trifles, shown himself evasive and shifty.

His aunt looked at him sharply.

‘Do not take her to discomfort or want,’ she said earnestly. ‘She has been very happy with me, poor girl; and although she deceived me, I cannot find it in my heart to be angry with her.’

‘There is no fear of want,’ replied Brian. ‘We shall not be rich, but we shall get on pretty comfortably. Please tell her to make haste. The dog-cart will be round in half an hour. I’ll walk about the garden till it comes.’

Miss Wendover sighed, and left him, without another word. He went out into the sunlit garden, and walked up and down smoking his favourite meerschaum, which was a kind of familiar spirit, always carried in his pocket ready for every possible opportunity. He had arranged with one of his uncle’s men to drive the dog-cart over to Winchester; his travelling-bag was put in ready; he had taken leave of his kindred — not a very cordial leave-taking upon anybody’s part, and on Bessie’s despondent even to tears. He was not in a good humour with himself or with fate; and yet he told himself that things had gone well with him, much better than he could reasonably have expected. Yet it was hard for a young man of considerable personal attractions and some talent to be treated like one of the monsters of classical legend, a damsel-devouring Minotaur, when he came to claim his young wife.

The dog-cart was at the gate for at least ten minutes, and Brian had looked at his watch at least ten times before Ida appeared at the glass door. He was pale with anxiety. There were reasons why it might be ruin to him to lose this morning train; and yet he did not want to betray too much eagerness, lest that should spoil his chances.

Here she was at last, white as a corpse, and with red swollen eyelids which indicated a night of weeping. Her appearance was far from flattering to her husband, yet she gave him a wan little smile and a civil good morning.

‘Here, Pluto, take your Proserpine,’ said Miss Wendover, trying to make light of the situation, though sore at heart. ‘I wish you would be content to keep her six months of the year, and let me have her for the other six.’

‘It needn’t be an eternal parting, Aunt Betsy,’ answered Brian, with assumed cheeriness; ‘Ida can come to see you whenever you like, and Ida’s husband too, if you will have him. We are not starting for the Antipodes.’

‘Be kind to her,’ said Miss Wendover, gravely, ‘for my sake, if not for her own. It shall be the better for you when I am dead and gone if you make her a happy woman.’

This promise from a lady who owned a snug little landed estate, and money in the funds, meant a good deal. Brian grasped his aunt’s hand.

‘You know that I adore her,’ he said. ‘I shall be her slave.’

‘Be a good husband, honest and true. She doesn’t want a slave,’ replied Miss Wendover, in her incisive way.

Ida flung her arms round that generous friend’s neck, and kissed her with passionate fervour.

‘God bless you for your goodness to me! God bless you for forgiving me,’ she said.

‘He is a Being of infinite love and pity, and He will not bless those who cannot pardon,’ answered Miss Wendover. ‘There, my dear, go and be happy with your young husband. He may not be such a very bad bargain, after all.’

This was, as it were, the old shoe thrown after the bride and bridegroom. In another minute the dog-cart was rattling along the lane, Brian driving, and the groom sitting behind with Ida’s luggage, which was more important by one neat black trunk than it had been a year ago.

Bessie and the younger children were standing on the patch of grass outside The Knoll gates, in garden hats, and no gloves, waving affectionate adieux. Brian gave them no chance of any further leave-taking driving towards the downs at a smart pace. ‘Do you remember my driving you to catch the earlier train, a year ago this day?’ he asked his pale companion, by way of conversation.

‘Yes, perfectly.’

‘Odd, isn’t it? — exactly one year to-day.’

‘Very odd.’

And this was about all their discourse till they were at Winchester Station.

‘London papers in yet?’ asked Brian.

‘No, sir. You’ll get them at Basingstoke.’

He took his wife into a first-class carriage — an extravagance which surprised her, knowing his precarious means.

‘I hope you are not travelling first-class on my account,’ she said; ‘I am not accustomed to such luxury.’

‘Oh, we can afford it to-day. I am not quite such a pauper as I was when I offered you those two sovereigns. If you would like to buy yourself a silk gown or a new bonnet, or anything in that line to-day, I can manage it.’

‘No, thank you; I have everything I want,’ she answered with a faint shiver.

The memory of that bygone day was too bitter.

‘What a wonderful wife! I thought that to be in want of a new bonnet was a woman’s normal condition,’ said Brian, trying to be lively.

He had bought Punch and other comic journals at the station, and spread them out before his wife — as an intellectual feast. The breezy drive over the downs had revived her beauty a little. The eyelids had lost their red swollen look, but she was still very pale, and there was a nervous quiver of the lips now and then which betokened a tendency to hysteria. She sat at the open window, looking away towards those vanishing hills. A moment, and the tufted crest of St. Catherine’s had gone — the low-lying meadows — the winding stream — the cathedral’s stunted tower — it was all gone, like a dream.

‘Dreadful hole of a place,’ said Brian, contemptuously; ‘a comfortably feathered old nest for rooks and parsons and ancient spinsters, but a dungeon for anybody else.’

‘I think it is the dearest old city in the world.’

‘Old enough, and dear enough, in all conscience,’ answered Brian. ‘My uncle’s tailor had the audacity to charge me thirty shillings for a waistcoat. But it’s the most deadly-lively place I know. All country towns are deadly-lively; in fact, there are only two places fit for young people to live in — London and Paris!’

‘I suppose you mean to live in London?’ said Ida, listlessly. She did n............