after that first bewildered night, and when the morning came, the recollection that winnie was in the house had a curious effect upon the thoughts of the entire household. even aunt agatha’s uneasy joy was mingled with many feelings that were not joyful. she had never had anything to do before with wives who “were not happy.” any such cases which might have come to her knowledge among her acquaintance she had been in the way of avoiding and tacitly condemning. “a man may be bad,” she had been in the habit of saying, “but still if his wife had right feelings”—and she was in the way of thinking that it was to a woman’s credit to endure all things, and to make no sign. such had been the pride and the principles of aunt agatha’s generation. but now, as in so many cases, principle and theory came right in the face of fact, and gave way. winnie must be right at whatever cost. poor winnie! to think what she had been, to remember her as she left kirtell splendid in her bridal beauty, and to look at her now! such arguments made an end of all aunt agatha’s old maiden sentiments about a wife’s duty; but nevertheless her heart still ached. she knew how she would herself have looked upon a runaway wife, and she could not endure to think that other people would so look upon winnie; and she dried an indignant tear, and made a vow to herself to carry matters with a high hand, and to maintain her child’s discretion, and wisdom, and perfect propriety of action, in the face of all comers. “my dear child has come to pay me a visit, the very first chance she has had,” she said to herself, rehearsing her part; “i have been begging and begging her to come, and at last she has found an opportunity. and to give me a delightful surprise, she never named the day. it was so like winnie.” this was what, omitting all notice of the feelings which made the surprise far from delightful, aunt agatha made up her mind to say.

as for winnie, when she woke up in the sunshine and stillness, and heard nothing but the birds singing, and kirtell in the distance murmuring below her window, her heart stood still for a moment and wondered; and then a few hot salt tears came scalding to her eyes; and then she began over again in her own mind the recapitulation of her wrongs. she thought very little indeed of aunt agatha, or of her present surroundings. what she thought of was the late scenes of exciting strife she had gone through, and future scenes which might still be before her, and what he would say to her, and what she would say to him; for matters had gone so far between them that the constantly progressing duel was as absorbing as the first dream of love, and swallowed up every thought. it cost her an effort to be patient with all the morning greetings, with aunt agatha’s anxious talk at the breakfast-table, and discussion of the old neighbours, whom, doubtless, winnie, she thought, would like to hear of. winnie did not care a great deal for the old neighbours, nor did she take much interest in hearing of the boys. indeed she did not know the boys. they had been but babies when she went away, and she had no acquaintance with the new creatures who bore their names. it gave her a little pang when she looked at mary and saw the results of peace and tranquillity in her face, which seemed to have grown little older—but that was almost the sole thing that drew winnie from her own thoughts. there was a subtle sort of connection between it and the wrongs which were rankling at her heart.

“there used to be twelve years between us,” she said, abruptly. “i was eighteen when mary was thirty. i think anybody that saw us would ask which was the eldest now.”

“my darling, you are thin,” said poor aunt agatha, anxiously; “but a few weeks of quiet and your native air will soon round out your dear cheeks——”

“well,” said winnie, paying no attention, “i suppose it’s because i have been living all the time, and mary hasn’t. it is i that have the wrinkles—but then i have not been like the sleeping beauty. i have been working hard at life all this time.”

“yes,” said mary, with a smile, “it makes a difference:—and of the two i think i would rather live. it is harder work, but there is more satisfaction in it.”

“satisfaction!” winnie said, bitterly. there had been no satisfaction in it to her, and she felt fierce and angry at the word—and then her eye fell upon will, who had been listening as usual. “i wonder you keep that great boy there,” she said; “why isn’t he doing something? you ought to send him to the army, or put him to go through some examinations. what does he want at his mother’s lap? you should mind you don’t spoil them, mary. home is the ruin of boys. i have always heard so wherever i have been.”

“my dear love,” cried aunt agatha, fearful that mary might be moved to reply, “it is very interesting to hear you; but i want you to tell me a little about yourself. tell me about yourself, my darling—if you are fixed there now, you know; and all where you have been.”

“before that boy?” said winnie, with a kind of smile, looking wilfrid in the face with her great sunken eyes.

