Adrienne

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

[Illustration: He felt that he must make his presence known. (Chapter XV.) _Adrienne]_ _[Frontispiece]_

By The Same Author ——————————————————

My Heart'S In The Highlands

"The vividly human and moving story of Rowena and her wonderful power of influence in the lives of others will do every one good to read. Charmingly told in Amy Le Feuvre's best manner."—_Northants Evening Telegraph._

"A romance of a most pleasant and captivating character."—_Ladies' Field._

A Girl And Her Ways

"Miss Le Feuvre writes with much charm and insight of the escapades of a modern girl who is fortunately possessed of the right spirit that enables her to overcome her difficulties."—_The Record._

"Likely to become a popular book."—_Methodist Recorder._

Jock'S Inheritance

"Miss Le Feuvre has never written anything more beautiful or more amusing. The tone is as usual, excellent, and the story cannot fail to interest one and all."—_Church of England Newspaper._

Noel'S Christmas Tree

"Miss Le Feuvre has a classic style, and seems to be able to pierce straight into the heart of human beings. It is a humane book, written by a brilliant novelist."—_Cornish Echo._

Adrienne

By

Amy Le Feuvre

Ward, Lock & Co., Limited

London And Melbourne

1928

Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London

Contents

Chap.

I. A Letter

II. An Accident

III. Godfrey Speaks

IV. The Count'S Arrival

V. At The ChâTeau

VI. Her Aunt'S Confidences

VII. The Loss Of An Heirloom

VIII. Little Agatha

IX. A Contest Of Wills

X. A Morning Ride

XI. A Summons

XII. At Home Again

XIII. Why The Count Went Away

XIV. The Notary'S Defeat

XV. Illness At The ChâTeau

XVI. Lovers

XVII. Wed

XVIII. Husband And Wife

XIX. Alain'S Tutor

XX. Agatha'S Warning

Adrienne

Chapter I

A Letter

SHE stood at the dining-room window looking out upon a snowy world. The cypresses and firs at the end of the lawn were bowed down with their weight of purity. There was great light, great stillness in the atmosphere. And there was majestic grandeur in the groups of snow-laden trees, and in the white hills that held tiny villages in their folds.

The girl's eyes were dreamy, and a trifle wistful. Her dark curly hair was unfashionably twisted up into a thick knot at the back of her small, well-shaped head. She had straight determined features, and a slim dainty figure. Her dark wine-coloured jumper and skirt suited her.

As she stood there, one hand tightly clenched a letter; and no one who saw her still attitude could have imagined what a tumult was sweeping over her soul. Behind her was the breakfast table. The silver tea-kettle was boiling on its stand. A packet of letters lay on the corner of the table. There was a fragrant scent of bacon and kidneys from a chafing dish. A bright-eyed Cairn terrier stood near the blazing fire, occasionally giving quick glances at his mistress, but rejoicing too much in the warmth and comfort of his position to join her at the window.

And then the door suddenly burst open and in came a short square elderly man, with a slight grey moustache and a tanned weather-beaten face. He looked the essence of fussy energy, and of health.

He snapped his fingers at the terrier, and spoke to the girl:

"What ho, Adrienne! How's yourself? No hunting for me! If I weren't such a busy man, I should be hipped by such an outlook. Drake has been telling me the stable pipes have burst. I must go and have a look at them after breakfast. Now where on earth did I put that new-fangled stuff for mending pipes, and grates, and holes of every description? Didn't I give it to you to keep safely in your store cupboard?"

Adrienne slipped her letter in her pocket, and turned a smiling face towards her uncle, General Chesterton.

"Now, Uncle Tom, you know very well you did not. Your patent foods and plasters and patchers-up are always in the gun-room. Since I kept your sticking-plaster in my store-room, and you turned my whole cupboard topsy-turvy one day when I was out, I have refused to keep anything more. Come and have breakfast, and don't touch your fat packet of letters till we have had some food."

"Where's Derrick? What a little martinet you try to be! But that packet is mostly bills, I bet! Here's the lazybones! What do you think of our white world? I told you snow was in the air last night."

The new-comer had made his entry very quietly, and took his seat at the table without a word.

His appearance was hardly that of a naval man, though he was an Admiral with a good many medals. He was a tall, handsome man, with an intellectual brow, clean-shaven face and dreamy eyes like his niece's.

The brothers were devoted to each other and had lived together since their retirement, in their old home, a small manor-house in Devon. Adrienne had come to them three years ago, fresh from her boarding school at Folkestone.

She bullied them, she coaxed them, and she mothered them by turns. All three were on the happiest possible terms. General Chesterton's chief hobby was horses and hunting; but he was only able to afford to keep one hunter, and depended very often on mounts from his nearest neighbour, Sir Godfrey Sutherland.

Admiral Chesterton was a keen fisherman and a great reader. He was gentle, neat, and very particular about conventions and propriety. He had a small room of his own which he called his study, and when he was not reading or manufacturing flies, he was compiling the family pedigree. He was as tidy as the tidiest spinster, a marked contrast to his brother the General, who never put a thing in its place, and was perpetually mislaying and losing what he wanted, in a hurry.

The General was a great talker and very impulsive. If the Admiral was a gentle southerly breeze throughout the house, the General was a blustering noisy sou'wester. Nobody was in doubt as to whether he was in or out. He rarely sat down before dinnertime.

But in the evening the two brothers played chess together. Neither of them cared for cards, and if laughed at by their friends for such an old-fashioned taste, would reply:

"We have always played chess, and always will." And it was the only time that General Chesterton was comparatively quiet.

Adrienne sat behind her tea and coffee, and poured out for her uncles.

"I'm rather glad of a day indoors," observed the Admiral, as he stirred his coffee in a leisurely way; "our box from Mudie's arrived last night, did it not, Adrienne?"

"Yes. I hadn't time to open it. Drake will take it to your study. I will tell him. I'm not going to have a day in the house, oh dear no!"

"Where are you off to?" questioned the General. "If you go to the village, get me a pound of French nails, will you? That trellis kept me awake last night, tapping like a ghost against my window-ledge. There's always something annoying me at night. Two nights ago it was the donkey braying. And I can't do without my sleep. Extraordinary difficult thing to make yourself sleepy. I pounded my pillow, and turned it a dozen times, and then I rattled off all the limericks I could remember, and by that time I felt electricity all through me—my hair positively bristled. I struck a light and smoked two cigarettes, and I tried right side, left side and back in rotation one after each other. Still I couldn't droop an eyelid!"

"I should think not," said Adrienne, with a merry laugh; "don't you know that you shouldn't be strenuous in bed?"

"But was I? I was doing all in my power to put myself to sleep. Working at it till I got in a perfect fever of heat!"

The Admiral was looking through the letters, and sorting out his from amongst them.

"An invitation to dine at the Hall next Thursday."

"I'm bothered if I'll go," said the General hastily; "for I'm hunting that day, and won't turn out again at night—not if I know it!"

"But if this frost goes on, you won't be hunting," said Adrienne.

She quitted the room, leaving her uncles discussing the weather prospects, and made her way to the kitchen. Her housekeeping duties were not very heavy, for Mrs. Page, the old cook-housekeeper, had been nearly twenty years in the family; but Adrienne as a matter of form discussed the meals with her every day, and she took charge of the store-room, and supplied all necessary stores when needed.

Half an hour later she stood in the hall, clad in her long fur coat. A soft grey felt hat was crammed down on her curly head, and she had strong brogue shoes and cloth gaiters on her feet.

"Now I'm off," she sang out, as she passed the smoking-room door; "and I'm going through the village, so I'll get your nails, Uncle Tom."

The General came out, pipe in mouth, and accompanied her to the hall door; Bruce, the Cairn terrier, was at her heels.

"Ugh!" he shuddered as he looked out at the soft snow which the gardener was sweeping away from the drive as fast as he could. "My old bones don't like snow. We oughtn't to have it down here in the west."

"Oh, I love it!" cried Adrienne, starting out gaily with bright eyes and a flush on her cheeks.

But when she was out of sight of the house, she pulled a letter out of her pocket, and began to read it over for the second time.

The contents brought a grave look upon her face.

And then, with a little sigh, she folded it up, and put it back into her pocket.

The snow was crisp under her feet. As she walked along the road bordered with fir woods on either side, it was a fairy-like scene. From every branch the snow drooped in icicles which were sparkling in the sun. Along a snowy glade under the pines she saw a rabbit scuttling. Bruce scampered after it, and she had to wait till he rejoined her. Then, suddenly, round a corner appeared a young man, accompanied by a huge Alsatian wolf-hound.

"Hullo, Adrienne!"

"Hullo, Godfrey! You're the very person I want."

The young fellow looked pleased. "I'm on my way to Strake's Farm. But it will wait."

"Walk to the village with me. Have you company on Thursday?"

"Only the Rector and wife, besides Colonel and Mrs. Blake, who are staying with us. I hope you're coming. These small dinner parties are deadly, but you know my mother loves them."

"Oh, yes, we are coming; but if there's a thaw, don't expect Uncle Tom."

"He'll be hunting, I suppose."

They were walking on together, Bruce making overtures to the big dog, who viewed him indifferently. Young Sir Godfrey Sutherland, the Squire of Compton Down village, was a big, broad-shouldered man, with a frank smiling face and genial manners. He limped slightly as he walked, the effect of a wounded leg in the War. He and Adrienne had been good comrades and chums from the time when she first came to live with her uncles. As a schoolgirl and boy, they had spent their holidays together. Fishing, riding, and rabbiting in the woods; taking long walks with the dogs; but never unless they could help it, keeping indoors for long. Adrienne had no brothers or sisters, and had turned to Godfrey for advice, comfort, and sympathy whenever the occasion required it.

He did not hurry her now; he knew by her face that something was wrong.

And very soon she commenced:

"Godfrey, I've had a letter this morning from my aunt in France."

"I know. The Comtesse de Beaudessert, isn't she? She's not descending upon you again, is she?"

"Oh, no. I'll let you read her letter. She's in bad health, she says. I haven't said a word to the uncles. They get so fussed and worried at the very sound of her name. But it's the same old story: only much more difficult to combat now."

"She wants you to go to her?"

"Read what she says."

The letter was handed to him. It was as follows:

"My Dear Adrienne,—

"I write to you distracted and désolée. As you know your Cousin Mathilde left me, and has gone over to America with her bridegroom. I have struggled on in weak health and shattered nerves. My doctor says it is imperative that I should have young cheerful society; somebody to take some of the burden of housekeeping off my frail shoulders. With my diminished income, I cannot keep the retainers who used to make life easy to me. It is one long battle with old Fanchette and Pierre. They are nearly past work, but very obstinate, and very inefficient. The under servants come and go, they will not conform to their rules. I am rapidly losing weight, and losing sleep.

"When last I was over, I told both Tom and Derrick that your father would wish you to spend as much time with me as with them. Your education is finished. It will improve you in every way to come to me. Your French accent is horrible. Your manners are blunt, not finished or refined. And I have my town flat in Orleans, and there is good society there. And finally you are my niece, and I need you. Your uncles have each other, and have not a Château to keep up minus retainers and means. It was a mistake your settling down with them. You ought as I have repeatedly told you, to have come straight to me when you left school. I was content to let them have you as long as you were a school girl. Their monotonous country life was good for a child. But an idle girl with nothing to occupy her hands or thoughts, needs a woman's guidance and supervision.

