in the presence of the double sorrow which had fallen upon her, annie maurice's girlhood died out. arthur was gone, and geoffrey in so suffering a condition of body and mind that it would have been easier to the tender-hearted girl to know that he was at rest, even though she had to face all the loneliness which would then have been her lot. her position was very trying in all its aspects at this time; for there was little sympathy with her new sorrow at the great house which she still called home, and where she was regarded as decidedly "odd." lady beauport considered that caterham had infected her with some of his strange notions, and that her fancy for associating with "queer" people, removed from her own sphere not more by her heiress-ship than by her residence in an earl's house and her recognition as a member of a noble family, was chargeable to the eccentric notions of her son. annie came and went as she pleased, free from comment, though not from observation; but she was of a sensitive nature; she could not assert herself; and she suffered from the consciousness that her grief, her anxiety, and her constant visits to lowbar were regarded with mingled censure and contempt. her pre-occupation of mind prevented her noticing many things which otherwise could not have escaped her attention; but when geoffrey's illness ceased to be actively dangerous, and the bulletin brought her each morning from til by the hands of the faithful charley contained more tranquillising but still sad accounts of the patient, she began to observe an air of mystery and preparation in the household. the few hours which she forced herself to pass daily in the society of lady beauport had been very irksome to her since arthur died, and she had been glad when they were curtailed by lady beauport's frequent plea of "business" in the evenings, and her leaving the drawing-room for her own apartments. every afternoon she went to elm lodge, and her presence was eagerly hailed by mrs. ludlow and til. she had seen geoffrey frequently during the height of the fever; but since the letter she had kept in such faithful custody had reached his hands she had not seen him. though far from even the vaguest conjecture of the nature of its contents, she had dreaded the effect of receiving a communication from his dead friend on geoffrey ludlow, and had been much relieved when his mother told her, on the following day, that he was very calm and quiet, but did not wish to see any one for a few days. bowker and he had fully felt the embarrassment of the position in which lord caterham's revelation had placed geoffrey with regard to annie maurice, and the difficulties which the complications produced by margaret's identity with lionel brakespere's wife added to ludlow's fulfilment of caterham's trust. they had agreed--or rather bowker had suggested, and geoffrey had acquiesced, with the languid assent of a mind too much enfeebled by illness and sorrow to be capable of facing any difficulty but the inevitable, immediate, and pressing--that annie need know nothing for the present.

"she could hardly come here from the beauports, geoff," bowker had said; "it's all nonsense, of course, to men like you and me, who look at the real, and know how its bitterness takes all the meaning out of the rubbish they call rules of society; but the strongest woman is no freer than gulliver in his fetters of packthread, in the conventional world she lives in. we need not fret her sooner than it must be done, and you had better not see her for the present."

so annie came and went for two or three days and did not see geoffrey. mrs. ludlow, having recovered from the sudden shock of her son's illness and the protracted terror of his danger, had leisure to feel a little affronted at his desire for seclusion, and to wonder audibly why _she_ should be supposed to do him more harm than mr. bowker.

"a big blundering fellow like that, til," she said; "and i do assure you, miss maurice, he quite forgot the time for the draught when he was shut up there with him the other day--and talk of _he's_ doing geoffrey no harm! all i can say is, if geoffrey had not been crying when i went into his room, and wasn't trembling all over in his bed, i never was so mistaken before."

then til and annie looked blankly at each other, in mute wonder at this incomprehensible sorrow--for the women knew nothing but that margaret had fled with a former lover--so much had been necessarily told them, under bowker's instructions, by charley potts; and annie, after a little, went sorrowfully away.

that day at dinner lord beauport was more than usually kind in his manner to her; and annie considered it due to him, and a fitting return for some inquiries he had made for "her friend," which had more of warmth and less of condescension than usual in their tone, to rouse herself into greater cheerfulness than she had yet been able to assume. lady beauport rose sooner than usual; and the two ladies had hardly seated themselves in the dreary drawing-room when the earl joined them. there was an air of preparation in lord beauport's manner, and annie felt that something had happened.