“now, will, be quiet, and don’t say anything impertinent,” cried aunt agatha. “oh, my darling, never mind him. he is strange, but he is a good boy at the bottom. i should like to hear about all my dearest child has been doing. letters never tell all. oh, winnie, what a pleasure it is, my love, to see your dear face again.”

“i am glad you think so, aunt—nobody else does, that i know of; and you are likely to have enough of it,” said winnie, with a certain look of defiance at her sister and her sister’s son.

“thank you, my dear love,” said aunt agatha, trembling; for the maid was in the room, and miss seton’s heart quailed with fear lest the sharp eyes of such a domestic critic should be opened to something strange in the conversation. “i am so glad to hear you are going to pay me a long visit; i did not like to ask you just the first morning, and i was dreadfully frightened you might soon be going again; you owe me something, winnie, for staying away all these long years.”

aunt agatha in her fright and agitation continued this speech until she had talked the maid safely out of the room, and then, being excited, she fell, without knowing it, into tears.

winnie leant back in her chair and folded a light shawl she wore round her, and looked at miss seton. in her heart she was wondering what aunt agatha could possibly have to cry about; what could ever happen to her, that made it worth her while to cry? but she did not put this sentiment into words.

“you will be tired of me before i go,” she said, and that was all; not a word, as aunt agatha afterwards explained to mary, about her husband, or about how she had been living, or anything about herself. and to take her by the throat, as it were, and demand that she should account for herself, was not to be thought of. the end was that they all dispersed to their various occupations, and that the day went on almost as if winnie was not there. but yet the fact that winnie was there tinged every one’s thoughts, and made a difference in every corner of the house. they had all their occupations to betake themselves to, but she had nothing to do, and unconsciously every individual in the place took to observing the new-comer, with that curious kind of feminine observation which goes so little way, and yet goes so far. she had brought only a portmanteau with her, a gentleman’s box, not a lady’s, and yet she made no move towards unpacking, but let her things remain in it, notwithstanding that the wardrobe was empty and open, and her dresses, if she had brought any, must have been crushed up like rags in that tight enclosure. and she sat in the drawing-room with the open windows, through which every one in the house now and then got a glimpse of her, doing nothing, not even reading; she had her thin shawl round her shoulders, though it was so warm, and she sat there with nothing to occupy her, like a figure carved out of stone. such an attitude, in a woman’s eyes, is the embodiment of everything that is saddest, and most listless, and forlorn. doing nothing, not trying to take an interest in anything, careless about the books, indifferent to the garden, with no curiosity about anybody or anything. the sight of her listless figure filled aunt agatha with despair.

and then, to make things worse, sir edward made his appearance the very next day to inquire into it all. it was hard to make out how he knew, but he did know, and no doubt all the parish knew, and were aware that there was something strange about it. sir edward was an old man, about eighty now, feeble but irreproachable, and lean limbs that now and then were slightly unsteady, but a toilette which was always everything it ought to be. he came in, cool and fresh in his summer morning dress, but his brow was puckered with anxiety, and there was about him that indescribable air of coming to see about it, which has so painful an effect in general upon the nerves of the persons whose affairs are to be put under investigation. when sir edward made his appearance at the open window, aunt agatha instinctively rose up and put herself before winnie, who, however, did not show any signs of disturbance in her own person, but only wound herself up more closely in her shawl.

“so winnie has come to see us at last,” said sir edward, and he came up to her and took both her hands, and kissed her forehead in a fatherly way. he did so almost without looking at her, and then he gave an unaffected start; but he had too much delicacy to utter the words that came to his lips. he did not say how much changed she was, but he gave aunt agatha a pitiful look of dismay and astonishment as he sat down, and this winnie did not fail to see.

“yes, at last,” cried aunt agatha, eagerly. “i have begged and begged of her to come, and was wondering what answer i should get, when she was all the while planning me such a delightful surprise; but how did you know?”

“news travels fast,” said sir edward, and then he turned to the stranger. “you will find us much changed, winnie. we are getting old people now, and the boys whom you left babies—you must see a great deal of difference.”

“not so much difference,” said winnie, “as you see in me.”