"My head is aching so much, I must lay down my pen. But now to be practical. A very great friend of mine, Madame de Nicholas, is leaving London on the fifteenth of this month. That will be three days after you receive this letter. Lose no time but wire at once to her at the Hotel Grosvenor, and tell her you will meet her at Victoria Station and travel here with her.

"And will you bring me from the Army and Navy Stores some of this printed note-paper and envelopes to match. I always get mine there.

"Tell your uncles it is imperative that I have a niece with me in my present delicate health. I cannot be left alone any longer.

"Your affectionate Aunt,

"Cecily."

Godfrey read this letter through in silence, and gave a low whistle as he handed it back to her.

"Well," said Adrienne, looking at him with anxious eyes, "don't you think it is a shame of her to write to me like that?"

"I suppose you know her better than I do. I only saw her once when she came to stay with you two years ago, and brought her rather pretty daughter with her."

"Yes, that was when Mathilde told me she would marry anyone—a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man who broke stones in the road—to get away from home. She told me her mother really wanted a white slave to live with her. So, you see, Godfrey, I know what would be in store for me if I went."

"It's a letter of an unhappy woman," said Godfrey, looking at her with his clear blue eyes; "and she seems to want you badly."

"Now don't tell me I ought to go. My duty is to remain in that state of life in which God has called me. That is in the catechism of my youth. I am happy where I am. Why should I deliberately choose to leave my present life for one in which I know I should be miserable?"

"Is our own happiness the chief aim in our lives?" said the young man slowly. "And do we really know what makes our happiness? I rather doubt it. I thought at one time when I gave up going into the Church that I was giving up my happiness, but I found I was not."

Adrienne looked at him thoughtfully. She knew that from his boyhood Godfrey's whole aim had been to take Holy Orders. He was at Oxford when his eldest brother had died. Things were not going smoothly at home. His father had died when his sons were quite children. His mother knew nothing of business and had been for many years in the hands of a dishonest agent; the estate was in a very bad way when the eldest boy Ernest came into his property. He manfully put his shoulder to the wheel, dismissed the agent and worked the estate himself, but just at a critical stage, he was struck down by pneumonia and died after a few days' illness. Lady Sutherland summoned Godfrey home, and told him it was his duty to come back and take his brother's place.

And after a terrible conflict in his own mind, Godfrey gave up his own will and heart's desire, and came home to be the comfort and joy of his mother's life. His frank sunny nature did not alter; and though many of his college friends blamed him for having, as they said, "put his hand to the plough and looked back," Godfrey went on his way serenely, perhaps influencing more people by his personality as a landed proprietor than as a parson, for he had something in his heart and soul worth passing on, and was not ashamed to do it.

But a few of his friends—and Adrienne was one of them—knew that the sacrifice of his soul's desire had been a heavy one. She had always admired his serenity and cheerfulness, as he had carried out the wishes and whims of a rather capricious mother. And now, as she met his gaze, the colour mounted into her cheeks.

"You think me a selfish pig to talk or think about my own happiness. But I can't help it. I hate being unhappy. When I was a little girl I always did, and I remember saying to a governess who punished me for some impertinent remark to her:

"'If I was wrong to speak rudely to you, you're much more wrong to make me miserable!'

"Besides, I know your creed—it is that in making others happy, our own happiness comes. And that's what I'm doing. I know I make my uncles happy by living with them. We're all as jolly as we can be together. And they want me. They've always told me so. They paid for my schooling; my aunt never did. She was always a spoiled selfish wayward girl. Uncle Derrick told me so."

Adrienne spoke eagerly, but there was a pleading tone in her voice. She added:

"Oh, do tell me it wouldn't be right to leave the uncles!"

Godfrey laughed.

"I am not your Father Confessor. I wish I could advise you one way or the other, but it wouldn't be wise. You are old enough to judge for yourself. We must come to cross-ways in our journey when we have to decide which path is to be ours."

"I hate cross-ways!" exclaimed Adrienne vehemently and childishly.

"You have been in the sunshine so long, and you have so much of it in your heart," said Godfrey slowly, "that it does not follow you will lose it by going into the shade for a time. Isn't it possible that you could make the dark corner sunny?"

"Now I know that you are on Aunt Cecily's side," said Adrienne; and tears were not far from her eyes as she spoke.

They were now approaching the village, which lay covered in snow, and looked silent and deserted. As they came up to the little general shop next the post office, a girl came out of it. She was rather taller than Adrienne and had a fair freckled face, and reddish golden hair which was bobbed in the modern fashion. She was clad in a rough frieze coat and Russian boots reaching to her knees. A close green felt hat covered her head and ears.

She waved her hand cheerily as Godfrey and Adrienne approached her.

"A jolly morning, eh? I'm not going to market to-day. Am trying to dispose of three dozen eggs in the village. We never expected this weather, and the drifts are four feet deep they say on the Newton Road."

"Are you going home, Phemie? Wait for me," pleaded Adrienne. Then she turned to Godfrey, who was about to leave her.

"I came out on purpose to hunt you up, and see what you would say. You've done me good, though you may not think it. Good-bye."

"If this frost holds, we'll have skating on the ponds," he said. "Anyhow, I'll see you again before you settle anything. Good-bye to you both. How's Dick, Miss Moray?"

"First-rate," the girl replied; "but very cross at the snow stopping his ploughing to-day."

The young squire with his big dog went his way.

Adrienne went into the shop, and got her pound of nails and a few other trifles as well.

Then she linked her arm into that of Phemie Moray's, and the two girls began to chat together in a light-hearted fashion. Adrienne was her sunny self again, she cast off all thoughts of the letter in her pocket, and listened to Phemie's humorous account of her struggles with two belligerent cows that morning, and the arrival of a calf the evening before.

"I believe you are getting to love your farm life," said Adrienne presently.

But Phemie shook her head.

"It is too absorbing; and you know how strenuous and strong and dogged Mother is? Of course I know she is splendid; she is determined that Dick shall make his farm pay, but she works us both like carthorses. And often I ask myself, is it worth it? I've never time to read a book, hardly a minute to mend and keep myself tidy. If it isn't the poultry or the pigs or the cows, it is the meals and the house. Oh, how I hate the mud that makes such work round a farm!

"But I don't mean to grumble. And when I think of Mother and me stuck away in dingy lodgings in a Bayswater road, and Dick, poor Dick tramping round with his discharge papers and medals in search of work, and coming home in the evening to eat margarine and a bit of cold mutton, and to tell Mother once again of his non-success, I can thank God for where he has placed us now. Mother and Dick are always blessing Sir Godfrey for his remembrance and interest in his old war chums. And I think that is what makes Mother so eager over it. She's so grateful for the farm, that she wants to show Sir Godfrey he won't be the loser by his generosity. And if pertinacity and continuous hard grinding work will do it, we ought to make the farm a success."

"I'm sure you will," said Adrienne cheerfully. "Everyone is saying that your brother might be a born farmer from the way he works."

"They don't know how much he owes to Mother. She is behind him. What he doesn't know, she gets out of practical farm books, or out of talks with the farmers round. She never forgets what she reads or hears. I wish I were more like her."

"Do you never wish yourself back in London again?"

"Oh, often. I dream of a big legacy coming to us. And of my going back there and taking up my life in a Kensington studio and studying art. You don't know what cravings come over me to handle pencil and paints again. Mother never had any sympathy with artists. She used to tell me that they were an improvident immoral set, and she will never believe that I could have earned my living by art. She said only one in a hundred made their fortunes by painting, and that I would certainly not be that one. Doesn't it seem hard that here, where I see the wonderful sunsets over the hills, and the beautiful nooks in woods and valleys which are crying out to be painted, I have not the leisure to reproduce them for the benefit of others? I always say that artists are benefactors. It is not a selfish profession. Nothing that you produce is."

"And now you're producing milk and butter and corn and all the necessities of life for others by your labour," said Adrienne. "What an idle drone I am beside you!"

Phemie laughed merrily, then she pointed down over some fields to a valley in the distance, lined on one side by a fringe of snow-clad pines:

"Isn't that a picture?" she exclaimed. "There is one thing—if I am not allowed to make a poor attempt at reproduction, I get pictures for my own delight and pleasure, and pictures fresh from the Hands of God."

She soon parted with Adrienne, who went on her way thoughtfully pondering over two round pegs in square holes—Godfrey, who had been turned from a parson into a squire, and Phemie, who had been turned from an artist into a farmer.

"And they are both contented and happy," she said. "I wonder if everyone in this world is baulked of their own desires, and I wonder, how I wonder, whether I ought to go to Aunt Cecily or not."

Chapter II

An Accident

WHEN Adrienne reached home, she was met at the door by Drake with a very solemn face.

Drake was virtually the butler, but he was in reality the factotum in the house. He valeted both the Admiral and the General; he initiated the maids as well as the bootboy into their work, and kept his eagle eye on every part of the house. He saw that the brasses were shining, that the floors were well polished, that every nook and corner was thoroughly dusted. If the cook felt ill, he could take her place at a moment's notice, and his cooking did him credit. If horses or dogs were ill, he doctored them; if china was broken, he could mend it. As Adrienne leant upon Mrs. Page, so did the Admiral and General lean upon Drake.

Adrienne saw at once that something had happened.

"The General has had a nasty fall, miss. He slipped just outside the stable on a bit of ice. We've sent for the doctor. He has hurt his knee, but I don't think it is broken. A bad sprain, I should say. We got him up to his room, and he's on his bed."

"Oh, Drake, how dreadful! Poor Uncle Tom!"

She ran lightly up the stairs into the big sunny front room, which belonged to the General.

The next moment she was bending over her uncle tenderly.

"That you, Adrienne? This confounded frost has knocked me over, and I'm done for, as far as hunting this week is concerned. It was that dolt of a stable boy!—Slopping about with his buckets, and making pools all over the place—didn't even finish my job at the pipes out there—Have turned Drake on to them—Why on earth hasn't that fool of a doctor arrived? My knee is swelling up like a gas bag—smashed the knee-cap, I should say! And it hurts like fury!"

"You must have it bathed—a cold compress, I should say. Let me do it for you!"

"I won't have it touched—can't stand the pain of it—dislocated, I should say! If it's a long job, how am I to stick it? I was never meant to be off my feet. If this pain goes on, he must give me gas-morphia-chloroform—what's the stuff that puts you to sleep?"

As Adrienne was trying to soothe him, she heard the doctor's car drive up.

And thankfully she went to meet him.

The Admiral and she were both a little relieved at the verdict delivered a short time later.

Dr. Tracy told them the knee was badly sprained, and some of the ligaments were twisted, but that with rest and treatment it would soon be better.

"He will be a bad patient," he said to Adrienne; "but you and the Admiral must keep him in bed. Try to amuse and entertain him there, and keep him as still as possible."

Easier said than done. General Chesterton was a very bad patient, restless and irritable, and before that day was over Adrienne felt utterly exhausted. In the evening, after dinner, the General had at last gone off to sleep. Drake took up his position as head nurse in his room, and Adrienne and her uncle Derrick sat over the fire in the smoking-room and discussed the accident.