the thing which had happened was this--lady beauport had not miscalculated her experienced power of managing her husband. she had skilfully availed herself of an admission made by him that lionel's absence, at so great a distance just then was an unfortunate complication; that the necessary communications were rendered difficult and tedious; and that he wished his "rustication" had been nearer home. the countess caught at the word 'rustication:' then not expulsion, not banishment, was in her husband's mind. here was a commutation of her darling's sentence; a free pardon would follow, if she only set about procuring it in the right way. so she resorted to several little expedients by which the inconvenience of the heir's absence was made more and more apparent: having once mentioned his name, lord beauport continued to do so;--perhaps he was in his secret heart as much relieved by the breaking of the ban as the mother herself;--and at length, on the same day which witnessed william bowker's visit to lionel brakespere's deserted wife, lady beauport acknowledged to her husband that their son was then in london, and that she had seen him. the earl received her communication in frowning silence; but she affected not to observe his manner, and expatiated, with volubility very unusual to her, upon the fortunate concurrence of circumstances which had brought lionel to england just as his improved position made it more than ever probable he would be perfectly well received.

"that dear mr. barford," she said--and her face never changed at the name of the man in whose arms her son had died so short a time before--"assures me that every one is delighted to see him. and really, george, he mustn't stay at long's, you know--it looks so bad--for every one knows he's in town; and if we don't receive him properly, that will be just the way to rake up old stories. i'm sure they're old enough to be forgotten; and many a young man has done worse than lionel, and--"

"stop, gertrude," said lord beauport sternly; "stick to the truth, if you please. i hope very few young men in our son's position have disgraced it and themselves as he has done. the truth is, that we have to make the best of a misfortune. he has returned; and by so doing has added to the rest a fresh rascality by breaking his pledged word. circumstances oblige me to acquiesce,--luck is on his side,--his brother's death--" lord beauport paused for a moment, and an expression, hitherto unfamiliar, but which his wife frequently saw in the future, flitted over his face--"his brother's death leaves me no choice. let us say as little as possible on this subject. he had better come here, for every reason. for appearances' sake it is well; and he will probably be under some restraint in this house." here the earl turned to leave the room, and said slowly as he walked towards the door, "something tells me, gertrude, that in arthur's death, which we dreaded too little and mourn too lightly, we have seen only the beginning of evils."

lady beauport sat very still and felt very cold after he left her. conscience smote her dumbly,--in days to come it would find a voice in which to speak,--and fear fell upon her. "i will never say any thing to him about annie maurice," she said to herself, as the first effect of her husband's words began to pass away; "i do believe he would be as hard on lionel as poor arthur himself, and warn the girl against him."

how relieved she felt as she despatched a note to lionel brakespere, telling him she had fulfilled her task, and inviting him to return to his father's house when he pleased!

assuredly the star of the new heir was in the ascendant; his brother was dead, his place restored to him, and society ready to condone all his "follies,"--which is the fashionable synonym for the crimes of the rich and the great. if lionel brakespere could have seen "that cursed woman"--as in his brutal anger he called his wife a hundred times over, as he fretted and fumed over the remembrance of their interview--as william bowker saw her that day,--he would have esteemed himself a luckier fellow still than he did when he lighted his cigar with his mother's note, and thought how soon he would change that "infernal dull old hole" from what it was in caterham's time, and how he would have every thing his own way now.

such, as far as his knowledge of them extended, and without any comment or expression of opinion of his own, were the circumstances which lord beauport narrated to annie. she received his information with an indescribable pang, compounded of a thousand loving remembrances of arthur and a keen resuscitation by her memory of the scene of lionel's disgrace, to which she and her lost friend had been witnesses. she could hardly believe, hardly understand it all; and the clearest thought which arose above the surging troubled sea within her breast was, that the place which knew arthur no more would be doubly empty and desolate when lionel should fill it.

the tone in which lord beauport had spoken was grave and sad, and he had confined himself to the barest announcement. annie had listened in respectful silence; but though she had not looked directly at her, she was conscious of lady beauport's reproachful glances, addressed to her husband, as he concluded by saying coldly,

"you were present, annie, by my desire, when i declared that that which is now about to happen should never be, and i have thought it necessary to explain to you a course of conduct on my part which without explanation would have appeared very weak and inconsistent. as a member of _my_ family you are entitled to such an explanation; and indeed, as an inmate of this house, you are entitled to an apology."

