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CHAPTER XVIII.

"Known mischiefs have their cure, but doubts have none;
And better is despair than friendless hope
Mixed with a killing fear."
--MAY.

IT is two o'clock on the following day. Horace,--who came down from town for the ball, and is staying with Dorian,--sauntering leisurely into the smoking-room at Sartoris, finds Branscombe there, overlooking some fishing tackle.

This room is a mingled and hopelessly entangled mass of guns, pipes, whips, spurs, fishing-rods, and sporting pictures; there are, too, a few other pictures that might not exactly come under this head, and a various and most remark-able collection of lounging-chairs.

There is a patriarchal sofa, born to create slumber; and an ancient arm-chair, stuffed with feathers and dreams of many sleepers. Over the door stand out the skeleton re-mains of a horse's head, bleached and ghastly, and altogether hideous, that, even now, reminds its master of a former favorite hunter that had come to a glorious but untimely end upon the hunting-field. A stuffed setter, with very glassy eyes, sits staring, in an unearthly fashion, in one corner. Upon a window-sill a cat sits, blinking lazily at the merry spring sunshine outside.

"Are you really going back to town this evening, Horace?" asks the owner of all these gems, in a somewhat gloomy fashion, bending over a fishing line as he speaks.

"Yes. I feel I am bound to be back there again as soon as possible."

"Business?"

"Well, I can hardly say it is exactly press of business," says the candid Horace; "but if a man wants to gain any, he must be on the spot, I take it?"

"Quite so. Where have you been all the morning? Sleeping?"

"Nothing half so agreeable." By this time Horace is looking at him curiously, and with a gleam in his eyes that is half amusement, half contempt: Dorian, whose head is bent over his work, sees neither the amusement nor the scorn. "I did not go to bed at all. I walked down to | | 139 to the farms to try to get some fresh air to carry back with rue to the stifling city."

Ah! past the mill? I mean in that direction?--to-wards the upper farms?"

"No; I went past Biddulph's," says Horace, easily, half closing his eyes, and Dorian believes him. "It is lighter walking that way; not so hilly. Did you put in a good time last night?"

"Rather so. I don't know when I enjoyed an affair of the kind so much."

"Lucky you!" yawns Horace, languidly. "Of all abominations, surely balls are the worst. One goes on when one ought to be turning in, and one turns in when one ought to be going out. They upset one's whole calculations. When I marry I shall make a point of forgetting that such things be."

"And Clarissa?" asks Dorian, dryly; "I can't say about the dancing part of it,--you may, I suppose, abjure that if you like,--but I think you will see a ball or two more before you die. She likes that sort of thing. By the by, how lovely she looked last night!"

"Very. She cut out all the other women, I thought; they looked right down cheap beside her."

"She had it very much her own way," says Dorian ; yet, even as he speaks, there rises before him the vision of a little lithe figure gowned in black and crowned with yellow hair, whose dark-blue eyes look out at him with a smile and a touch of wistfulness that adds to their beauty.

"That little girl at the vicarage isn't bad to look at," says Horace, idly, beating a tattoo on the window-pane.

"Miss Broughton? I should call her very good to look at," says Dorian, for the first time making the discovery that there may be moments when it would be a sure and certain joy to kick even one's own brother.

"Here is Arthur," says Horace, presently, drawing himself up briskly from his lounging position. "A little of him goes a long way; and I should say, judging from the expression of his lips, that he is in his moodiest mood to day. You may interview him, Dorian: I feel myself unequal to the task. Give him my love and a kiss, and say I have gone for a ramble in the innocent woods."

He leaves the room, and, crossing the halls, makes his | | 140 way into the open air through the conservatory; while Lord Sartoris, entering by the hall door, and being directed by a servant, goes on to Dorian's den.

He is looking fagged and care-worn, and has about him that look of extreme lassitude that belongs to those to whom sleep overnight has been a stranger. Strong and painful doubts of Dorian's honesty of purpose had kept him wakeful, and driven him now down from his own home to Sartoris.

A strange longing to see his favorite nephew again, to look upon the face he had always deemed so true, to hear the voice he loves best on earth, had taken possession of him; yet now he finds himself confronting Dorian with scarcely a word to say to him.

"I hardly hoped to find you at home," he says, with an effort.