"We must read aloud to him," said Adrienne cheerfully; "and I dare say to-morrow evening he will be well enough to have his game of chess. He's very fond of detective stories. There's one just come down from Mudie's. And if this frost holds out, it will comfort him to feel that he couldn't hunt in any case."

And then, for the first time since the morning, she thought of the letter she had received from her aunt, and felt delightfully at rest now that she had a definite reason for not going to her.

"Uncle Derrick," she said presently, "I got a letter from Aunt Cecily this morning."

"Did you? You never mentioned it."

"No; I was keeping it from you, I am afraid. I wanted to answer it, before I told you about it."

"I suppose she wants you to visit her?"

"I'll go and get the letter. I left it in the pocket of my tweed skirt." She left the room and returned with it.

The Admiral read it through. Once he smiled; but he looked very grave as he handed it back to her. "We don't want to lose you, dear child. In any case, this accident of Tom's prevents your leaving us at present. He'll want your youth and gaiety to carry him through his days. What parasites upon the young we older folk are!"

"Now, Uncle Derrick, don't dare to talk like that! This is my home and I love it, and Aunt Cecily has no claim upon me. She owns herself that she did nothing for me when I was a child. I wanted care and attention then, but I got it from you and not from her. Her letter makes me feel bitter against her. I'm to go to minister to her wants. I shall have no life of my own, but will have to be an unpaid servant in her house. That is what Mathilde was."

"No, no, as a daughter, it was her duty to be with her mother and help her."

"Well, now she can get a companion and pay her. She's very well off, is she not?"

"I don't think so. We wanted her to get rid of the Château years ago when her husband died, but she would not. Indeed, I think she cannot, under the terms of his will. It is to go to a son of her husband's. She was the second wife, and, strangely enough, his first wife was American, not French. She wrote to me a few weeks ago mentioning him, and I gathered that he has lately appeared in her neighbourhood, and she is very angry because he won't live with her in the Château."

"Then she has somebody belonging to her? I did not know she had."

"You must write to her at once, Adrienne. She will be expecting you. Tell her about your uncle's accident and she will understand."

So Adrienne moved across to the big writing-table, and there and then composed a very nice refusal of her aunt's invitation.

As she sealed and stamped it, she brought down her slender fist upon it with some force.

"There! That's my final word to her. I have suggested that she should get a companion."

She came across to the fire, and threw herself into the big easy-chair opposite her uncle.

She looked at him affectionately:

"I believe you're missing your game of chess. Now, aren't you? Will you let me play with you and I dare say to-morrow evening Uncle Tom will be well enough to play himself."

"I think we might have a game," said the Admiral with alacrity; "you can play very well if you like, Adrienne."

And Adrienne did, throwing her whole heart and soul into the contest, and casting all thoughts of her aunt to the winds.

It was only when she went to bed that she murmured to herself:

"Fate has been kind. I am no longer hesitating between cross-ways, but cheerfully trudging along in the sunshine, and in the path which I love."

She went to visit the invalid just before breakfast the next day. She found him irritable.

"What kind of a night have I had? The devil of a night, and I've been swearing like a trooper all through! That fool of a Drake snored—yes, he snored like a bull! Out of my room he shall go to-night. He fussed himself in, but what good did he do me? My knee feels as big as a Christmas pudding. I wanted sleep and relief from pain. Why didn't that young jackass give me an opiate to make me sleep? What's the weather like?"

"The frost still holds," said Adrienne cheerfully; "so there 'll be no hunting, and you look in the lap of comfort with your blazing fire and breakfast tray by your side. It won't be half bad, Uncle Tom, to be in bed for a few days. I'll come up and read to you, and Uncle Derrick will bring the chess-board. I'm sorry you're still in pain, but you might have been worse—cracked your head or your spine, or broken your jaw or your nose!"

The General gave a grim smile.

"You're too cheeky by half, young woman! Just ring the bell for Drake. He might have brought me 'The Times.' Go on down to breakfast. I've had mine, worse luck. There's nothing to do in bed but eat and sleep, and I can't do either now."

"I'll come and see you very soon, and tell you something. You did me a good turn by falling down, but you'll never guess how. I'll send up the paper."

Adrienne left him and ran lightly downstairs. She found her uncle Derrick waiting for her.

"How's our invalid? Drake said he slept fairly well, but I went into his room early this morning, and he told me a different tale. We shall have a pretty stiff time with him."

"Yes, but he looks well, and he has eaten a good breakfast. Of course he is never ill, so he feels it all the more now. Will you dine at the Hall on Thursday?"

"I don't think so," said the Admiral slowly.

"Will you go, and let me stay at home? You know I hate dinners. Now do, Uncle Derrick. Lady Sutherland is very fond of you, so you must not disappoint her."

"And what will Godfrey say if you don't appear?"

"It won't cause him the flutter of an eyelid. We see each other as often as we want to. I told him about Aunt Cecily's letter to-day. Of course he thought I ought to go."

"He's a bit of a prig. A good parson spoiled, I always say!"

"Oh, I won't have you call him a prig! He's not a bit. He is too natural and unaffected to be that!"

The Admiral smiled, and Adrienne began discussing other things.

The day proved to be more difficult than she had anticipated.

The Admiral, who was a J.P., had to attend some court meeting in the neighbouring town, and he went off soon after breakfast in his closed car, and did not return till half-past three in the afternoon. All that time, with the exception of half an hour for lunch, Adrienne was in the General's room. She talked, she read, she played games with him. He would not try to sleep, and was like a child in his restlessness and discontent. The doctor came at twelve o'clock, and offended him greatly by some plain speaking.

"Your pulse is good, and so is your heart; there's nothing for it but to set your teeth and endure the discomfort and pain. Your knee is going on very well; but if you won't keep the limb still, you'll make it a longer job. And we must put it into a cradle. You won't like that."

"He's a cussed jackanapes!" said the General to Adrienne when his visit was over.

She shook her head at him, but did not argue the point. And then she began to tell him about her aunt's letter. That really interested him.

"Cecily is a hypochondriac—she always has been—since her husband's death. She ought to be ashamed of herself to write to you like that! Don't turn a hair. Derrick and I mean to keep you with us. You surely didn't wish to go to her?"

"No, oh, no! But if you hadn't been ill, I might have gone to her for a little visit!"

"Not to be thought of! When once you're over there, you'll never get away! I went once soon after her husband's death, but never again! I loathe those French meals; you starve till twelve o'clock, then overeat yourself—not with good nourishing food, but all kinds of slops and vegetable messes. They give you cabbage-water for soup, and their chickens are all skin and bone. And as for drink, some white wine is Cecily's one and only! She always was a bad housekeeper, but her meals over there are perfect cautions!"

"How came she to marry a Frenchman?"

"She met him in Paris. Your father was Consul there at the time, and she went to stay with him, and got acquainted with the Count. I think the title and Château had some weight with her. He was a nice old chap, years older than herself, and he had been married before, and had one son."

"Then how is it that his son doesn't have the Château? Why does Aunt Cecily live in it?"

"Châteaux are not very attractive in these days. There is seldom enough money to keep them up, and they're cold and draughty, and tumbling to pieces. He told his father before he died that he would never live in it. He was a keen explorer and has spent his life travelling round the world. I believe he has come back now for a time. He owns the small home farm, not far from the Château, where he stays. He paid us a visit here once. It was when you were at school. Rather a bumptious young fellow. Not a bit French! Takes after his mother, who was an American."

Adrienne thought over this.

"Then I suppose Aunt Cecily owns the Château, and she likes it better than England."

"She's more French than a genuine Frenchwoman; always liked Paris—its ways—and its gowns! No, she'll never end her days in England!"

Then giving a lurch in bed, he hurt his knee. Conversation was at an end, and Adrienne needed all her patience to cheer and soothe him.

When the Admiral returned, things were better, and she was able to get away, and have a little time to herself.

But the General was in bed for a week, and when at last he could get downstairs, it was only to hobble about with the help of a crutch.

The frost disappeared and hunting recommenced. Adrienne had the pleasure of exercising "Catkins," the hunter. She was a good rider, and did not often get as much riding as she would have liked. Sir Godfrey lent her a mount occasionally, and sometimes she would take the old pony that did the station work and ride off across the hills to a bit of Dartmoor. When she did this, she would take some lunch in her pocket and be out all day. She loved solitude, and the moon had a peculiar attraction for her. The strange thing was that, though she liked riding, she did not care for hunting. She told her uncle she loved the horses and the jumps, but hated the chase of the fox. Every animal's life under the sun was precious in her eyes and nobody could argue her out of it.

One morning she took Catkins off to the Morays' farm on a quest of a broody hen. She managed the poultry yard herself, and had a sitting of ducks' eggs, but no hen to oblige her. It was a sunny morning in February. Since the disappearance of the snow, there was distinctly a promise of spring in the air. The catkins hung their yellow heads in the sunshine; the sap was rising in the bare brown trees and swelling their tiny buds; a few early primroses were in the sheltered lanes. Bruce trotted happily along at the heels of her horse, and Adrienne lifted up her sunny face to the blue sky, inhaling the fresh sweet air with delight.

Tents' Farm, as it was called, lay halfway down a sunny slope of pasture land. The house itself was small, with stout cob walls and thatched roof. The buildings behind it were more modern, and, in common with all Sutherland property, in thorough good repair. There was a small garden in front of the house. Adrienne pulled up outside the green wooden gate and called. In a moment or two a young man opened the porch door and came down the path.

"Come in and have a cup of tea," he said when he had learnt her errand. "Phemie and I are alone. Mother went off to Lufton this morning, and hasn't got back yet. How's the General?"

[Illustration: "Come in and have a cup of tea," he said, when he had learnt her errand. _Adrienne]_ _[Chapter II]_

"Getting on fine! Can you take Catkins? I mustn't stay long."

Dick Moray was in corduroy breeches and an old tweed coat, but nothing could conceal the fact that he was a gentleman by birth. He had a thin, rather worn face, with furrows across his brows between his eyes, and he stooped with a peculiar hunch of his shoulders, telling of chest delicacy. He had been badly gassed in the War and had not entirely—even now—got rid of its ill effects.

Adrienne handed over Catkins to his charge, and as he took him round to the stables, she made her way into the house.

There was a small entry, and a staircase going up from it. To the left was a door, and it was this that Adrienne opened. It led into a large comfortable farm kitchen, but it was furnished comfortably. The floor was tiled, and, under a window, and near the fire, were two good Indian rugs. The oak gate-table, drawn near the fire for tea, held a silver teapot and tray, and the china upon it was dainty, as was also the white cloth.

Phemie was in the act of making the tea, taking a kettle off the fire for that purpose. There was a plain glass bookcase on one side of the room, a writing-table in one of the casement window recesses. The rest of the furniture, the dresser, the well-scoured table, the store cupboard and the big open stove, all essentially belonged to a kitchen.

"Come along, Adrienne. How nice to see you! Sit down at the table, will you? How's the General?"

"Much better, but oh! We've had a time!"

"I'm sure you have. I said so to Mother the other day."