"thank you, my lord," said annie, in a voice which, though lower than usual, was very firm.

this was more than lady beauport's pride could bear. she began, fiercely enough,

"really, lord beauport, i cannot see--"

but at that moment a servant opened the door and announced

"lord caterham."

the group by the fireside stood motionless for a moment, as lionel, dressed in deep mourning, advanced towards them with well-bred ease and perfect unconcern. then lady beauport threw herself into his arms; and annie, hardly noticing that lord beauport had by an almost involuntary movement stretched out his hand to the handsome prodigal, glided past the three, hurried to her own room, and, having locked the door, sank down on her knees beside her bed in an agony of grief.

three days elapsed, during which events marched with a steady pace at elm lodge and at the lodging were the woman who had brought such wreck and ruin within that tranquil-looking abode was lying contending with grief and disease, dying the death of despair and exhaustion. when bowker returned from his unsuccessful quest for lionel brakespere, he found that she had passed into another phase of her malady,--was quiet, dreamy, and apparently forgetful of the excitement she had undergone. she was lying quite still on her bed, her eyes half closed, and a faint unmeaning smile was on her lips.

"i have seen her so for hours and hours, sir," said the gentle little landlady; "and it's my belief it's what she takes as does it."

so bowker concluded that margaret had found means to avail herself of the fatal drug from which she had sought relief so often and so long, in the interval of depression which had succeeded the delirium he had witnessed. he was much embarrassed now to know how to proceed. she required better accommodation and careful nursing, and he was determined she should have both,--but how that was to be managed was the question; and bowker, the most helpless man in the world in such matters, was powerless to answer it. he had never imagined, as he had turned the probabilities over and over in his mind, that such a complication as severe physical illness would arise; and it routed all his plans, besides engaging all his most active sympathies. william bowker had an extreme dread, indeed a positive terror, of witnessing bodily suffering in women and children; and had his anger and repulsion towards margaret been far greater than they were, they would have yielded to pain and pity as he gazed upon the rigid lines of the pale weary face, from which the beauty was beginning to fade and drop away in some mysterious manner of vanishing, terrible to see and feel, but impossible to describe. he made the best provisional arrangements within his power, and went away, promising mrs. chapman that he would return on the following day to meet the doctor, and turned his steps in much mental bewilderment towards the abode of charley potts, purposing to consult him in the emergency, previous to their proceeding together to lowbar.

"i can't help it now," he thought; "the women cannot possibly be kept out of the business any longer. if she were let to want any thing, and had not every care taken of her, dear old geoff would never forgive any of us; and it could not be hidden from him. i am sure she's dying; and--i'm glad of it: glad for her sake, poor wretched creature; and o so glad for his! he will recover her death--he _must_; but i doubt whether he would recover her life. he would be for ever hankering after her, for ever remembering the past, and throwing away the remainder of his life, as he has thrown away too much of it already. no, no, dear old geoff, this shall not be, if your william can save you. i know what a wasted life means; and you shall put yours out at good interest, geoff, please god."

charley was at home; and he received mr. bowker's communication with uncommon gravity, and immediately bestowed his best attention upon considering what was to be done. he was not in the least offended by discovering that it had not been his william's intention to tell him any thing about it. "quite right too," he observed. "i should have been of no use, if every thing had not been capsized by her illness; and i don't like to know any thing i'm not to tell to til. not that she's in the least inquisitive, you know,--don't make any mistake about that,--but things are in such an infernally mysterious mess; and then they only know enough to make them want to know more; and i shouldn't like, under these circumstances--it would seem hypocritical, don't you see--and every thing must come out sometime, eh?"

"o yes, i see," said bowker drily; "but i have to tell you _now_, charley; for what the devil's to be done? you can't bring her here and nurse her; and i can't bring her to my place and nurse her,--yet she must be taken somewhere and nursed; and we must be prepared with a satisfactory account of every thing we have done, when geoff gets well; and what are we to do?"

mr. potts did not answer for a few moments, but handed over the beer in an absent manner to mr. bowker; then, starting up from the table on which he had been sitting, he exclaimed,

"i have it, william. let's tell the women--til, i mean, and miss maurice. they'll know all about it, bless you," said charley, whose confidence in female resources was unbounded. "it's all nonsense trying to keep things dark, when theyve got to such a pass as this. if mrs. ludlow's in the state you say, she will not live long; and then geoff's difficulty, if not his trouble, will be over. her illness alters every thing. come on, bowker; let's get on to elm lodge; tell til, and miss maurice, if she's there; and let them make proper arrangements."