“it was to be expected there should be a difference,” said sir edward. “you were but a girl when you went away. i hope you are going to make a good long stay. you will find us just as quiet as ever, and as humdrum, but very delighted to see you.”

to this winnie made no reply. she neither answered his question, nor gave any response to his expression of kindness, and the old man sat and looked at her with a deeper wrinkle than ever across his brow.

“she must pay me a long visit,” said poor aunt agatha, “since she has been so long of coming. now that i have her she shall not go away.”

“and percival?” said sir edward. he had cast about in his own mind for the best means of approaching this difficult subject, but had ended by feeling there was nothing for it but plain speaking. and then, though there were reports that they did not “get on,” still there was nothing as yet to justify suspicions of a final rupture. “i hope you left him quite well; i hope we are to see him, too.”

“he was very well when i left him, thank you,” said winnie, with steady formality; and then the conversation once more came to a dead stop.

sir edward was disconcerted. he had come to examine, to reprove, and to exhort, but he was not prepared to be met with this steady front of unconsciousness. he thought the wanderer had most likely come home full of complaints and outcries, and that it might be in his power to set her right. he hemmed and cleared his throat a little, and cast about what he should say, but he had no better inspiration than to turn to aunt agatha and disturb her gentle mind with another topic, and for this moment let the original subject rest.

“ah—have you heard lately from earlston?” he said, turning to miss seton. “i have just been hearing a report about francis ochterlony. i hope it is not true.”

“what kind of report?” said aunt agatha, breathlessly. a few minutes before she could not have believed that any consideration whatever would have disturbed her from the one subject which was for the moment dearest to her heart—but sir edward with his usual felicity had found out another chord which vibrated almost as painfully. her old delusion recurred to aunt agatha with the swiftness of lightning. he might be going to marry, and divert the inheritance from hugh, and she did her best to persuade her lips to a kind of smile.

“they say he is ill,” said sir edward; “but of course if you have not heard—i thought he did not look like himself when we were there. very poorly i heard—not anything violent you know, but a sort of breaking up. perhaps it is not true.”

aunt agatha’s heart had been getting hard usage for some time back. it had jumped to her mouth, and sunk into depths as deep as heart can sink to, time after time in these eventful days. now she only felt it contract as it were, as if somebody had seized it violently, and she gave a little cry, for it hurt her.

“oh, sir edward, it cannot be true,” she said. “we had a letter from hugh on monday, and he does not say a word. it cannot be true.”

“hugh is very young,” said sir edward, who did not like to be supposed wrong in a point of fact. “a boy with no experience might see a man all but dying, and as long as he did not complain would never know.”

“but he looked very well when we were there,” said aunt agatha, faltering. if she had been alone she would have shed silent tears, and her thoughts would have been both sad and bitter; but this was not a moment to think of her own feelings—nor above all to cry.

sir edward shook his head. “i always mistrust those sort of looks for my part,” he said. “a big man has always an appearance of strength, and that carries it off.”

“is it mr. ochterlony?” said winnie, interposing for the first time. “what luck mary has and her boys! and so hugh will come into the property without any waiting. it may be very sad of course, aunt agatha, but it is great luck for him at his age.”

“oh, winnie, my dear love!” cried aunt agatha, feebly. it was a speech that went to her heart, but she was dumb between the two people who did not care for francis ochterlony, and could find nothing to say.

“i hope that is not the way in which any of us look at it,” said sir edward with gentle severity; and then he added, “i always thought if you had been left a little more to yourselves when we were at earlston that still you might have made it up.”

“oh no, no!” said aunt agatha, “now that we are both old people—and he was always far too sensible. but it was not anything of that sort. francis ochterlony and i were—were always dear friends.”

“well, you must let me know next time when hugh writes,” said sir edward, “and i hope we shall have better news.” when he said this he turned again quite abruptly to winnie, who had dropped once more into her own thoughts, and expected no new assault.

“percival is coming to fetch you, i suppose?” he said. “i think i can offer him some good shooting in a month or two. this may overcloud us all a little if—if anything should happen to francis ochterlony. but after what your aunt agatha says, i feel disposed to hope the best.”