Adrienne always enjoyed her meals at the farm. Phemie's butter was beautiful; there was no lack of cream, and always home-made bread and plain currant cake.

To-day there were hot scones.

"Just as if we expected you," said Phemie, laughing, "but I made them for Dick as a treat. When Mother is out, we always have a good tea. There is no one to bustle us away from the table."

Dick here made his appearance, and sat down to enjoy both Adrienne and his tea.

The young people chatted gaily together.

"You don't know of my dissipation, do you?" said Phemie. "I actually was asked to dine at the Hall last week. To fill your place, of course. I hardly knew myself, but Sir Godfrey came round with an invitation from his mother, so I went. Mother was willing. I had an ancient black dress, but I chopped off a good foot of it in length, and I happened to have one good pair of evening-shoes. Mother lent me a pair of silk stockings, and Dick went off and brought me a huge bunch of violets from the florist in Lufton. Wasn't he a dear? The only part of me that disgraced me were my hands. I used to have such nice ones, too!"

A little sigh fell from her lips, as she spread out her reddened work-worn hands before her.

Adrienne smiled.

"Nobody would notice your hands. I'm sure you looked very nice. Uncle Derrick told me you were there. I made him go, but I could not leave Uncle Tom. Did you enjoy yourself?"

"I enjoyed the dinner," said Phemie honestly; "it's such a pleasure to eat when you do not cook. And Colonel Blake took me in and was very amusing. Some of them played Bridge and the rest of us talked. We had no music. Sir Godfrey insisted upon walking home with me; wasn't it good of him?"

"No, I don't think so. He always loves an evening stroll, and so does Tartar. I'm sure he accompanied you."

"Oh, yes. Do you see anything new in front of you?"

"That embossed brass jug on the chimney-piece."

"Yes, Sir Godfrey gave it to me. He picked it out of his collection in the smoking-room. I couldn't help admiring them. You know how I love brass! but I never dreamt of his doing such a thing. Mother was cross. It's always a bone of contention between us. I say that farmhouse kitchens are always renowned for their pewter, their copper and their brass, and that we ought to have some. We have a few pieces hidden away in the attics. Mother won't allow me to bring them down. She says they bring and make work, and she's not going to have to clean useless ornaments.

"I would willingly rise half an hour earlier or go to bed half an hour later, to keep them bright and shining; but it's no good. They're tabooed. So that's that!"

"Phemie would like to turn this into an art studio if she could," Dick said with a little chuckle. "The Mother doesn't see it, and I honestly don't think it would work."

"I should work much the better for having a few beautiful things to look at," said Phemie. "I should like a picture or two on the walls, but those again are banned by Mother."

"Well, you do as you like in your own room," said Adrienne; "for I've seen it, and that is where you want beauty most."

"I'm rather with the Mother that a kitchen ought to be a kitchen," said Dick; "but then I'm only a male, and have no artistic tendencies."

"You lose a lot of pleasure," said Phemie, looking at her brother with thoughtful eyes.

"I don't go into raptures over a baby calf as you do, or see pictures in rotten barn-doors and decaying roofs; but I do take pleasure in the earth, and all that comes out of it, barring the weeds!"

"Dick and Mother have things in common," said Phemie; then she tossed up her chin, and a light came into her eyes, making her look positively handsome; "and if my father had lived, he and I would have understood each other. As it is, I stand alone with my father's spirit in me, which cannot be beaten even if it is suppressed."

There was a moment's silence. Her words were true. Her father had loved art and was full of it to his fingers' tips, though he had never made a name for himself. He had died at an early age, leaving only half-finished, undeveloped paintings, and bits of sculpture behind him. And his widow having known penury and want, and being left almost penniless, felt bitterly towards the art that had proved so disastrous to her husband.

Adrienne changed the conversation. She felt that the topic was difficult, if not dangerous, so she began telling them of her invitation to her aunt.

Phemie was full of interest at once.

"But you will go to her when your uncle is better? Oh, you must. How delightful! An old country Château. It sounds so romantic. I should love to see the country life in France. And she is your aunt, isn't she? Oh, I wish, I wish I were in your shoes."

"Well," said Adrienne impulsively, "why should you not go instead of me? Will you? She only wants a bright young companion. I will tell her that I can send a substitute. She will welcome you. Will you do it?"

Phemie laughed, but there was bitterness in her laugh.

"My dear Adrienne, if the King himself wrote and offered me a position in Buckingham Palace, do you think I could go? Would the upheaval of a mountain move me a hair's-breadth out of my rut?"

"Don't be a rotter!" said her brother, turning upon her. "You speak as if you are a slave. You are of age. You could leave us to-morrow if you chose, and you know you could. If you choose to stay here, don't grouse!"

"Do I grouse?"

"No, I'll own you don't, unless Adrienne comes along."

"Then I'd better stay away," said Adrienne with her pretty laugh. "Oh, Phemie, you're a dear, and much too good and valuable to waste your life on a capricious old lady like Aunt Cecily. You're the light and sunshine of your home, you know you are. What would Dick do without you!"

Then they all laughed together, and the slight storm blew over.

The opening of the front door suddenly startled them. The next moment Mrs. Moray made her appearance. She was a tall good-looking woman with rather a weather-beaten face, and very dark eyes which dominated and held her auditors when she spoke. She was dressed in rough tweed coat and skirt and a plain grey felt hat.

"How do you do, Adrienne?" she said briskly, nodding to her as she deposited some parcels on a side-table.

"Dick, do you know that it's past milking-time, and Andrew won't be back from Lufton till six as I told you."

Dick was at the door in a moment.

"I was just going. Good-bye, Adrienne. My respects and sympathy to your invalid."

Adrienne rose from her seat, and took her departure.

Phemie was already being sent here, there, and everywhere.

There was always a stir and a bustle when Mrs. Moray made her appearance, and though her daughter implored her to sit down and have a cup of tea, there seemed endless small things to do first.

Adrienne's feeling, as she escaped, was thankfulness that she did not live in the same house as Mrs. Moray. She went to the stables and found her horse tied outside and ready for her. Dick appeared from the cow-sheds and helped her to mount.

"I always feel an idle drone when I see how you and Phemie work," she said; "do you never get fed up with it?"

Dick laughed.

"We have our discontented days, Phemie and I, but I love the land. Always have. The very smell of the earth is a tonic to me!"

"Yes, I understand that. When I go to town, the air has no life in it. Good-bye, Dick, and thank you."

She rode away. For one moment Dick's eyes rested on her light graceful figure in the saddle; then, with a short sigh, he went back to his milking.

Chapter III

Godfrey Speaks

IT was spring at last. The winter had been a cold and late one; now with a rush of warm bright weather every tree and bush was waking into life. Adrienne, with her hands full of daffodils, was filling great bowls upon the wide window-sills.

She was always down in the morning long before her uncles, and had been out in the garden rifling the beds beneath the windows of their golden treasures.

Softly singing to herself as she arranged the flowers to her liking, she did not hear the entrance of the General or of Drake with the postbag.

"Here, Adrienne, you take the cake! Five, as I'm a sinner, a budget of circulars for Derrick, and the usual execrable bills for me!"

General Chesterton was practically well again, but he had not been allowed to hunt in spite of his agonized entreaties. His doctor warned him that the slightest strain put upon his injured leg might mean weeks of confinement again to his room. So he made the best of it, and occupied himself by superintending the young gardener, and arranging with him the order in which the vegetable garden was to be sown.

Occasionally he would shout for Adrienne to come and help him over some knotty point. She never failed him.

Now, she held out her hands for her letters.

"I shall never get too old to love the post," she said. "It's the one thing that prevents monotony: one from Phemie—a recipe I wanted—one from my dressmaker, one from May Edginton who's in Venice, a bill from the library, and—"

She paused, holding a letter in her hand and scrutinizing it closely.

"Now I wonder," she went on, "who writes to me in such a small black dashing hand. Postmark—London. It's from a man, I'm sure."

"Women are the rummiest lot," observed the General, looking at her; "why waste wonder and time in turning a letter over and over before you open it?"

Adrienne did not hear him. She had slowly opened her letter, and was now deep in its contents. Then she looked up and sighed:

"It's very extraordinary. I felt something would happen to-day, something unexpected, and now this has come."

She handed her letter over to the General, who took it, and with a frowning brow read as follows:—

"Dear Miss Chesterton,—

"Your aunt, my stepmother, badly wants you. Why not give her the pleasure of your society if even for a few weeks? I expect by this time that the circumstances which prevented your going to her a month ago have changed.

"I shall be returning to France on the 18th of this month and we could travel over together.

"Perhaps I could run down and persuade you to do this kindness for an invalid relative. Could you put me up for a night if I did so?

"Will this next Thursday suit you? I expect my stepmother's brothers will be glad to hear the latest account of her.

"Yours sincerely—

"Guy De Beaudessert."

"Plague take the fellow," spluttered the General; "why has he thrust his finger into the pie? Cecily is determined to take you from us. Here, Derrick, I'll pass it on to you. For consummate cheek give me an American!"

"But he isn't that exactly," protested Adrienne. "He isn't French. His letter tells you that. He has lived in America more than in any other country."

The Admiral read the letter through, and then looked inquiringly at his niece.

"I shall have to go," she said quietly; "but only for a short visit. I shall make that quite clear."

"I think you will, my dear, and we must put up this young man. After all, he is a connection of ours. Thursday is the day after to-morrow. You had better write at once to him."

Adrienne laughed her happy ringing laugh.

"I don't like the feeling of coercion in this visit. He writes so dictatorially."

"He's a nasty, masterful fellow," said the General viciously. "I'll give him a piece of mind when I see him. I remember when he came over to us some years ago. He stood up to me and tried to batten me to the ground over some international question. I told him then that age and experience had some weight in the world, though he didn't appear to think so."

"I don't see how I can go off on the 18th. That is Thursday week," said Adrienne thoughtfully; "I have several engagements, and I've promised Lady Talbot to take the flower-stall at her Bazaar in Lufton on the 19th. Besides, if I go, I prefer to go alone to travelling with him. I might go on the 21st."

"It's utter rot your going at all," growled the General. "Cecily is an octopus! She'll lay hold of you and keep you. But we can wire for you to come back. Either Derrick or I will be alarmingly ill. Both sides can play that game."

"Oh, I shall come back right enough," said Adrienne reassuringly; and then she turned her attention to the breakfast table and purposely talked of other things.

"I promised Godfrey to walk out to Claphanger's Farm this morning," she said. "That dear old Mrs. Viner is very ill, and asked if I would come to see her."

"Take her a bottle of port," said the Admiral; "she mothered us when we were boys. She left us when we went to school, and brought up young Godfrey from his birth."

"Yes, he's devoted to her. I believe she is ninety this month."

An hour later Sir Godfrey appeared. He and Adrienne set off together, tramped through the village, then crossed three or four fields and finally climbed on to the moor. Both of them loved walking for walking's sake, and there was no lack of conversation between them.

Adrienne told him of the letter which she had received.

"I know you think I shall be right to go, don't you?"

"I think it's an opportunity."

"Oh, Godfrey, your opportunities! Do you ever lose yours, I wonder, as I do?"

"Often," he said, smiling. "And then I have regrets and remorse, accordingly."