"but, charley," said bowker, much relieved, in spite of his misgivings, by the suggestion, "you forget one important point. miss maurice is brakespere's cousin, and she lives in his father's house. it won't do to bring her in."

"never you mind that, william," replied the impetuous charley. "til can't act alone; and old mrs. ludlow is nervous, and would not know what to do, and must not be told; and i am sure miss maurice doesn't care a rap about her cousin--the ruffian--why should she? and i know she would do any thing in the world, no matter how painful to herself, and no matter whether he ever came to know it or not, that would serve or please geoff."

"indeed!" said bowker, in a tone half of inquiry, half of surprise, and looking very hard at charley; "and how do you know that, eh, charley?"

"o, bother," answered that gentleman, "i don't know how i know it; but i do know it; and i am sure the sooner we act on my knowledge the better. so come along."

so saying, mr. potts made his simple outdoor toilet; and the two gentlemen went out, and took their way towards the resort of omnibuses, eagerly discussing the matter in hand as they went, and mr. bowker finding himself unexpectedly transformed from the active into the passive party.

it was agreed between them that geoffrey should not be informed of bowker's presence in the house, as he would naturally be impatient to learn the result of the mission with which he had intrusted him; and that result it was their present object to conceal.

fortune favoured the wishes of bowker and charley. mrs. ludlow was with her son; and in the drawing-room, which was resuming somewhat of its former orderly and pleasant appearance, they found miss maurice and til. the two girls were looking sad and weary, and til was hardly brightened up by charley's entrance, for he looked so much more grave than usual, that she guessed at once he had heard something new and important. the little party were too vitally interested in geoffrey and his fortunes, and the occasion was too solemn for any thing of ceremony; and when charley potts had briefly introduced bowker to annie maurice, he took til's hand in his, and said,

"til, geoffrey's wife has been found--alone, and very ill--dying, as we believe!"

"you are quite sure, william?"

"i am quite sure, geoffrey. do you think i would deceive you, or take any thing for granted myself, without seeing and hearing what is so important to you? she is well cared for in every respect. your own care, when she needed it before, was not more tender or more effective. be satisfied, dear old geoff; be content."

"you saw her--you really saw her; and she spoke kindly of me?" asked geoffrey with a pitiable eagerness which pained bowker to witness.

"i did. yes, have i not told you again and again--" then there was a moment's silence and bowker thought, if she were not dying, how terrible this tenderness towards her would be, how inexplicable to all the world but him, how ruinous to geoffrey; but as it was, it did not matter: it would soon be only the tenderness of memory, the pardon of the grave.

geoffrey was sitting in an arm-chair by the bedroom window which overlooked the pretty flower-garden and the lawn. he was very weak still, but health was returning, and with it the power of acute mental suffering, which severe bodily illness mercifully deadens. this had been a dreadful day to him. when he was able to sit up and look around the room from which all the graceful suggestive traces of a woman's presence had been carefully removed; when he saw the old home look upon every thing before his eyes (for whom the idea of home was for ever desecrated and destroyed), the truth presented itself to him as it had never before done, in equal horror and intensity, since the day the woman he loved had struck him a blow by her words which had nearly proved mortal. would it had been so! he thought, as his large brown eyes gazed wearily out upon the lawn and the flower-beds, and then were turned upon the familiar objects in the chamber, and closed with a shudder. his large frame look gaunt and worn, and his hands rested listlessly upon the sides of his chair. he had requested them to leave him alone for a little, that he might rest previous to seeing bowker.

from the window at which geoffrey sat he could see the nurse walking monotonously up and down the gravel-walk which bounded his little demesne with the child in her arms. sometimes she stopped to pluck a flower and give it to the baby, who would laugh with delight and then throw it from him. geoffrey watched the pair for a little, and then turned his head wearily away and put his question to bowker, who was seated beside him, and who looked at him furtively with glances of the deepest concern.

