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CHAPTER XXV.
The Scene of the Outrage

The excitement and bustle which attended and followed on the attempted murder, the suicide, the inquest, the illnesses, and the true and false reports concerning each and all of these incidents, had hardly subsided before the Mayor of Market Denborough, with the perseverance that distinguished him, began once more to give his attention to the royal visit. For reasons which will be apparent to all who study the manner in which one man becomes a knight while another remains unhonored, the Mayor was particularly anxious that the Institute should not lose the éclat which the Duke of Mercia had promised to bestow on its opening, and that its opening should take place during his mayoralty.

The finger of fame pointed at Mr. Maggs the horse-dealer as Mr. Hedger's successor, and the idea of the waters of the fountain of honor flowing on to the head of Maggs, instead of on to his own, spurred the Mayor to keen exertion. He had interviews with the Squire, he wrote to the Lord Lieutenant, he promoted a petition from the burgesses, and he carried a resolution in the Town Council. Mr. Delane was prevailed upon to use his influence with the Lord Lieutenant; the Lord Lieutenant could not, in view of Mr. Delane's urgent appeal, refuse to lay the question before his Royal Highness; and his Royal Highness was graciously pleased to say that he could not deny himself the pleasure of obliging Lord Cransford, knowing not that he was in fact and in truth, if it may be spoken without lèse-majesté, merely an instrument in the clever fingers of a gentleman who, when the Prince was writing his reply, was rolling pills in the parlor behind his shop in the town of Market Denborough.

Now, Colonel Smith had never concealed his opinion that, however much evil that unhappy man James Roberts had to answer for, yet he deserved a scrap of grateful memory, inasmuch as he had by his action averted the calamity that was threatening the town, and, furthermore, robbed Dale Bannister of the chance of prostituting his genius. Accordingly, when it was announced in the Standard, three or four weeks after James Roberts had shot at Dale Bannister and wounded Nellie Fane, that the Duke had given a conditional promise to pay his deferred visit in June, the Colonel laid down the paper and said to the rest of the breakfast party at Mount Pleasant – and the Colonel must bear the responsibility for the terms he thought proper to employ:

"That old fool Cransford has nobbled the whippersnapper again! We're to have him after all! Good Lord!"

Tora at once appreciated his meaning.

"Papa means the Prince is coming, Nellie!" cried she. "How splendid!"

"Bannister will have a chance of blacking his boots now," pursued the Colonel, trying to impose a malignant sneer on his obstinately kindly countenance.

"You are not to say such things," said Nellie emphatically. "You know you don't mean them."

"Not mean them?" exclaimed the Colonel.

"No. You're not horrid, and it's no use trying to make yourself horrid. Is it, Tora?"

Tora's thoughts were far away.

"In June," she said meditatively. "I hope it won't be the first week, or we shall have to come back early."

The Colonel's face expressed concentrated scorn.

"You would cut short your honeymoon in order to come back?"

"Of course, dear. I wouldn't miss it. Oh, and, Nellie, I shall go in next after Lady Cransford!"

This was too much for the Colonel; he said nothing himself, but his joy was great when Sir Harry pointed out that Mrs. Hedger would have official precedence over the new Lady Fulmer. The Colonel chuckled, and Tora pretended that she had remembered about Mrs. Hedger all the time.

"Johnstone will probably take you in, Tora," said Sir Harry, who had lately found himself able to treat Tora with less fearful respect.

"I don't care. I shall talk to the Prince. Now, Nellie, you must come down for it."