“yes, i hope so,” said winnie; which was a very unsatisfactory reply.

“of course you are citizens of the world, and we are very quiet people,” said sir edward. “i suppose promotion comes slow in these times of peace. i should have thought he was entitled to another step by this time; but we civilians know so little about military affairs.”

“i thought everybody knew that steps were bought,” said winnie; and once more the conversation broke off dead.

it was a relief to them all when mary came into the room, and had to be told about mr. ochterlony’s supposed illness, and to take a reasonable place between aunt agatha’s panic-stricken assurance that it was not true, and sir edward’s calmly indifferent belief that it was. mary for the first time suggested that a man might be ill, and yet not at the point of death, which was a conclusion to which the others had leapt. and then they all made a little effort at ordinary talk.

“you will have everybody coming to call,” said sir edward, “now that winnie is known to have come home; and i daresay percival will find mary’s military friends a great resource when he comes. love-making being over, he will want some substitute——”

“who are mary’s military friends?” said winnie, suddenly breaking in.

“only some people in our old regiment,” said mary. “it is stationed at carlisle, strangely enough. you know the askells, i think, and——”

“the askells!” said winnie, and her face grew dark. “are they here, all that wretched set of people?—mary’s friends. ah, i might have known——”

“my dear love, she is a very silly little woman; but nelly is delightful, and he is very nice, poor man,” cried aunt agatha, eager to interfere.

“yes, poor man, he is very nice,” said winnie, with contempt; “his wife is an idiot, and he doesn’t beat her; i am sure i should, if i were he. who’s nelly? and that horrid methodist of a woman, and the old maid that reads novels? why didn’t you tell me of them? if i had known, i should never have come here.”

“oh, winnie, my darling!” cried aunt agatha; “but i did mention them; and so did mary, i feel sure.”

“they are mary’s friends,” said winnie, with bitterness, and then she stopped herself abruptly. the others were like an army of observation round a beleaguered city, which was not guided by the most perfect wisdom, but lost its temper now and then, and made injudicious sallies. now winnie shut up her gates, and drew in her garrison once more; and her companions looked at each other doubtfully, seeing a world of sore and wounded feeling, distrust, and resistance, and mystery to which they had no clue. she had gone away a girl, full of youthful bravado, and fearing nothing. she had come back a stranger, with a long history unknown to them, and with no inclination to make it clear. her aunt and sister were anxious and uneasy, and did not venture on direct assault; but sir edward, who was a man of resolution, sat down before the fortress, and was determined to fight it out.

“you should have sent us word you were coming,” he said; “and your husband should have been with you, winnie. it was he who took you away, and he ought to have come back to give an account of his stewardship. i shall tell him so when he comes.”

again winnie made no answer; her face contracted slightly; but soon settled back again into its blank look of self-concentration, and no response came.

“he has no appointment, i suppose; no adjutantship, or anything to keep him from getting away?”

“no,” said winnie.

“perhaps he has gone to see his mother?” said sir edward, brightening up. “she is getting quite an old woman, and longs to see him; and you, my pretty winnie, too. i suppose you will pay her your long-deferred visit, now you have returned to this country? percival is there?”

“no—i think not,” said winnie, winding herself up in her shawl, as she had done before.

“then you have left him at——, where he is stationed now,” said sir edward, becoming more and more point-blank in his attack.

“look here, sir edward,” said winnie; “we are citizens of the world, as you say, and we have not lived such a tranquil life as you have. i did not come here to give an account of my husband; he can take care of himself. i came to have a little quiet and rest, and not to be asked questions. if one could be let alone anywhere, it surely should be in one’s own home.”

“no, indeed,” said sir edward, who was embarrassed, and yet more arbitrary than ever; “for in your own home people have a right to know all about you. though i am not exactly a relative, i have known you all your life; i may say i brought you up, like a child of my own; and to see you come home like this, all alone, without baggage or attendant, as if you had dropped from the skies, and nobody knowing where you come from, or anything about it,—i think, winnie, my dear, when you consider of it, you will see it is precisely your own friends who ought to know.”

then aunt agatha rushed into the mêlée, feeling in her own person a little irritated by her old friend’s lecture and inquisition.