"I'm perfectly certain you never go against your conscience. Sometimes I wish you were more human!"

He looked a little startled.

"But that's what I work to be," he said; "surely to fill up breaches and gaps, and lend a hand to any needing help, is not inhuman?"

"I'd like to see you do a really selfish thing for once in your life," said Adrienne impetuously.

"I'm doing one now," he responded quickly. "I have a big pile of correspondence on my writing-table waiting to be tackled, and I've let it go hang, because I wanted a walk with you."

Adrienne laughed lightly.

Then he asked, with some interest in his tone: "And does this fellow who's written to you live at the Château?"

"No, I think not. He comes and goes, and spends most of his time when there at a farm near. I don't know him at all. I have never seen him."

"Is he a married man?"

"I don't think so. He may be. I really don't know. He has made over the Château to my aunt. I know that. I believe he's a wanderer by nature. He loves travelling."

There was silence for a moment, then Godfrey said: "Adrienne, when will you let me speak to you seriously?"

"Oh, Godfrey, please—not yet—I don't like to say never, but I want nothing to spoil our pleasant friendship. I don't want you to break it into a thousand pieces!"

"I've been waiting about two years since I last spoke to you."

There was a hint of patient resignation in his tone. Adrienne laid her hand softly on his coat-sleeve. "I should so love to see you become engaged to some nice girl," she said. "You ought to marry and have a home of your own."

He shook his head, but did not speak.

For a few moments they walked on in silence, then Adrienne broke it:

"Look here, Godfrey. Let us have it out. It will be best. Do you know what I think about you? You like grooves. You think, because we have grown up together, that we're meant to spend our lives together. You're accustomed to go about with me, and we're good chums, and we confide in each other, and so you think you want me altogether; and in spite of what you say, and what you think you feel, I don't believe you've got the right sort of love in your heart for me, and I'm perfectly certain I have not got it for you."

Godfrey was so taken aback that he stood still and stared at her.

"What kind of love are you looking for?" he asked her a little breathlessly.

Adrienne looked a little shamefaced and confused; then she plucked up her courage, for she was nothing if she was not courageous.

"I'm going to probe deeply," she said; "and if I hurt you, it's only for your good. I know some girls are satisfied, as they may well be, by a good man's quiet unemotional affection—well—love, as you would say. But I'm not like that. I want to be carried off my feet, thrilled; I want to feel that I care for nothing and nobody in the wide world but the one who is beside me. That I would follow him to suffering or to death with the greatest possible joy. Now do I feel that for you, and do you truthfully feel that for me?"

"You're so intense!" said Godfrey, flushing under his tanned skin. "I'm not excitable by temperament; but I think my love would wear better and endure longer than those passionate heroics."

"I dare say they sound childish to you," said Adrienne quietly, "but I am made that way. I cannot help it. I must be intense. I must feel to the bottom of my heart, when realities come into my life. I'm afraid, Godfrey, I've a turbulent soul, and I welcome storms rather than stagnation."

"Would life with me be stagnation?" asked Godfrey. "I thought you were a contented soul. You enjoy your quiet life with your uncles."

"I do—I do—And that is why I would not exchange it for another similar one. Marriage means a big, mysterious thing to me."

"You put me in the same category as your good uncles. Do you know you are being rather cruel to me this morning?"

Adrienne sighed.

"I don't mean to be, but I feel I should like things to be quite settled between us, and not, I fear, as you wish. I want you as a friend, a good comrade; but I can give you nothing more than faithful friendship, Godfrey, and I am more certain of it now than two years ago, when you first spoke to me."

"Is this your final and determined decision?" Godfrey asked slowly and gravely.

"Yes, I am afraid it is."

And, to her annoyance, great tears rose to her eyes.

Godfrey gave her a fleeting glance. Then he braced himself.

"I am not going to make you sad upon such a lovely morning," he said. "I will accept your answer like a man, and won't bother you any more. Let us talk of other things. We won't let our friendship go; and if you want help at any time, you know that I'll do my utmost for you."

"You're too good for me, and that's the fact," said Adrienne ruefully; "but I do believe that the day will come when you will feel glad that my answer is what it is. And I'm sure there's another much nicer girl than I, who will make you happy."

He did not reply, and as they were now nearing the farm they began to talk of the nurse who had been with both the Chestertons and Sutherlands for the greater part of her life.

No one would have thought, as they sat a little later by the old woman's bed, that there had been such a momentous conversation between them.

Adrienne was always at her best when with the village folk. Godfrey's gaze was sombre, his eyes rarely left her face, but he showed no discomposure as he talked and even laughed with his old nurse.

And then suddenly she turned to him:

"Well, sir, when are you going to take yourself a wife? 'Tis what we all expect from you."

"You must wait a bit, Nannie; wives are not to be picked up so easily."

"You mean you're not so easily pleased?"

"We'll leave it at that."

He refused to be drawn, but Adrienne felt and looked very uncomfortable.

As they rose to go away, the old woman said:

"'Tis good of you to come and see me. It's the weary waitin' that tries me so sorely. If the Lord called me quickly, 'twould be so much easier; I know I've got to go; and every day brings it nearer, but I feel at times like David:

"'Oh, that I had wings like a dove! For then would I fly away, and be at rest.'"

"You are being called very gently, Nannie. Pillow your head on this: 'Underneath are the Everlasting Arms,' and rest down here as a foretaste of what is before you."

Her whole face brightened, and when they were walking home Adrienne said:

"Oh, you ought to have gone into the Church, Godfrey. What a delightful rector or vicar you would make! I wish I had your faith and outlook."

"I'm not an eloquent speaker," said Godfrey with a short laugh; "I fancy my sermons would be dry and dull, so I dare say I am best as I am. When do you think you will be off to France?"

"After Lady Talbot's Bazaar takes place. I think I shall go on the 21st."

"I'll look the General up as often as I can. He's the one who will miss you most. The Admiral is so content amongst his books."

"And—and—" hesitated Adrienne, "shall I write and tell you how I get on, or would you rather not hear from me?"

Godfrey looked straight ahead of him with compressed lips.

"We always have corresponded, haven't we? I don't want things altered, Adrienne—not until you do."

Adrienne was silent; but when he left her at her gate and held out his hand, she took it and held it tightly between her own for a moment.

"You're much, much too good for me, Godfrey. Forgive me for not wanting your all. It's shameful of me, but it's just something in me, which I can't control or get over. And I still have the unswerving conviction that there's someone in the world waiting for you, someone much nobler—much better than I."

He shook his head as he turned away, and his walk home, and the thoughts that accompanied it, brought him into his house with gloom in his eyes and deep depression in his soul.

His mother at luncheon watched him anxiously, but was too tactful to ask him any questions.

She knew he had been out with Adrienne, and was pretty certain that she had again refused him.

Lady Sutherland had known for a long time that her son's affections were set upon Adrienne. She also knew that the girl was strangely indifferent to him. And though she was well content that her son should not marry at present, she resented Adrienne's lack of appreciation of his love.

"She will never get a better husband, socially or morally," she thought to herself; "I really hope she will be made to suffer. If Godfrey is not good enough for her, who will be?"

* * * * *

And Adrienne was shedding some miserable tears in her room before she joined her uncles at lunch.

"Why can't I love him? He's so deep and true and steadfast. But I believe if he were less quiet and controlled, if he took me by storm as it were, and showed more heat and intensity, I should yield to him."

She could not afford much time over useless tears. Quickly she bathed her face and went downstairs.

The General thought what good form she was in as she chatted and laughed and joked with him through lunch, but the Admiral always surmised the truth when his niece was unusually animated and his quick eyes detected the signs of trouble in her face.

When lunch was over, the General went off to the smoking-room with his pipe.

Adrienne stood at the window for a moment or two, looking out upon the sunny garden, and the Admiral joined her and, laying a hand on her shoulder, said:

"You're not fretting over going to France, are you, my dear?"

Adrienne slipped her hand into his arm caressingly. "I'm trying not to think about it," she said; "why do you have such sharp eyes, Uncle Derrick?"

"I hate to see you worried," was his quick response.

"It's only—you know the old trouble—Godfrey has been coming to close quarters again, and it's no good—I can't give him what he wants. And I hate making him unhappy."

The Admiral did not speak.

"You want me to marry him, I know," she went on in a low breathless tone; "but I'm terrified of taking such an unalterable step, feeling as I do—or rather not feeling as he deserves I should. Sometimes I think I have no heart. It's cold and dead as far as he is concerned. I don't say I don't like him. I do very much—but I like him as a friend or brother, and nothing more."

"Well, my dear child, don't fret about it. You know your own business best. He's an out-and-out good sort; but if he doesn't appeal to you, don't for goodness' sake force yourself against your instinct. Perhaps it will be just as well for you to be away from him for a bit. Personally I think you see too much of each other."

"I think perhaps we do. But I have really made him understand to-day that I cannot give him the love he ought to have. He won't ask me again, I feel sure."

Then after a moment's silence she said:

"Don't say anything to Uncle Tom, will you? You and I have a few secrets together, and this must be one of them. Now I must go and write to this stepcousin of mine. But he is no relation really, is he? Don't you think his letter rather dictatorial?"

The Admiral smiled.

"He goes straight to the point and keeps to it. He's been very good to Cecily."

Adrienne went to her private sitting-room. It was upstairs next to her bedroom, and was very daintily furnished. Old-fashioned chintz curtains and chintz-covered couch and chairs brightened up the grey walls and the soft grey carpet underfoot. A canary in a cage was singing lustily as she entered the room. A bright fire was in the grate, and big blue and white china bowls of daffodils and narcissus stood on the writing-table and on the wide window-sills.

Adrienne went over to her writing-table by the window and wrote as follows:

"Dear Count De Beaudessert,—

"Thank you for your letter. We shall be very pleased to see you on Thursday for a few days, when we can do as you suggest—talk things over together. My uncles will be very glad to hear of my aunt. I trust she is fairly well. Will you let us know your train, so that we can send the car to meet you.

"Yours sincerely,

"Adrienne Chesterton."

"There!" she said a little triumphantly. "That will leave you in doubt as to my intentions, which will be very good for you."

She posted her letter and tried to think of other things. But her anticipated visit to her aunt seemed to hang over her like a heavy cloud.

She always said that she was like a cat, and hated change of any sort, and she was so happy in her home life that she did not want to leave it.

Chapter IV

The Count'S Arrival

THURSDAY came. A wire had been received saying that the guest would arrive at four, and the car had been sent for him.

Adrienne had seen that the spare room was ready and comfortable for him. She even put a blue jar of daffodils on the writing bureau, and wondered, as she did so, if he would notice or appreciate them.

Tea was brought into the drawing-room. The Admiral paced the room in expectation of the arrival. The General was out with the dogs.

"Don't want to see the fellow more than I can help," he said as he went off.

When the car arrived, the Admiral went out into the hall, and a moment later Adrienne was shaking hands with a tall, broad-shouldered man not in the very least like a Frenchman in voice or manner or look. He had a clean-shaven, tanned face, startlingly clear blue eyes, and a very determined mouth and chin.

"We've heard about each other, sure!" he said. "But it's very pleasant to see one another at last."

His grip was so hearty that Adrienne winced. She smiled at his slight Americanism.