"What a very flattering speech! Was that why you came? Sit here, Arthur: you will find it much more comfortable."

He pushes towards him the cosily-cushioned chair in which Horace had been sitting a minute ago.

"Do I look tired enough to require this?" says Sartoris, sinking, however, very willingly into the chair's embrace. As he does so, something lying on the ground (that has escaped Dorian's notice) attracts him.

"What is this?" he asks, stooping to, pick it up.

It is a lace handkerchief, of delicate and exquisite workmanship, with some letters embroidered in one corner.

"You have been receiving gentle visitors very early," says Lord Sartoris, turning the pretty thing round and round curiously.

"Not unless you can count Horace as one," says Dorian, with a light laugh. "How on earth did that come here?" Stooping, he, too, examines minutely the fragile piece of lace and cambric his uncle is still holding. Sartoris turning it again, the initials in the corner make them-selves known, and stand out, legibly and carefully worked, as "R. A."

Dorian's face changes. He knows the handkerchief only too well now. He himself had given it to Ruth at Christmas; but how had it come here? No one had entered the room to-day except himself and--Horace!

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Notwithstanding the scene with Ruth the night before, when she had so unmistakably betrayed her love for Horace, Dorian had never for one moment suspected that things had gone farther than a mere foolish girlish liking for a man rather handsomer than the ordinary run of men. His brother's honor he had not doubted, nor did he deem him capable of any act calculated to bring misery upon one who had trusted him.

Now, in spite of himself, a terrible doubt arises, that will not be suppressed; like a blow conviction falls; and many past actions and past words crowd to his mind that, at the time of their occurrence, seemed as mere nothings, but now are "confirmations strong" of the truth that has just flashed upon him.

Had he lied to him when he told him a few minutes since he had been to Biddulph's farm and not anywhere in the direction of the Old Mill? Doubt, having once asserted itself, makes him now distrustful of his brother's every look and every tone. And the handkerchief! He must have had it from Ruth herself, and dropped it here inadvertently before leaving the room. To him the idea that Horace should have chosen a timid, fragile, gentle girl, like Ruth Annersley, upon whom to play off the fascinations and wiles taught him by a fashionable world, is nothing less than despicable. A deep sense of contempt for the man who, to pass away pleasantly a few dull hours in the country, would make a target of a woman's heart, fills his mind. He is frowning heavily, and his face has grown very white. Looking up, he becomes aware that his uncle is watching him narrowly. To the old man, the altered countenance of his nephew, his pallor and hesitation, all betoken guilt. Dorian's eyes are still clear and calm, as usual, but his expression has strangely altered.

"`R. A.,'" remarks Lord Sartoris, slowly. "Why, that might mean Ruth Annersley."

"It might," returns Dorian, absently. He dares not speak his inmost thoughts. After all, Horace may not be in the wrong: the girl's own vanity, or folly, may have led her to believe a few words spoken in jest to mean more than was ever intended. And, at all events, no matter what comes of it, he cannot betray his brother.

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" How could it have come here?" asks Lord Sartoris, without raising his eyes from the luckless handkerchief. "Do you know anything of it?"

"Nothing; except that it belongs to Ruth. I gave it to her last Christmas."

"You! A curious gift to a girl in her rank in life?"

"She wished for it," returns Branscombe, curtly.

"Then she is no doubt heart-broken, imagining she has lost it. Return it to her, I advise you, without delay," says his uncle, contemptuously, throwing it from him to a table near. "I need not detain you any longer, now,"--rising, and moving towards the door.

"Going so soon?" says the younger man, roused from his galling reflections, by his uncle's abrupt departure, to some sense of cordiality. "Why, you have hardly stayed a moment."

"I have stayed long enough,--too long," says Lord Sartoris, gloomily, fixing his dark eyes that age have failed to dim upon the man who has been to him as his own soul.

"Too long?" repeats Branscombe, coloring darkly.

"Yes. Have you forgotten altogether the motto of our race?--'Leal friend, leal foe.' Let me bring it to your memory."

"Pray do not trouble yourself. I remember it perfectly," says Dorian, haughtily, drawing up his figure to its fullest height. "I am sorry, my lord, you should think it necessary to remind me of it."

He bows and opens the door as he finishes his speech. Lord Sartoris, though sorely troubled, makes no sign; and, without so much as a pressure of the hand, they part.