"you shall hear how she is, geoff,--how circumstanced, how cared for, and by whom, from one who can tell you the story better than i can. your confidence has not been misplaced." geoffrey turned upon him the nervous anxious gaze which is so touching to see in the eyes of one who has lately neared the grave, and still seems to hover about its brink. william bowker proceeded: "you have not asked for miss maurice lately. i daresay you felt too much oppressed by the information in lord caterham's letter, too uncertain of the future, too completely unable to make up your mind what was to be done about her, to care or wish to see her. she has been here as usual, making herself as useful as possible, and helping your mother and sister in every conceivable way. but she has done more for you than that, geoff; and if you are able to see her now, i think you had better hear it all from herself."

with these words bowker hurried out of the room; and in a few minutes annie maurice, pale, quiet, and self-possessed, came in, and took her seat beside geoffrey.

what had she come to tell him? what had she been doing for the help and service of her early friend,--she, this young girl so unskilled in the world's ways, so lonely, so dependent hitherto,--who now looked so womanly and sedate,--in whose brown eyes he saw such serious thought, such infinite sweetness and pity,--whose deep mourning dress clothed her slender figure with a sombre dignity new to it, and on whom a nameless change had passed, which geoffrey had eyes to see now, and recognised even in that moment of painful emotion with wonder.

calmly, carefully subduing every trace of embarrassment for his sake, and in a business-like tone which precluded the necessity for any preliminary explanation, annie told geoffrey ludlow that she had been made aware of the circumstances which had preceded and caused his illness. she touched lightly upon her sorrow and her sympathy, but passed on to the subject of caterham's letter. geoffrey listened to her in silence, his head turned away and his eyes covered with his hand. annie went on:

"i little thought, geoffrey, when i was so glad to find that you were well enough to read arthur's letter, and when i only thought of fulfilling so urgent a request as soon as i could, and perhaps diverting your mind into thoughts of our dear dead friend, that i was to be the means of making all this misery plain and intelligible. but it was so, geoffrey; and i now see that it was well. why arthur should have selected you to take up the search after his death i cannot tell,--i suppose he knew instinctively your fidelity and trueheartedness; but the accident was very fortunate, for it identified your interests and mine, it made the fulfilment of his trust a sacred duty to me, and enabled me to do with propriety what no one else could have done, and what she--what margaret--would not have accepted from another."

geoffrey started, let his hand fall from his face, and caught hers. "is it you, then, annie?"

"yes, yes," she said, "it is i, geoffrey; do not agitate yourself, but listen to me. when mr. bowker found margaret, as you know he did, she was very ill, and--she had no protector and no money. what could he do? he did the best thing; he told me, to whom arthur's wishes were sacred, who would have done the same had you never existed--you know i am rich and free; and i made all the needful arrangements for her at once. when all was ready for her reception--it is a pretty house at sydenham, geoffrey, and she is as well cared for as any one can be--i went to her, and told her i was come to take her home."

"and she--margaret--did she consent? did she think it was i who--"

"who sent me?" interrupted annie. "no,--she would not have consented; for her feeling is that she has so wronged you that she must owe nothing to you any more. in this i know she is quite wrong; for to know that she was in any want or suffering would be still worse grief to you,--but that can never be,--and i did not need to contradict her. i told her i came to her in a double character that of her own friend--though she had not had much friendship for me, geoffrey; but that is beside the question--and--and--" here she hesitated for a moment, but then took courage and went on, "that of her husband's cousin." geoffrey ground his teeth, but said never a word. she continued, with deepening light in her eyes and growing tenderness in her voice, "i told her how arthur, whom i loved, had sought for her,--how a strange fatality had brought them in contact, neither knowing how near an interest each had in the other. she knew it the day she fainted in his room, but he died without knowing it, and so dying left her, as i told her i felt she was, a legacy to me. she softened then, geoffrey, and she came with me."

here annie paused, as if expecting he would speak, but he did not. she glanced at him, but his face was set and rigid, and his eyes were fixed upon the walk, where the nurse and child still were.