"I was at school when you were over here before."

"Yes, and I was shown a photo of you in tennis costume, with long hair, and a smile that made me want to kiss you!"

"Will you have some tea?"

Adrienne's tone was cool and detached, but nothing quenched Guy de Beaudessert. He was alive to his finger-tips, and turned to the Admiral with a flood of talk about France and her difficulties.

Adrienne listened, and was surprised at the interest she felt in what he was saying.

"I'm not French, you know. I never would take my father's title. If you haven't a position in France, you're better without it. Indeed, you're not popular with the powers that be, if you keep up a state of 'Noblesse.' My stepmother won't understand this, but even she to the neighbours round is simply 'Madame.' And what is the good of a handle to your name when your house is in ruins, and your property nil?"

"I wonder," said Adrienne a little pointedly, "that you don't live with Aunt Cecily when you are over there. It would make her less lonely."

"I dine with her every night and spend the evening with her," he responded quickly, "but my visits are not long ones, and I confine my energies wholly and unreservedly to the farm which I took over ten years ago, and which bolsters up the estate."

"Are times still bad?" asked the Admiral.

"What can you expect after such a devastating War? And you know how the franc stands."

"I can't think why my sister persists in living out there. She would do much better to sell the Château and come to England."

Guy gave a little laugh and turned to Adrienne.

"You are young and enthusiastic, I am sure," he said; "you must use your powers of influence to induce her to leave her ruined castle."

"No," said Adrienne perversely; "if her heart is there, why should I try to tear her away from it?"

Guy made no reply, but turned to the Admiral.

"My stepmother is unfortunate in her adviser out there. He is a little village notary, and she turns to him for everything. He's fleecing her right and left, and she won't see it. Why don't you or the General pay her a visit sometimes? You could do more with her than the rest of us."

"Never!" laughed the Admiral. "Cecily has always managed us. We never could manage her. And we're both getting old now, and are neither of us good travellers. I should think a young and able man like yourself is more than sufficient for her."

They talked on for some time; and then, when tea was over, Guy strode to the window and stood looking out.

"An English garden," he said; "there's nothing like it in the world. Miss Chesterton, will you take me over it?"

"Certainly," Adrienne answered politely.

She led the way through the hall, taking down a straw hat from the hatstand and putting it on her head. Then they crossed the lawn together, and wandered down the paths between the herbaceous borders in the old walled garden.

"When are you coming over to us?" he said, turning to her quickly. "Can you manage to get away by the 18th?"

"No," said Adrienne, with a little hauteur in her tone; "that date does not suit me. I will come a few days later on. I have talked it over with my uncles and they are willing to spare me for a month—not longer, they say."

"I suppose, like most old people, they're inclined to be selfish," Guy remarked.

"They're neither old nor selfish," said Adrienne hotly.

Guy smiled to himself. He wanted to break the icy crust in Adrienne's voice, and he had succeeded.

"Excuse me, I think they are; here are two of them in a comfortable house, waited on by efficient servants, and everything to their hand. In France their sister lives alone, she has lost her daughter. The times have been hard. She has lost money, ergo, she has lost good servants, for she cannot afford to keep them. Now, as I go about the world, I see this, that half creation is overburdened, because the other half refuses to shoulder their portion. Here's your opportunity to put your shoulder to the wheel, leave the burdenless ones, and ease the big burden of loneliness and unhappiness which is bearing down your aunt. If your uncles are unselfish, they will be willing and anxious for you to do this."

"And where do I come in?" asked Adrienne, trying to speak lightly. "I seem to be but a pawn in the game."

"We're all pawns," said Guy, "and pawns are not to be despised, for their life is full of purpose and aim, and every step they take is a vital one. Remember that some pawns become queens."

Then Adrienne laughed.

She had a delicious laugh, soft and mellow and infectious.

"I am beset with preachers," she said; "are all young men so serious, I wonder? You needn't pile it on, for I'm going, and my uncles are willing that I should do so. They're such unselfish dears that they are sparing me. As you go about the world, do you preach to everyone as you have done to me?"

He surprised her by joining in her laughter.

"I always make a bee-line to my point," he said, "and you must allow that this is a selfish age. I suppose you're not an exception to the run of girls I've come across. 'To have a good time' is the whole aim of their existence."

"A moment ago it was the old who were selfish, now it is the young. What a censorious person you are!"

He did not answer her, but bent his head and buried his face in a mauve lilac bush, then he straightened himself.

"I'm not as bad as I sound," he said. "We must be friends, you and I."

"I never shall be friends with anyone who carps and cavils at the world in general. It is so easy to find fault with the times. Everyone does it. It is second nature—first the weather, then this modern world! And yet the poor old world goes on rolling, and men and women go on living. And history repeats itself. I'm not pessimistic, and I hope I never shall be. And I've lived with kind relatives and I've nice friends. And nothing is wrong with the world, it is only individuals."

Adrienne spoke hotly. There was a pink flush on her cheeks.

"I applaud your sentiments, and I hope you will instil them into your aunt's heart. Poor soul, she sadly needs more optimism in her outlook."

"And now, having finished judging us all, may we talk of other things?"

Again he laughed.

"Are you a gardener? Who supervises this delightful spot? I am sure brains have been at work in the choice of colours."

"My Uncle Tom and I do it between us, but it is our dear Barton who does the actual work. We potter round in the evenings, taking up a few weeds here and there. Is there a garden at the Château?"

"There used to be. I think something could be made of it now, but there is no one with a head to do it—or hands either, for the matter of that. You'll see your aunt's staff and will, I expect, marvel at their industry as I do. The country villages in the out-of-way provinces in France have still the feudal system of retainers who grow up round the Château and consider they are part and parcel of it. It is out of date and all wrong from the socialist point of view, but it's rather pathetic. We have nothing like it in America, and I guess it's fast vanishing out of England!"

"What do you call yourself? French or American?" asked Adrienne, standing still and regarding him with a flash of amusement in her pretty grey eyes.

"I'm a mongrel, nothing more or less. You'll be able to tell me in a few weeks' time which country I favour most."

"I think," said Adrienne rather slowly, "that I should do better if I were to time my visit to my aunt when yours ends. She can't need me so much when you are there as when she is quite alone."

"She mustn't ever be alone again," was his quick response. "It has been nearly disastrous for her nerves as it is—these months since her daughter has left her! You don't realize how imperative it is that she should have companionship."

"No, I don't," said Adrienne quietly; "there are so many widows who live their lives alone. I feel sorry for them, but they have had a good time, and if I were to like moralizing as you do, I should say that good and bad times are the lot of us all. Even the flowers require shade as well as sunshine. Aunt Cecily is no worse off than hundreds of other women. I know several widows in our neighbourhood, but they manage to exist, and love managing their husband's properties."

They had made their round of the garden by this time, and Adrienne led the way back to the house. She found it impossible to suppress or to silence Guy de Beaudessert. He talked again about loneliness and depression.

"I know what destructive forces they are. I have seen it out in the Bush and on ranches in the Rockies. I've experienced it myself, and if it can be eased or prevented in any way, for God's sake, I say it must be done."

He had quite silenced Adrienne by the time they had reached the house. She felt as if her aunt's circumstances must rule her life, and was unusually thoughtful for the rest of the day.

At dinner the guest was the chief speaker; he talked well, and his range of experience was wide. There seemed hardly a country which he had not visited.

"How can you hope to benefit any faction of the human race which is outside your own orbit, unless you have visited and lived in it until you understood the views and aims of the individuals therein? I take up the papers and read the rot that is talked in Parliament on Imperial interests. Every politician who seeks to benefit his country ought to travel round for at least five years. Then his sentiments and advice would be worth listening to. And, mind you, this delegate business is worse than useless. Let them go on their own, and rough it like our pioneers. Then they would get to the heart of things, not a scratch on the veneered surface whilst being regaled by sumptuous banquets, and driven in luxury to see the city from a Rolls-Royce."

"You sound rather like these infernal Socialists and Radicals," spluttered forth the General.

"Oh, no, Uncle Tom," said Adrienne; "it is they who go round in cars, and overeat themselves at banquets."

"The question of £ s. d. doesn't enter your head," said the General; "we would all like to travel and see the world, but it can't be done on nothing."

"Oh," laughed Guy; "go as a stowaway—a stoker—a steward—but go, and get your mind broadened, and don't think the world begins and ends with the Trinity of the British Isles."

"Rot, my dear fellow, rot!" exclaimed the General. "Britain is good enough for me. Rolling stones may roll round the globe, but they'll gather no moss; and will only fill themselves to repletion with self-glorification and—dashed cocksureness!"

Adrienne's laugh rang out merrily.

"You and Uncle Derrick have both been about on the other side of the globe, Uncle Tom, so don't pretend you haven't. I am the only stay at home. But if I visited every country in the world, I know I should come back and say that England was the brightest and best of them all."

"Well, well," said the peace-loving Admiral, "we will admit that some of our rulers would be the better for practical knowledge outside our Empire, but travellers are not infallible. Their outlook is sometimes biased by the company in which they have found themselves."

The General subsided, but he had a way of glaring at Guy that tickled Adrienne's sense of humour. After dinner she got hold of him.

"You're like a turkey-cock, my dear," she said to him; "you wait till the first word comes out of this young man's mouth, and then you try to gobble him up. And it isn't a bit of good wasting your ammunition on him. He's impervious to every insult you can offer him."

"Dash it all, I don't want to insult him. I think it's the other way about. But I won't swallow my country being blackened. And for consummate impudence give me an American, and that a young one."

"He doesn't seem young to me. He's done so much and seen so much. But I own I'd like to see him crushed by someone. I'm sure he never has been, and I am afraid never will be."

Yet shortly after, when Guy sat himself down to the piano and began to play, without music, some of the compositions of the old masters and then drifted into Chopin and Grieg, his exquisite touch and soulful rendering of some of the most beautiful passages brought tears to her eyes and a thrill to her heart.

Adrienne was very susceptible to music. She whispered to her Uncle Tom:

"He is an angel, after all! He has an angel's soul!"

And the General was rude enough to give a loud guffaw, which he stifled with a cough, and then left the room precipitately.

"Oh," cried Adrienne, when Guy rose from the piano, "I'd like to listen to you all night."

He smiled and gave her a little bow in French fashion. "Thank you, but your uncles have had too much of it. I like the organ best. There is one in the hall of the Château. Your aunt likes to listen sometimes. Don't you play yourself?"

"Not much."

"She sings," said the Admiral. "Sit down and sing, my child."

So Adrienne obeyed. She sang a song which Guy had never heard before; and if his music had thrilled her, her voice now thrilled him.

The joyous vibration in it, the sweetness of tone, and pathos, rang on in his ears for hours afterwards:

"Give as the morning that flows out of heaven: Give as the waves when their channel is riven; Give, as the free air and sunshine are given— Lavishly, utterly, carelessly give I Not the faint sparks of thy hearth ever glowing, Not a pale bud from the June roses blowing; Give as He gave thee, who gave thee to live! Pour out thy love like the rush of a river Wasting its waters for ever and ever, Through the burnt sands that reward not the giver! Silent or songful, thou nearest the sea. Scatter thy life as the summer showers pouring! What if no bird through the pearl rain is soaring, What if no blossom looks upward adoring! Look to the life that was lavished for thee." ¹

¹ By R. T. Cooke.

