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CHAPTER XXV

MARY'S nature was stronger than Ethel's, and after a moment's hesitation, during which she struggled to resist Mary's authority, the younger girl gave way. She walked slowly back to the house.

"I will go and see mummy," she said to herself. "Perhaps mummy will understand. How queer Mary is--how different from what she used to be! What can it all mean? Oh, if I only might go to Australia with Kate how very happy I should be! During our absence Mary would forget all that now worries her, and when we came back again she would be her own dear self."

Ethel quickened her steps. She soon reached her mother's room.

Mrs. Hume, tired from her journey, was lying on the sofa. She was considerably better, her eyes were bright, and there was a healthy colour in each of her cheeks. Ethel ran up to her impulsively, knelt down by her side, and took one of her hands in hers.

"It is good to see you again, mummy," she said.

"And it is very nice to see you, my little Ethel," replied Mrs. Hume. "Sit down, darling, and tell me all you have been doing."

"All, mummy? That will mean a long narrative."

"Well, begin; tell me something at any rate. How did you enjoy your time at Castellis?"

"Oh! but don't you know," cried Ethel, "we had | | 247 scarcely any time there. Kate hurried us away. She was nervous, poor Kitty was."

"She used to be nervous as a child," said Mrs. Hume; "but I fancied from her appearance that she had quite outgrown it. But what could make her ner us at dear old Castellis?"

"Such an absurd idea, mother. She took it into her head that the place was haunted."

"Oh! my dear child!"

"There was an old story about it, don't you remember?"

"Yes, dear; but I never listen to things of that sort. You don't seriously mean to tell me that Kitty was affected by any nonsense of that kind?"

"She was, mummy; and so seriously affected that she rushed off to Falmouth, and we had to follow her. But, after all, it didn't matter. It is not the place, mummy dear, it is the people that make the difference; and Kitty was delighted at Falmouth, and we were in a splendid hotel and had every comfort. We went out on the water a good deal in Ralph's yacht. Oh! we had a gay time, and--"

"Yes, darling. Why do you stop?"

"If it were not for Mary, mother, I think I should have been perfectly happy."

"But what had your dear sister to do with pre-venting your being happy?"

"Mother," said Ethel--she looked fixedly into her mother's eyes--"don't you see a change in our Mary?"

"You alarm me, my love. A change in her health, do you mean?"

"Well, I don't really know that it is her health at least, I don't think it is her bodily health. But she is changed, mother; she is very queer. She seems | | 248 full of suspicion about--about our Kate--our Kitty, mother!"

"Our Kate--our Kitty? Mary suspects Kitty?" said Mrs. Hume. "But of what?"

"Really, mother, I cannot say. She is so strange about it. From her attitude and ways one would think that Kate had done something very, very wrong, and that Mary's mission in life was to find it out. Let me tell you, mother. Listen, won't you?"

Mrs. Hume did listen while Ethel repeated the various things she had observed with regard to Mary--her hurried visit to Cornwall, the interview with Sir John Fenton-Douglas, their coming back to town, were all graphically described.

Mrs. Hume listened without making any comment. Her life of invalidism had made her thoughtful and wary. In the old days she used to be impulsive; now she held herself in firm control, and allowed Ethel to see very little of her mind.

"What does it mean, mother?" said the girl in conclusion. "What is wrong?"

"Nothing, I hope, darling. What should be wrong?"

"But she has no reason whatever for her strange conduct! What can Kate have done wrong?"

"I hope nothing, my dear."

"But Mary thinks she has. Mary suspects her. Sometimes I almost think that she--it seems incredible--but I almost think she suspects Kate of not being Kate at all!"

"Now, my dear Ethel, you are getting a little unintelligible."

"Oh! I know, mother, it all sounds very strange; but let me tell you what fear troubles me."

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"Do, darling."

"I am so awfully afraid that our Mary is growing like Aunt Julia."

Now, indeed, Mrs. Hume turned pale.

"No," she said, half rising from her sofa. "No. Impossible!"

"People who go out of their minds get affected that way; don't they, mother?"

"Yes, darling; but I am sure it is not true in Mary's case."

Just then steps were heard in the corridor; they stopped outside Mrs. Hume's door. The next instant Mr. Hume and Mary came in.

"What are you talking about, Ethel?" said Mary, glancing at her sister, who flushed vividly at sight of her.

"I was talking to mother."

"About me?" said Mary.

"Well, yes, Mary. I cannot deny it."

"I suppose you won't tell me what you have been saying?"

"I don't think I can."