Nellie would not give any promise, and Tora forbore to press her, for she confessed to herself and to Sir Harry that she did not quite understand the position of affairs. Janet Delane remained in strict seclusion; doctor's orders were alleged, but Tora was inclined to be skeptical, for she had seen Janet out driving, and reported that she looked strong and well. Dale was at Littlehill, and he was there alone, Philip having gone back to London with Arthur Angell. He often came over to Mount Pleasant, to see Nellie, no doubt; and when he came, he was most attentive and kind to her. Yet he resolutely refused to stay in the house, always returning in an hour or two to his solitary life at Littlehill. He seemed never to see Janet, and to know not much more about her than the rest of the world did. He never referred to her unquestioned, and when he spoke of Nellie's share in the scene in the garden, he appeared pointedly to avoid discussing Janet's. Tora concluded that there was some break in his relations with Janet, and, led on by her sympathies, had small difficulty in persuading herself that he was by degrees being induced by affection and gratitude to feel toward Nellie as everybody expected and wished him to feel. Only, if so, it was hard to see why Nellie's pleasure in his visits seemed mingled with a nervousness which the increased brightness of her prospects did not allay. Evidently she also was puzzled by Janet's conduct; and it was equally clear that she did not yet feel confident that Dale had renounced his fancy for Janet and given his heart to her.

In after-days Dale was wont to declare that the fortnight he passed alone at Littlehill was the most miserable in his life, and people given to improving the occasion would then tell him that he had no experience of what real misery was. Yet he was very miserable. He was sore to the heart at Janet's treatment of him; she would neither see him, nor, till he absolutely insisted, write to him, and then she sent three words: "It's no use." In face of this incredible delusion of hers he felt himself helpless; and the Squire, with all the good will in the world to him, could only shrug his shoulders and say that Jan was a strange girl; while Mrs. Delane, knowing nothing of the cause of her daughter's refusal to see Dale, had once again begun to revive her old hopes, and allowed herself to hint at them to her favorite Gerard Ripley. Of course this latter fact was not known to Dale, but he was aware that Captain Ripley had called two or three times at the Grange, and had seen Janet once. The "doctor's orders" applied, it seemed, to him alone; and his bitterness of heart increased, mingling with growing impatience and resentment. Nellie could never have acted like this: she was too kind and gentle; love was real in her, a mastering power, and not itself the plaything of fantastic scruples – unless a worse thing were true, unless the scruples themselves were the screen of some unlooked-for and sudden infidelity of heart. The thought was treason, but he could not stifle it. Yet, even while it possessed him, while he told himself that he had now full right to transfer his allegiance, that no one could blame him, that every motive urged him, all the while in his inmost mind he never lost the knowledge that it was Janet he wanted; and when he came to see Nellie, he was unable, even if he had been willing – and he told himself he was – to say anything but words of friendship and thanks, unable to frame a sentence distantly approaching the phrases of love he knew she longed to hear.

Matters were in this very unsatisfactory condition when Philip Hume returned to Littlehill, and straightway became the unwilling recipient of Dale's troubled confidences. A fortnight's solitude had been too much for Dale, and he poured out his perplexities, saying, with an apologetic laugh:

"I'm bound to tell someone. I believe, if you hadn't come, I should have made a clean breast of it to the Mayor."

"You might do worse. The Mayor is a man of sagacity. This young woman seems very unreasonable."

"What young woman?"

"Why, Miss Delane."

"Well, Phil, you must allow for the delicacy of her – "

"You called it infernal nonsense yourself just now."

"I wish, Phil, you'd call at the Grange and see her, and tell me what you think about her."

"I can't do any good, but I'll go, if you like."

Accordingly he went, and did, as he expected, no good at all. Janet had resumed her ordinary manner, with an additional touch or two of vivacity and loquaciousness, which betrayed the uneasiness they were meant to hide. The only subjects she discussed were the last new novel and Tora Smith's wedding, and Philip took his leave, entirely unenlightened. The Squire offered to walk part of the way with him and they set out together.

The Squire stopped at the scene of the disaster. Pointing with his toe to a spot by the side of the drive:

"That's where that mad wretch stood, holding my poor girl," he said.

Philip nodded.

"And where was Dale?" he asked, for it was his first visit to the spot.

The Squire was delighted to be cicerone.

"He was standing with his back to that tree yonder, about fifteen yards off, looking due north, toward the house, thinking of a poem or some nonsense, I suppose."