There was silence for a few moments after her last note had died away, then the Admiral said:

"I like the sentiment of that song, my dear. Where did you get it?"

"Godfrey gave it to me, one day after he had been talking to me for my good!"

Here she stole a glance at Guy, and there was something mischievous in her glance.

"You haven't the monopoly of preaching," she said.

"Ah," he said, "if you can sing like that, you must feel like it, and I have no fears for the future."

Then he turned to the Admiral.

"Can I catch an early train back to town to-morrow morning?" he asked.

"Why, certainly. There is the ten o'clock express. But won't you stay with us another day?"

"I'm afraid not."

Then his clear bright eyes looked straight at Adrienne,—"into her soul," she told her uncle afterwards.

"My mission is fulfilled," he said, "and when I accomplish my purpose, I waste no time."

"Don't delude yourself," said Adrienne lightly; "nothing has been altered because of your visit. I had settled with my uncles that I should go over to my aunt. It was all arranged."

The Admiral looked at her reproachfully.

"My dear," he said, "be courteous. I feel deeply indebted to Count de Beaudessert for his interest in my sister, and for his loving thought and care of her. It is very good of him to have come down to us on her behalf."

"Please drop the Count!" said the young man. "But thank you, sir, for your kind words. I don't get many of them."

Adrienne looked a little ashamed of herself. For the rest of his stay she was sweetness itself.

When he shook hands with her the next morning, he kept her hand in his for the fraction of a moment:

"It is only 'au revoir,' and we part friends, do we not? I am forgiven for my audacious interference, for my dictatorial, dogmatic speeches?"

Adrienne smiled up into his face.

"If only you would not try to be so masterful, I think I should get to like you," she said.

He dropped her hand.

"If I was a genuine Frenchy," he said, "I would raise your hand to my lips. We are both, in spite of national prejudices, going to like each other very much."

And then he got into the car awaiting him, and the General, overhearing his words, ejaculated:

"Insufferable puppy!"

Chapter V

At The ChâTeau

IT was towards the end of a lovely afternoon in May that Adrienne arrived at her destination. Both her uncles had accompanied her to town, and seen her off in the boat express to Dover. She had a quick, smooth passage across the Channel, then a long train journey to Paris, where she stayed for the night at a comfortable English hotel recommended by friends. She did a little sight-seeing in the morning, and then took the train on to Orleans. Here a car was waiting for her. The chauffeur, who could speak broken English, explained matters:

"Monsieur, he mean to come hisself, but at last minute he called away—a terrible accident happen to Jean Lucien, he be the fermier—and Monsieur he drive him to hospital all quickly, and not return in time. And Madame he tell myself to come."

Adrienne stepped into the car, and as she drove along the smooth, straight roads with their rows of poplar trees on either side, and noted the small patches of cultivated land, with the peasants tilling their ground, and the women and children busy hoeing and weeding in the bright sunshine, she felt that England was already very far away. A spasm of home-sickness crept into her heart, and then she laughed at it.

"Why, I was breakfasting at home yesterday—it is too ridiculous of me. It takes no time to get here, and I can go back when I like."

She repeated these last words very emphatically, and found comfort in doing so. They rushed through villages, and climbed hills between woods of young, freshly planted trees. Finally they slowed down in a quaint little village with a green, and a big pump in the middle of it round which was a little group of idle men. There was a small church on a rising knoll outside the village, and then they came to some beautifully wrought iron gates between two tall grey stone pillars. The gates were open, and they glided up an avenue of chestnut trees now in full bloom.

At intervals there were great stone vases and blue wooden seats, then they rounded a curve and the Château was in sight. In the mellow afternoon sunshine Adrienne admired it. It was a grey stone building with a deep blue slated roof; long, narrow windows were on either side of a very handsome front door under a stone portico. A flat stone terrace ran along the whole length of the Château. A fountain was playing into a marble basin at one end of it. Statuettes of boys and nymphs adorned the low stone wall that edged the terrace. There was an untidy piece of park surrounding the Château, cows were grazing in it. The trees were few in number, but there was an old walled garden behind the house, and quite a long line of stables and outbuildings. There appeared to be no flowers, but some young orange and myrtle trees were in blue painted tubs just outside the front door.

Before Adrienne had had time to pull the heavy iron bell-handle, the door was opened, and an old white-haired butler appeared, bowing low before her.

"Is Madame at home?" Adrienne asked in her best French.

He led the way without a word across a dark polished parquetry floor, then up a broad shallow flight of stone steps along a wide corridor which contained some rather shabby settees ranged against the walls, one or two gilt tables, and some good oil paintings hanging from a highly decorated ceiling.

Pierre, the old manservant, threw open a beautifully carved mahogany door halfway down the corridor, and Adrienne was in the presence of her aunt.

She was a small slight woman with pale golden hair, and a pathetically sad-looking face. She was dressed in black, and had a black lace mantilla wound round her head and neck. Adrienne thought that she looked more youthful than ever, but she was well over sixty years of age. She carried herself well, and her face was rouged and powdered. She had very pretty, delicate hands and used them in talking, as a Frenchwoman would have done.

"At last!" she exclaimed, as she drew Adrienne forwards by both her hands, and imprinted two dainty kisses upon each cheek in turn.

"I thought I should never get you! How you have grown and—yes—improved. You were no beauty as a child, but you give promise of it now—a little too rosy perhaps for good breeding, but it is your outdoor country life. And how are the brothers? As inseparable as ever? Now come and sit down. Pierre, we will have tea; tell Louis and Gaston to take Mademoiselle's luggage to her room."

The last sentence was said in French. Adrienne glanced around her. It was a long, narrow salon furnished mainly in Louis Quatorze style; the floor was polished till it shone like a mirror, but dust lay on pictures and ornaments, and the decoration of the room was very shabby. There was a bright wood fire burning, and Adrienne was glad of it, for the room seemed to her damp and unused.

She discovered later that her aunt never sat in it when she was alone. The Countess motioned to her to sit down upon a faded blue satin couch; and if Adrienne's bright young eyes were taking in her environment, her aunt's sharp eyes were taking in her niece.

In her neat dark blue travelling suit, with her blue velvet hat pushed well down on her shapely little head, Adrienne would have passed muster in Paris.

Tired she was, but not so tired that she could not talk very pleasantly to her aunt till the tea arrived.

A small silver tray with a very big silver teapot and fragile china cups was placed on a little table in front of her aunt. A few sweet biscuits on a plate was the accompaniment to the tea, which Adrienne found weak and tasteless. But it was hot, and Pierre served it, as if it were the choicest champagne.

The Countess asked her numberless questions about herself and her uncles, and then suddenly she pushed away her cup of tea from her, and produced her handkerchief. Burying her face in it, she began to sob:

"Oh, I am miserable, lonely, forlorn! Since my child has left me so heartlessly, I have suffered terribly. No one in the neighbourhood to understand or comfort me. My brothers and you refusing to come to me! And this great big old house going to pieces, and the winter with the rain and snow and darkness, and poor little me sitting up waiting, waiting for life to smile on me again, and always waiting in vain."

"Poor Aunt Cecily," said Adrienne softly. "If I were you, I would sell this old Château, and come to England and be happy in a charming little English cottage near your friends and relations. Why should you live in a foreign country away from us all?"

The Countess put down her handkerchief, and her eyes sparkled with an angry light in them:

"English cottage! Me, at my age, in my position! You ignorant, foolish girl, do you think for a moment that I would leave my husband's home and property? Do you think, after forty years of French life and Parisian society, I could settle down in an English village, with its mud, and dull stolid unsociability?"

"But we live in the country, Aunt Cecily, and we have many nice friends round us, and our village looks as well cared for as this. And we are never dull or lonely."

"Oh, bah! I have seen your life and it is not mine, nor ever will be. You will like to go to your room. Pierre will take you. We dine at eight o'clock."

Adrienne felt that she had blundered, and was being dismissed.

Pierre was summoned, and took her up another flight of stone stairs. Adrienne felt already that the old Château with its scent of polish and wood fires, its mellow atmosphere, and dignified antiquity was beginning to fascinate and hold her.

Her room was large and comfortable, with an expanse of dark shining parquetry floor, some soft rugs, and a very large state bed. Faded green satin damask curtains and hangings, a very handsome couch and writing-table, and several easy-chairs completed its furnishing; her washstand with its accessories was in a little closet adjoining the room: four big French windows open to the floor, looked out upon the park, and some woods on a rising hill, not very far from the house.

She found her luggage already there, and a stout, middle-aged peasant woman appeared, asking her if she could help her. She soon discovered that the Château was run by one family of the name of Tricard. Pierre and his wife Fanchette ruled over all supreme. She was cook, their daughter Annette was general housemaid, her husband was gardener, their young daughter helped in the kitchen, and two sons waited at table, polished the floors, and helped their mother about the house.

"We have always served the De Beaudesserts for two generations," Annette told Adrienne, as she helped her to unpack her things; "but my mother remembers the time when the Château was full of great ladies and gentlemen, and there were five or six waiting men."

Then she insisted upon showing Adrienne the best state bedroom. She pulled off the coverings of the furniture, and smiled complacently when Adrienne expressed her admiration of it. The bed was a magnificent erection, gilt and blue paint and a gilded coronet over the head of it; it had blue satin hangings and curtains with gilt fringes. The sofas and easy-chairs and spindle-legged tables were all gilt and blue. Annette showed Adrienne a real lace coverlet which was laid over a blue satin one for the bed, and blue satin cushions with the same old lace upon them. The room was panelled in blue satin with gilt decorations. There were cabinets in it, but they were empty. The priceless china that used to be in them had all been sold, but there were some beautiful old paintings on the walls. Five large French windows looked out upon the old park.

"Royalty has slept in that bed," said Annette in an awed whisper. "Queen Marie Antoinette stayed here for three days once."

"How interesting!" said Adrienne enthusiastically.

She lingered in the room, trying to realize bits of the past, but Annette hurried her back to her own room.

"Madame is proud of her guest-chamber, but she will not show it to tourists. The Marquise in Château Divant is obliged by Government to let the public come through her Park and Château every Wednesday during the summer. But our Château is not so old as hers, nor so historic."

Adrienne returned to her room and went to the windows when she was left alone. There was sunshine streaming over the opposite hills, and lighting up the fresh green in the woods. The air was soft and sweet, and she drew in a long breath of it with content.

"It is very quiet, very sweet here," she thought. "I shall enjoy staying here for a time."

She slipped into a pale blue filmy dress, and then made her way downstairs. For a moment she hesitated as she came to the salon door, then she passed it, and made her way out into the garden at the back of the Château through an open door and down a flight of stone steps. Here she found herself in an old walled garden, with wisteria falling over the walls, pear and apple trees in full blossom, and two long untidy borders of spring flowers on either side of the vegetables. There were paths with box-hedge borders; in one shady corner was a clump of lilies of the valley. But she noticed that, though the vegetables looked well cared for, the flowers were utterly neglected, and she longed to get down on her knees and weed.