"Certainly not, Mary," said Mrs. Hume; she looked at her elder daughter as she spoke. "Ethel is at liberty to talk privately to her mother without being forced to repeat her words."

"Oh, of course, mother," said Mary; "but you look fagged and tired, just as if Ethel's words were exciting--too exciting for you to hear. I think I can guess what Ethel has been saying. I have seen the thought in her mind for the last couple of days."

"What thought, my dear?" said her father.

Mary laughed. Her laugh was scarcely tuneful. Her face had altered very much during the last few | | 250 months; it had lost the first comeliness of youth, the cheeks were a little hollow, there were black shadows under the large dark eyes. The complexion was no longer clear, but was somewhat inclined to be sallow. Mary's lips trembled, too--there was a want of repose just now round the lower part of her face which anything but improved her appearance.

"I know what you mean," she said, and she stood where the full light of the evening sun fell all over her. "You think, father thinks, Ethel thinks, that I am following in the steps of Aunt Julia."

"Oh, don't, my child, don't," said Mrs. Hume. She gave a little cry of distress.

"I am not doing so," continued Mary. "I am more sane than any one of the rest of you. Something is hidden from you which I see quite clearly."

"They all think that," murmured Ethel under her breath, and something like the same thought occurred to Mrs. Hume. She knew that those who were going out of their minds were, as a rule, the last to recognise it.

"Yes, mother," said Mary, with passion, "it is very hard to be misunderstood; but I vow, I declare here before my father, before Ethel, before you, that I will tear the disguise from that adventuress Kate Henley."

"My dear!" cried her mother.

"She is an adventuress," repeated Mary. "She is robbing us of our money--she--she is not the Kitty we used to know."

"How dare you say it, Mary?" exclaimed her father.

"My poor child!" cried her mother. "There, there, Mary, come to me."

Mary knelt by her mother's side. She suddenly burst into tears.

"Oh, don't think me mad," she cried. "You are | | 251 all misunderstanding me, but I vow and declare that I will not rest until I have proved my words."

"This is quite terrible," said Mr. Hume. He looked with distress at his daughter.

"Leave her, leave her to me," said the mother. "Go away, Ethel. Go, dear," she added, looking at her husband, "leave the child to me."

Mary was left with her mother, and no one quite knew what passed between the two. When Mrs. Hume was seen again there was a new expression of anxiety round her lips and in her eyes. Mr. Hume spoke to her eagerly.

"Well," he said, "I hope you have driven that nonsense out of Mary's head."

"I have not; it is firmly rooted there."

"What is to be done with her?" said the father.

"I don't know. I think she ought to go away for a time, quite away from Kate and Ralph. I never knew that our girl could be so keen about money, so desirous to possess a fortune. She has always been simply brought up--she has seen little of the worldly side of life. I cannot understand her present attitude. I have suggested to her that she shall go away from home, and to my surprise she is willing."

"But where is she to go?" said Mr. Hume.

"Ah, that is the question; we must consider the matter for a few days."

"She talked a lot of absolute rubbish to me," said Mr. Hume. "I could see no coherence in her story. Why should Kate for a single moment be any other than Kate?"

"Mary does not seem to quite know that herself; she only insists upon it that Kate carries a secret, that that secret is undermining her health, that there is | | 252 something wrong with her. She says that from the moment she first appeared in the house she had nameless suspicions about her, that these have strengthened as the time went on, and during her visit to Castellis, and more particularly to Falmouth, the suspicions became certainties. Mary believes that her maid, Marryat, knows something of Kate's secret; but she says she would not have moved herself in the matter had it not been for Kate's most curious aversion to seeing Sir John Fenton-Douglas."

"I noticed that myself," said the lawyer thoughtfully. "I considered it very queer, and was sorry that Kitty retained so much of her childish nervousness; but all these remembrances make it more certain that the girl we know and love is really the Kitty of long ago. How can it possibly be otherwise? There is no sense in the thing. Sir John recognised her as the girl he had attended at Mentone."

"Ay," said Mrs. Hume, "but why would she not see him?"

"Because of that same nervousness, my dear Susannah; it was only the failing of the child more marked in the woman."

"Quite so; but then the little Kitty of long ago would have yielded to her husband's entreaties, and allowed Sir John Fenton-Douglas to examine her lungs."

Mr. Hume stared at his wife.

"Really, Susannah, one would suppose that you were affected by Mary's extraordinary suspicions."

"Oh, I am not--not at all; but it is only fair to our child that her suspicions should be treated, at least at first, with a certain amount of respect."