“sir edward is making a mistake, my dear love,” she said; “he does not know. dear winnie has been telling me everything. it is so nice to know all about her. those little details that can never go into letters; and when—when major percival comes——”

“it is very good of you, aunt agatha,” said winnie, with a certain quiet disdain; “but i did not mean to deceive anybody—major percival is not coming that i know of. i am old enough to manage for myself: mary came home from india when she was not quite my age.”

“oh, my dear love, poor mary was a widow,” cried aunt agatha; “you must not speak of that.”

“yes, i know mary has always had the best of it,” said winnie, under her breath; “you never made a set against her as you do against me. if there is an inquisition at kirtell, i will go somewhere else. i came to have a little quiet; that is all i want in this world.”

it was well for winnie that she turned away abruptly at that moment, and did not see sir edward’s look, which he turned first upon mary and then on aunt agatha. she did not see it, and it was well for her. when he went away soon after, miss seton went out into the garden with him, in obedience to his signals, and then he unburdened his mind.

“it seems to me that she must have run away from him,” said sir edward. “it is very well she has come here; but still it is unpleasant, to make the best of it. i am sure he has behaved very badly; but i must say i am a little disappointed in winnie. i was, as you may remember, at the very first when she made up her mind so soon.”

“there is no reason for thinking she has run away,” said aunt agatha. “why should she have run away? i hope a lady may come to her aunt and her sister without compromising herself in any way.”

sir edward shook his head. “a married woman’s place is with her husband,” he said, sententiously. he was old, and he was more moral, and perhaps less sentimental, in his remarks than formerly. “and how she is changed! there must have been a great deal of excitement and late hours, and bills and all that sort of thing, before she came to look like that.”

“you are very hard upon my poor winnie,” said aunt agatha, with a long-restrained sob.

“i am not hard upon her. on the contrary, i would save her if i could,” said sir edward, solemnly. “my dear agatha, i am sorry for you. what with poor francis ochterlony’s illness, and this heavy burden——”

miss seton was seized with one of those passions of impatience and indignation to which a man’s heavy way of blundering over sore subjects sometimes moves a woman. “it was all francis ochterlony’s fault,” she said, lifting her little tremulous white hands. “it was his fault, and not mine. he might have had some one that could have taken care of him all these years, and he chose his marble images instead—and i will not take the blame; it was no fault of mine. and then my poor darling child——”

but here miss seton’s strength, being the strength of excitement solely, gave way, and her voice broke, and she had to take both her hands to dry her fast-coming tears.

“well, well, well!” said sir edward. “dear me, i never meant to excite you so. what i was saying was with the kindest intention. let us hope ochterlony is better, and that all will turn out pleasantly for winnie. if you find yourself unequal to the emergency, you know—and want a man’s assistance——”

“thank you,” said aunt agatha, with dignity; “but i do not think so much of a man’s assistance as i used to do. mary is so very sensible, and if one does the very best one can——”

“oh, of course i am not a person to interfere,” said sir edward; and he walked away with an air still more dignified than that which aunt agatha had put on, but very shaky, poor old gentleman, about his knees, which slightly diminished the effect. as for aunt agatha, she turned her back upon him steadily, and walked back to the cottage with all the stateliness of a woman aggrieved. but nevertheless the pins and needles were in her heart, and her mind was full of anxiety and distress. she had felt very strongly the great mistake made by francis ochterlony, and how he had spoiled both their lives—but that was not to say that she could hear of his illness with philosophy. and then winnie, who was not ill, but whose reputation and position might be in deadly danger for anything miss seton knew. aunt agatha knew nothing better to do than to call mary privately out of the room and pour forth her troubles. it did no good, but it relieved her mind. why was sir edward so suspicious and disagreeable—why had he ceased “to understand people;”—and why was hugh so young and inexperienced, and incapable of judging whether his uncle was or was not seriously ill;—and why did not “they” write? aunt agatha did not know whom she meant by “they,” nor why she blamed poor hugh. but it relieved her mind. and when she had pushed her burden off on to mary’s shoulders, the weight was naturally much lightened on her own.