"I shouldn't wonder."

"Well, then," pursued the Squire, "you see he was almost in a straight line with Roberts – Roberts' barrel must have pointed straight toward Denborough church spire. After the first shot Bannister sprang forward – the gravel was soft, and we saw every footprint – to where Miss Fane fell, and – "

"Where did she fall?"

The Squire's toe indicated a spot about three yards from the tree.

"She was running up from behind Bannister, you know, and had just got across the line of fire when the bullet caught her. She fell forward on her face, – she was bound to, Spink said, from the way she was hit, – and Bannister just got his arm under her, to break her fall."

"She was running toward him, I suppose, to warn him?"

"To get between him and Roberts, like the noble girl she is, no doubt; but she seemed to have turned round on hearing the shot, because, to judge from the way she was lying, she was, at the moment she fell, heading almost south."

"What, toward the house?"

"Yes, in a slanting line, from the tree toward the house."

"That's away from Bannister?"

"Yes, and from Roberts too. You see, she must have turned. It was a fine thing. Well, I must get back; I'm busy with all the preparations for this affair. Good-day, Mr. Hume. Very kind of you to come and see us."

"I'm so glad to find Miss Delane better."

"Yes, she's better, thanks, but not herself yet, by any means. Good-day."

Philip went home, lit a pipe, and drew a neat little plan of the scene which had just been so carefully described to him. By the time the drawing was made the pipe was finished, and he was obliged to light another, which he consumed while he sat gazing at his handiwork. He was still pondering over it when Dale came in, and flung himself into an armchair with a restless sigh.

"What's up now?" asked Philip.

"Only that I'm the most miserable dog alive. I tell you what, Phil, I'm going to settle this affair one way or the other. I won't be played with any more. I shall go up to the Grange to-morrow."

"You can't – it's Fulmer's wedding."

"Hang his wedding! Well, then, next day – and get a definite answer from Janet. It's too bad of her. Did you have any talk with her to-day?"

"Only general conversation. She gave me no chance."

"I don't understand her, but I'll have it settled. I've been at Mount Pleasant, and – by God, Phil, I can't stand the sort of anxious, beseeching way Nellie looks. I know it sounds absurd to hear a man talk like that, but it's a fact."

"Then why do you go?"

"Well, considering what she's done, I don't see how I can very well stay away."

"Oh! No, I suppose not," said Philip, touching up his plan; "but if I were you, Dale, I should wait a bit before I bothered Miss Delane again. Give her time, man."

"No, I won't. She's not treating me fairly."

"What's that got to do with it? You want to marry her, don't you?"

"Of course I do."

"Then give her time. Give her a week at all events. You can sound her at the wedding to-morrow, but don't present your ultimatum."

And Dale agreed, on much persuasion, to give her a week.

"That's more sensible. And, Dale, may I ask Arthur Angell down for a day or two?"

"Of course, but I don't know whether he'll come."

"Oh, he'll come, fast enough."

"What do you want him for?"

"To consult him about a little work of mine," answered Philip, regarding his sketch critically.

"Going to publish something?"

"I don't know. That depends."

"On the publishers? Ça va sans dire. But how can Arthur help you?"

"He was there."

"Where?"

"Now, Dale, I can understand your impatience – but you must wait. If I publish it, you shall see it."

"Is it my sort? Shall I like it?"

"I think your feelings would be mixed," said Philip, delicately filling in Nellie Fane's figure on the ground.