"Not at all. I have no patience with her," said Mr. Hume. "She opened up the most perplexing | | 253 and, indeed, terrible questions. She is nervous. We ought all to be anxious with regard to her, bearing poor Julia's history in mind; but as to Kate, I refuse to allow her to be discussed any longer."

"All the same, Robert," said his wife, "you might go up to town to-morrow to see her."

"I shall certainly do so and early in the morning too. Their hurried visit to Australia makes it necessary that I should have a good deal of talk with Kate with regard to money matters."

"And meanwhile Mary?" said the mother.

"Mary had better be taken no notice of. If she wants change, she shall have it. She shall go abroad if she likes. By the way, Susan, what do you think of the proposal that Ethel should accompany her cousin to Australia?"

"Ethel go to Australia?"

"Kate is very anxious about it."

"Oh, I do not think it would do at all, Robert, and if there were--"

"There, there, my dear; I won't even allow you to complete your sentence. Mary must not sow the seeds of suspicion in this house. I am going to ask Kate and her husband to come down here to-morrow. Give orders that the best spare room is got ready immediately to receive them.

Mr. Hume left his wife. Mary had already retired to her bedroom. Ethel wandered about just outside the drawing-room windows. She was perplexed and anxious, but her thoughts were more occupied with Mary and her supposed state of health than they were with her cousin Kate.

Early next morning Mr. Hume hurried off to town, and soon after ten o'clock he was ushered into | | 254 Kate's presence. She came to meet him in the private sitting-room which she and her husband had engaged at the hotel, with both hands extended and her lovely eyes dancing.

"Ah! it is good to see you, Uncle Robert," she said.

"And good to see you, my dear Kitty," he replied, bending forward and kissing her on her forehead. "Why, how well you look, my dear!"

"Oh, I am well now, but I was a little anxious a few days ago. I am so fearfully busy, however, that I have no time to think of my health. We are off on Thursday next. Have you come to tell me that dear, darling Ethel may come too?"

"I have not come to say anything of the sort, Kitty. Your aunt and I want you and Ralph to comne to the Grange this evening."

"Oh, I am sure we will with pleasure," said Kate, without a moment's hesitation.

"Then that is all right, my dear. Your sudden visit to Australia necessitates my having a long talk, with you with regard to money matters."

"I expected something of the sort," replied Kate; "but don't make our interviews too complicated, please, Uncle Robert. Remember that your Kitty has not got the brains of a lawyer."

"My Kitty has got a very astute brain for all that," said Mr. Hume. He looked her up and down as he spoke. He noticed the breadth of the brow, the massive head, the broad, well-defined shoulders, the noble figure. He said to himself: "That woman has got courage, shrewdness, intellect of a high order. The little Kitty of long ago has developed into a finer woman than I ever expected. Can it be--" But he thrust the thought away from him.

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"By the way," he said, "I was sorry at the necessity of your going to Australia. It is a serious thing, my dear Katherine, when a man has to leave his estates, when a man in your husband's position cannot take up the duties which Providence means him to undertake."

"Oh, I know that, and I hope one winter abroad will cure me," said Kate, her lovely eyes filling with tears. She looked so like the Kitty of long ago at that instant that the lawyer's very faint fear with regard to her was dismissed as utter rubbish. He sat down and took her hand.

"Of course," he said, "your husband's first duty is to see after you; but it is a grief to feel that you require the change."

"Yes," she said softly, "I am sorry that I do; but you know Dr. Agnes Stevenson's report on my lungs was on the whole unfavourable."

"Ah, you saw Dr. Agnes Stevenson, the great lady doctor?"

"Of course I did. Did not Ethel tell you?"

"No, I don't think Ethel mentioned it. And what did she say?"

"She said that there were traces of serious mischief to be found in my lungs, but that they were both more or less healed now. It was possible, however, that the climate of England might cause fresh mischief, and she thought it safer that I should winter abroad."

And you have specially chosen Australia ? It seems a long way off."

"Oh yes; we had better get quite away into another hemisphere. I am restless for change, too."

"And you have taken your passage in the Hydra?"

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"Yes. We start on Thursday from Tilbury."

"And you seriously propose that Ethel should go with you?"

"I propose it because I love Ethel. May she come?"

"I will think it over."

"I must know your decision soon; we have to take her passage."

"I will let you know to-morrow morning," said the lawyer; "and now I must go, my dear. You and your husband will be with us in time for dinner."

"Yes," said Kate.