"she is very ill, geoffrey," annie went on; "very weak and worn, and weary of life. i am constantly with her, but sometimes she is unable or unwilling to speak to me. she is gloomy and reserved, and suffers as much in mind as in body, i am sure."

geoffrey said slowly, "does she ever speak to you of me?"

annie replied, "not often. when she does, it is always with the greatest sorrow for your sorrow, and the deepest sense of the injury she has done you. i am going to her to-day, geoffrey, and i should like to take to her an assurance of your forgiveness. may i tell margaret that you forgive her?"

he turned hastily, and said with a great gasp, "o annie, tell her that i love her!"

"i will tell her that," the girl said gently and sadly, and an expression of pain crossed her face. she thought of the love that had been wasted, and the life that had been blighted.

"what is she going to do?" asked geoffrey; "how is it to be in the future?" this was a difficult question for annie to answer: she knew well what lay in the future; but she dreaded to tell geoffrey, even while she felt that the wisest, the easiest, the best, and the most merciful solution of the terrible dilemma in which a woman's ungoverned passion had placed so many innocent persons was surely and not slowly approaching.

"i don't know, geoffrey," she said; "i cannot tell you. nothing can be decided upon until she is better, and you are well enough to advise and direct us. try and rest satisfied for the present. she is safe, no harm can come to her; and i am able and willing to befriend her now as you did before. take comfort, geoffrey; it is all dreadful; but if we had not found her, how much worse it would have been!"

at this moment the nurse carried her charge out of their sight, as she came towards the house, and annie, thinking of the more than motherless child, wondered at the no-meaning of her own words, and how any thing could have been worse than what had occurred.

she and geoffrey had spoken very calmly to each other, and there had been no demonstration of gratitude to her on his part; but it would be impossible to tell the thankfulness which filled his heart. it was a feeling of respite which possessed him. the dreadful misfortune which had fallen upon him was as real and as great as ever; but he could rest from the thought of it, from its constant torture, now that he knew that she was safe from actual physical harm; now that no awful vision of a repetition of the destitution and misery from which he had once rescued her, could come to appal him. like a man who, knowing that the morrow will bring him a laborious task to do, straining his powers to the utmost, inexorable and inevitable in its claims, covets the deep rest of the hours which intervene between the present and the hour which must summon him to his toil, geoffrey, in the lassitude of recent illness, in the weakness of early convalescence, rested from the contemplation of his misery. he had taken annie's communication very quietly; he had a sort of feeling that it ought to surprise him very much, that the circumstances were extraordinary, that the chain of events was a strangely-wrought one--but he felt little surprise; it was lurking somewhere in his mind, he would feel it all by and by, no doubt; but nothing beyond relief was very evident to him in his present state. he wondered, indeed, how it was with annie herself; how the brave, devoted, and unselfish girl had been able, trammelled as she was by the rules and restrictions of a great house, to carry out her benevolent designs, and dispose of her own time after her own fashion. there was another part of the subject which geoffrey did not approach even in his thoughts. bowker had not told him of margaret's entreaties that she might see lionel brakespere; he had not told him that the young man had returned to his father's house; and he made no reference to him in his consideration of annie's position. he had no notion that the circumstances in which lord caterham had entreated his protection for annie had already arisen.

"how is it that you can do all this unquestioned, annie?" he asked; "how can you be so much away from home?"

she answered him with some embarrassment. "it was difficult--a little--but i knew i was right, and i did not suffer interference. when you are quite well, geoffrey, i want your advice for myself. i have none else, you know, since arthur died."

"he knew that, annie; and the purport of the letter which told me such a terrible story was to ask me in all things to protect and guide you. he little knew that he had the most effectual safeguard in his own hands; for, annie, the danger he most dreaded for you was association with his brother."

"that can never be," she said vehemently. "no matter what your future course of action may be, geoffrey, whether you expose him or not--in which, of course, you will consider margaret only--i will never live under the same roof with him. i must find another home, geoffrey, let what will come of it, and let them say what they will."

"caterham would have been much easier in his mind, annie," said geoffrey, with a sad smile, "if he had known how baseless were his fears that his brother would one day win your heart."

"there never could have been any danger of that, geoffrey," said annie, with a crimson blush, which had not subsided when she took her leave of him.