CHAPTER XXVI.
Against her Better Judgment

It is never well to vie with experts in their own subjects; humiliation surely attends the audacious attempt, and a humiliation which receives and deserves no softening sympathy. Moreover, even if the technical difficulties could be overcome, the description of a wedding must be either florid or cynical, assuming impossible happiness, or insinuating improbable catastrophe. Wherefore this narrative, which abhors either of these extremes, takes leave to resume its course at the moment when Sir Harry and Lady Fulmer have been driven away for their honeymoon, and the guests at Mount Pleasant are engaged in looking at one another's presents, one another's clothes, and their own watches, while a group of men have sought retirement and cigars in the garden. The Lord Lieutenant was paying compliments of alarming elaboration and stateliness to Nellie Fane; and Janet Delane, having discharged her duty in that line with generous graciousness, was looking with despair at Captain Ripley's puzzled face and betugged mustache, and wondering why men could not or would not understand plain English, and why – why above all – they had no more sense of dignity or of timeliness than to renew useless entreaties in a roomful of people, and – to descend to the particular case – with Dale Bannister only a few yards away, paying obvious inattention to a rhapsodic bridesmaid.

"Wasn't it a pretty wedding?" asked the bridesmaid. "You know I'm a stranger to Denborough, and I never knew you had so many beautiful girls. It might have been St. Peter's."

"Might it?" said Dale, with an absent smile, entirely unappreciative of the compliment. He did not know what or where St. Peter's was.

"Oh, it was lovely. Well, dear Tora herself is very pretty. And then, Miss Delane! I do love that severe, statuesque style, don't you? How pale she is, though! she doesn't look very happy, does she? Oh, and Miss Fane! Isn't she lovely? She sings, doesn't she? I think people of that kind are so nice. Oh, and I've heard all about her. How nice it was of her to be so brave, wasn't it?"

"Naturally, I think so."

"Oh, of course, I forgot. It's so nice when people are good and pretty too, isn't it? After all, good looks do go for something, don't they?" and she fixed a pair of large and unnaturally innocent eyes on Dale.

"You must tell me about that," he said with labored politeness. "How do you find it?"

"Oh, nonsense, Mr. Bannister! But, seriously, did you ever see anything so lovely as the way Sir Harry looked at Tora when they were – "

Dale had gone – without a word of excuse. He had seen Janet rise abruptly, with an impatient wave of her hand, and Captain Ripley turn on his heel and disappear into the eddying throng that was circling round the wedding presents. He darted across to Janet, and held out his hand.

"I must see you here," he said, "since you will not see me at the Grange."

The bridesmaid marked their greeting. She rose with offended dignity and returned to her mother. She says to this day that she has only known one poet, and he was not at all nice, and concludes, after the manner of a certain part of humanity, that none of the rest are nice either.

Janet looked at Dale doubtfully, then she led the way to a little room which was free from the crowd. Then she sat down. "I'm very tired," she said, "and I want to stay here and rest. Will you let me?"

"I know what you mean, Jan. How can I, when I never have a chance of saying what I want to say to you? You talk to Ripley – "

"I don't comfort Gerard Ripley much."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Dale heartlessly.

"I'm not much troubled about him. I'm only a habit to him."

"I don't care twopence about him. Jan, when is this sort of thing to end? Don't you like seeing me?"

Janet had made up her mind to treat Dale at first with simple friendliness; if this recipe failed, it was to be followed by distant civility. She answered collectedly enough, in spite of a quiver in her voice:

"I thought I had better not see you just now."

"Why, in Heaven's name?"

"I can't go through it all again. Indeed I can't, Dale."

"Do you seriously expect me to be content with what you said then – to go away and never come near you again?"

Dale spoke vehemently. It was obvious that the distant civility would be called into play. Perhaps silence was Janet's idea of it, for she said nothing.

"Because that's what it comes to," pursued Dale. "Do you imagine, Jan, I could see you now – after it all – except as your lover? What do you want me to do?"

"Miss Fane – " began Janet in a very small voice.

"I'll never see Nellie Fane again if she robs me of you," Dale declared with great energy, and probably perfect, though unintentional, untruth.

Janet looked up and met his eyes. Then she dropped hers, and said, in tones quite unlike those of distant civility:

"I wonder how you care for such a mean-spirited creature as I am. If I told you I loved you still – how could you believe me? I told you before, and then I – "

"Behaved like a sensible girl."