As Mr. Hume was walking down the steps of the Métropole, having bidden his niece good-bye, he was attracted by a four-wheeler which had drawn up at the kerb. One of the waiters from the hotel was helping the cabman to take a trunk off the roof. Out of the cab, meanwhile, was stepping a neatly dressed, dainty-looking person. She turned as she came up the steps of the hotel, and Mr. Hume saw her face.

"Ah, Marryat!" he said.

Marryat dropped a respectful curtsey.

"I have been anxious about my mistress," she said. "Do you happen to know, Mr. Hume, if she is in?"

"Yes. I have just come from her," replied Hume. "I am glad you are back, Marryat; Mrs. Henley is not well."

"I am very pleased to be back in order to attend the dear lady," was Marryat's gentle response. The lawyer hurried off.

"I cannot think why Kate left her maid so long at Falmouth," he said to himself. "I am glad she is with her now. She changed colour so often during | | 257 our interview that I begin to think she is by no means so strong as I at first fancied. Dr. Stevenson's story was an ugly one--traces of mischief in both lungs. That fact, joined to a family history in which tuberculosis takes an unquestionable part, is enough to raise the fears of any one. Poor Henley, how devoted he is to his pretty wife! No wonder! no wonder! But if Kate were to die?"

The lawyer's eyes glistened, and just for one moment some of the avarice which had appeared in Mary's dark eyes visited his, for Kate's was an enormous fortune--a colossal fortune; and, failing her having children, in the event of her death it would go to his daughters.

He pushed the thought away from him almost as soon as it came. He was an honourable man, and a good man, and he loved his niece. He had a great deal of business to attend to, and spent a very busy day in town.

Meanwhile, Marryat asked to be taken to Mrs. Henley. Kate was standing by the window of her pretty sitting-room. She was looking out at the traffic which ever and ever rolled by in the broad thoroughfare below. It was difficult to know where her thoughts were. She stood perfectly still, her hands folded behind her back, the bloom of health on her cheeks, and yet a slight expression of anxiety already drawing the most delicate lines round her sensitive mouth. The opening of the door caused her to turn round.

"Marryat!" she cried, with a sort of gasp.

The maid advanced with a somewhat mincing step into the room. The waiter who had introduced her closed the door behind her.

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"Yes, ma'am," said Marryat. "Not hearing from you for several days, I thought it best to come up."

"But I didn't tell you to," said Kate. "Why did you do it?"

Marryat stood very still, and gazed gravely at Kate.

"I had my reasons," she said; "and one of them is this: Mr. Rogers has returned to the Riviera; that being the case, there was no longer any necessity for me to stay at Falmouth."

"Oh! He has gone?" said Kate, with a sigh of relief. "Has he gone for good, Marryat?"

"He has gone for the present," replied Marryat.

"Well, Marryat, now that you have come I am glad to see you. You had better stay with me until I leave England."

"Until you leave England, ma'am!"

"Yes, I am going away. I have taken my passage on board the Hydra--my husband and I leave Tilbury on Thursday morning."

"For Australia, ma'am?"

"Yes."

"And I, dear madam?" said Marryat, in a soft voice.

"I shall not require a maid on the voyage--it is too expensive. I shall engage another maid when I get to Australia."

Marryat coloured very faintly. This news was anything but welcome. She stopped still for a moment to consider, then she said slowly: "You are perhaps aware, Mrs. Henley, that I know something special about you."

"I thought you would say something ridiculous of that sort," Kate replied. "May I ask what you do know?"

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"This, madam, you possess a secret--that secret is known, at least in part, to Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers has confided what he knows of that secret to me."

Kate started.

"I cannot imagine what he does know," she said.

"I will not tell you at present; but you must make it worth my while to hold my tongue with regard to what Mr. Rogers has said to me."

"Worth your while? But, Marryat, you would not do anything to make me feel uncomfortable?"

"Of course not, dear madam; that is, if you make it worth my while."

"But I have made it worth your while in the past."

"That is true; I want you to make it worth my while in the future."

Kate thought for a moment.

"Don't ask me any more questions now," she said. "I will think about it. Meanwhile you had better resume your duties as my maid. Go upstairs and pack my things--my husband and I, and of course you with us, are going to the Grange."

"Oh," said Marryat, "that will suit me exactly. You don't forget, I suppose, that Miss Mary Hume suspects you quite as much as I do, madam."

"What a monster I must be!" said Kate, with a laugh, "so many people suspect me. Do I look like a monster, Marryat?"

"You look like a very beautiful young lady," said the woman. She gazed into the large dark eyes, and at the lips tremulous now to the point of sadness.

"Be kind to me, Marryat," said Kate; "be kind to me."

"I will--I will, if you make it worth my while," said the woman.