"Oh, no, no. It was a lie when I said – "

"Tell me another, then," said Dale. "I like them."

Janet's resistance, like Bob Acres' courage, was oozing out of her finger tips.

"I know what it will be," she faltered plaintively. "You'll always be thinking about her, and so shall I – and it will be horrible. No, I won't do it. I have some resolution, Dale; it wasn't mere nonsense. I did mean it."

"Oh, no," said Dale persuasively; "you never did, Jan. You had no idea how bored you would be without me. Now, had you?"

"I can never respect myself again."

"It's quite unnecessary, dear; I'll do all that."

"Are you really quite – quite sure, Dale, that you will never – "

"Oh, hang it all!" said Dale, and he kissed her.

"Dale! the door's open."

Dale shut it, and the rest of the conversation became inaudible, and remains unknown.

The guests had gone. Mrs. Hodge and Nellie, who were to keep the Colonel company for a little while, had walked down to Denborough to tell Mrs. Roberts all about the event of the day; and the Colonel was bustling about, getting the presents packed up, and counting, with some surprise, the empty champagne bottles. He was thus engaged when the door of the little room opened, to let Janet and Dale out.

"Dear me! I thought you'd gone. Nellie asked me, and I told her so."

"I am just going, Colonel Smith," said Janet.

"So am I," said Dale.

The Colonel watched them go together.

"There's another man going to lose his daughter," he said. "By Jove, I thought it was to be Nellie Fane!"

When Janet left Dale at the Grange gates, she went to her father's study.

"Lord, child," said the Squire, "are you only just back?"

"I stayed to see them off."

"Your mother did that, and she's been back two hours. She couldn't find you."

"Papa," said Janet, sitting on the arm of his chair, "I'm very much ashamed of myself."

"What have you been, doing now? Ill treating that poor young man again?"

"No."

"He's not a bad fellow, you know, after all – honest and good – not brilliant, of course."

"Not brilliant, papa?"

"I don't mean he's a fool; I believe he's an efficient officer – "

"Officer? Why, you're talking of Gerard!"

"Of course I am."

"How can you imagine I was thinking of Gerard? I meant Mr. Bannister."

"Bannister? Why, you told me only the other day – "

"Yes. That's why."

"Why what, child?"

"Why I'm ashamed."

The Squire raised himself and looked severely at his daughter.

"A precious fuss you've made about nothing."

"I can't help it, papa. I don't want to, but he insists."

"He seems to know how to manage you, which is more than I do. There, go and tell your mother. And, Jan!"

"Yes."

"If ever you say you won't have him again – "

"Yes, papa."

"By Jove, you shan't!" said the Squire with emphasis, and he added, as his daughter fled after a hasty kiss, "Perhaps that'll keep her quiet."

Dale found nobody but Philip Hume to congratulate him, and Philip was, as usual now, busy over his little plan.

"Oh, she's come round, has she?" he asked, with no sign of surprise.

Dale said she had, and Philip meditatively took up his little plan.

"Have you told Nellie?" he asked.

"No. I haven't seen her."

"She never knew you had asked Miss Delane before?"

"No. Nobody knew but her people and you. I think she had an idea I liked Jan."

"Yes, but not more?"

"No. I don't think so."

Philip whistled gently, and twisted the little plan in his fingers. Dale, in his good humor, said:

"Why the deuce, Phil, do you go on fidgeting with that thing? You're like an old hen over an egg."

"Yes; I don't know that it is any good. I think I'll destroy it."

And he tore it slowly in two, and threw it in the fire.

"The vindictive theory of punishment," he remarked, with apparent irrelevance, "does not commend itself to me. If no evil consequences exist to be averted, why should we punish?" and he pushed the plan farther into the blaze with the poker.

"If you want to argue that sort of thing, old fellow, you must ring for Wilson. I'm going to have a try at some verses."

"Going to write your own epitaph, like Swift?"

Dale shook his head and smiled, with the impenetrable, hopeless happiness of successful love.