Then, as she came to a blue painted door at the bottom of the garden, she slipped the bolt, and found herself facing a grassy path between trees. It was an entrance into the wood. She wandered along it, rejoicing in the fresh green above and around her. Presently she came to a seat, and from here, looking back, she had a good view of the Château and village.

The quaint blue roofs, the grey wood of the houses, the scent of wood fires, and the tinkle of bells as the oxen passed along the lanes with their loads delighted her artistic soul. It was all so different from England! Dreamily she gazed around her, oblivious of time, and then horses' hoofs roused her. A rider was coming through the wood, and as she looked, she recognized Guy de Beaudessert.

He dismounted directly he saw her, and held out his hand.

"I thought it was a wood nymph. Have you found your way here already? Sorry I couldn't meet you, but business prevented me. I'm on my way to the stables. The farm isn't good enough for my Estelle. What do you think of her?"

Adrienne looked at the glossy chestnut with a smile, and noted her proud and spirited bearing.

"I think she's a darling!" she said enthusiastically. "And I'm fascinated with it all here. It's so—so romantic!"

He smiled, then took a sharp turn in the woods.

"Don't follow me," he said, "or you may be late for dinner, and that is displeasing to Madame. I shall be the culprit to-day. Ask her not to wait for me."

So Adrienne returned the same way as she had come, and, as she entered the house, Pierre was clanging a great bell in the hall.

Her aunt was waiting for her in the salon. She frowned when she received Guy's message.

"He is so oblivious of my wishes. He always has been. He knows, in my delicate state of health, that punctuality of meals is most essential. I expect he thinks that now you are here, he is no longer necessary to me. Come, my dear, we will go in at once."

She slipped her hand into Adrienne's arm, and leant upon her heavily. They entered the dining-room, a rather gloomy room with painted ceiling and walls. A long refectory table in the centre and chairs surrounding it were all that was in it. The many windows were draped heavily with faded rose damask hangings. A huge cut-glass chandelier hung from the ceiling, and in this, were a number of lighted candles.

The meal commenced. Pierre waited deftly, though his steps and movements were very slow. His old hands shook as he handled the dishes, and Adrienne felt a great pity for him, as she noticed how old and frail he was. Her aunt talked, but it was chiefly about her delicate state of health. Adrienne tried to interest her in her uncles' pursuits at home, but the Countess seemed to be purely indifferent to their existence. Soup, an omelette, and chicken with salad had already been served before Guy appeared.

Adrienne drew an inward breath of relief as she saw him.

He seemed so full of life and energy, that he changed the gloomy atmosphere at once.

"So sorry, ma mère? But you have heard of Jean's accident. I have been with him; his arm will be saved, the doctor hopes, so I took the good news to his wife. It was terribly mangled; he tripped and caught it in the mowing machine."

"Do not give us any terrible details," said the Countess quickly; "you know I cannot bear any horrors. Did you cash my cheque for me at the Bank?"

Guy looked across the table at his stepmother with a slight smile, then shook his head.

Adrienne saw a look of dismay in her aunt's eyes. But she said nothing.

Then he turned to her: "Do you ride? I expect you do."

"I love it," said Adrienne, with glowing eyes.

"Then we will have some rides together. I have two horses. Sultan is quiet, and not quite heavy enough for me. Have you a side-saddle on the place, ma mère?"

"No," said the Countess quickly, "you must not forget, Guy, that Adrienne came over here to be a companion to me."

He nodded at her reassuringly.

"None of us mean to forget that fact, but she must have exercise, and in the early morning before you are awake, she and I will have rides through the lanes. We want her to become enamoured with our country, do we not? I think she is smitten with it already."

"The novelty of it is pleasant," said Adrienne a little cautiously.

"But," said the Countess with rising colour, and a little frown between her brows, "you will not have the ordering of my niece's days, Guy; it is I, her aunt, who will do that. You are too fond of arranging and ordering and willing this or that."

Guy's face was perfectly imperturbable.

"Then you," he said with a little bow towards her, "will order your niece to ride in the early mornings for her good, and I will help her to carry out your wishes."

Adrienne's delicious little laugh rang out; she could not help it.

"I hope I shall be tractable under this discipline," she said. "I shan't forget that I have come here to cheer you up, Aunt Cecily. I am sure we shall not quarrel over that."

Her aunt's frown gradually disappeared.

Guy began giving Adrienne a description of the village and the neighbourhood round.

"We are just a small community here," he said, "who know all about each other's virtues and vices and discuss them lengthily when our days are dull and time hangs heavily on our hands.

"Madame ma mère, of course, is the centre, and the past glories of our Château and the present decay is a never-ending topic of conversation. The Curé comes next. He is a mild little man, very fond of his flock, very conscientious in his duties, very wide in his charity. I always feel a better man after I have had a talk with him."

"He wants too much," put in the Countess fretfully; "he seems to think I have bottomless gold chests from which I can give and give and give, whenever there is a birth or wedding or funeral."

"The next in importance," continued Guy, "is our notary, a very small man with a big head, and a bigger idea of his own importance than anyone round him has. He has a wife who is what we call in America a climber. She looks to end her days as mistress of a Château. I hope it won't be this one. By the way, ma mère, is it true that you have sold the fishing to him? I knew the shooting was his, that was done last autumn; but I was hoping to get some good trout here."

Adrienne could not help noticing the extreme uneasiness which the Countess showed during this speech. Her hands trembled visibly, as she peeled some fruit upon her plate.

"How else do you expect me to live?" she said in quavering tones. "It is a struggle to exist. My doctor's bills must be paid."

"Yes—yes—well—where was I? We'll dismiss the notary. He is clever; he lives by squeezing others; he is getting rich. The village folk regard him with awe. They love their Curé, they fear their notary. Who can I describe next? The doctor lives five miles away, he does not belong to the village. Ma mère will tell you all about him, she knows him better than any of us. Oh, I must tell you of little Agatha."

His voice softened, the rather amused curl of his lips disappeared.

"Agatha—I believe she will be calendered one day. To me she is amongst the saints already. You must go and see her, Cousin Adrienne. She lives with her cheery, hard-working sister in a little house at the top of a green knoll outside the village. I always wonder at such a suitable position being their home. But it was their home before Agatha was born. Her father was a chemist by profession, and also a scholar. You climb if you go to see Agatha, physically and mentally. She is a modern Joan of Arc, without her fiery enthusiasm, but she lives in the unseen, and has her visions."

"She sounds awfully interesting," said Adrienne.

The Countess shrugged her shoulders.

"The peasants are superstitious; they regard a sick girl as a seer and mystic. She fosters their credulity and poses as a saint."

"We will pass on," said Guy in his cool way, "to Nicholas Bruce the good-tempered blacksmith, to André Gaugy the talkative backbiter and tailor, to stolid Ambrose Hellier with his placid wife and sixteen children under fifteen, and who makes his cows and goats support them all, to Jacques Smuré our drunkard, and Anton Guyère our gloomy cobbler, and Gaspard Pont our newsmonger the postman.

"There are twenty-five families in all, living round us. I see ma mère is impatient! She will doubtless describe our outside neighbours better than I can."

The Countess was already rising from her seat, and Adrienne followed her back to the salon.

Candles were lighted in it now. The wood fire was blazing cheerfully. Adrienne drew up a chair close to it, and her aunt lay back in a deep cushioned chair opposite her.

"Guy is strangely indifferent to good society," the Countess said with a sigh; "he seems quite happy gossiping with the farmers and peasants. I cannot get him to accompany me to any bridge parties or tennis or tea. He hates my flat in Orleans, and wants me to give it up. As if I could vegetate in this place all the winter!"

She began talking to Adrienne about her great friend Madame Nicholas, a rich widow, who lived about a couple of miles away in a very large villa, of the Marquise de Pompagny, who had two pretty daughters and a son, and of several other friends in the vicinity of the Château.

And then a little later Guy joined them.

It was Adrienne who suggested that he should play to them.

They went out into the hall, but the Countess found it chilly, and retired to her chair by the fire. They left the salon door open for her to hear. Adrienne sat down on a couch under one of the windows, which were now shuttered up for the night. The organ was at the farther end of the hall, and worked by water power. In the dusk there, with only the dim lights of candles above the organ seat, Adrienne let Guy's enchanted music steal through her soul. He played on, aware that one of his listeners at least could appreciate his performance.

The Countess appeared at last.

"It is getting very dull for me; I am feeling tired. I think I shall go to bed, and I am sure that Adrienne ought to do so. We will wish you good night, Guy."

Guy was off his stool at once.

"Good night, ma mère. I think you and I must have a little business talk to-morrow. Can you give me half an hour before déjeuner? No? Then what hour will suit you? It is about the cheque. At five, then? I will come round at five. I shall be in Orleans to-morrow morning. I have to go there about farming business. Now, Cousin Adrienne, explore inside and out of the Château, and make friends with everybody. Then you will feel quite at home."

When Adrienne laid her head upon her pillow a little later, she said to herself:

"Courage! It is not so bad as I feared. In spite of Aunt Cecily, I believe I am going to be happy here."

Chapter VI

Her Aunt'S Confidences

SUCH a lovely morning! Adrienne got up and threw open her windows and shutters. Annette brought her coffee and petit pain at eight o'clock, and told her that Madame would like to see her at ten.

Adrienne lay in her comfortable bed, and looked out upon the flowering chestnuts, and at the tiny village clustering round the church on the green knoll. She heard the bells of the oxen as they passed along the lanes, and the scent of the lilacs close to the house was wafted upwards to her.

She wondered what her uncles were doing, and how they would like having breakfast alone together.

And then her thoughts focused themselves upon her aunt.

She began to see that this French home of hers might have a fascination for her, and would make it difficult for her to leave it.

"I could be happy here myself," Adrienne murmured to herself, "if only the uncles were with me. I wonder if I could get them to come over, and see it. I might say I would not come back unless they came to fetch me!"

She dawdled over her dressing, then sat down at her writing-table and commenced a long letter to her uncles. She heard an outside clock strike ten, and, shutting up her writing-case, she made her way to her aunt's room.

The Countess's room was more English in its furniture than any other part of the Château. She had pretty chintz curtains and covers for her couches and chairs, photos and knickknacks were in profusion upon tables and cabinets. Madame herself, in a blue satin tea-gown with a boudoir cap, was sitting in an easy-chair by the open window.

She looked older in the morning light, and the fretful lines in her face were more discernible.

"Don't kiss me," she said; "I am not too fond of it at any time. Have you slept well? Ah! You have youth and strength, both of which I have lost!"

"Yes, I have slept splendidly, and feel ready for anything," Adrienne said brightly.

Then Madame began to give her a list of things she wanted her to do—things which her daughter had always done, and which had suffered since her departure.

The salon was to be dusted carefully, and the china in the corridor; flowers could be gathered from the garden. Fanchette was to be interviewed; and if anything were wanted from the village, would she see to it? Also, would she get the salads and vegetables from the garden? Louis or Gaston would accompany her, but they were not to be trusted to do it alone. Would she do a little gardening round the house? There were seeds to be sown, and weeding to be done. It was too much for Jacques, as he was cutting the grass in the big meadow for the cows. Would she return to the house before eleven to assist Madame in the last stages of her toilet. Déjeuner was at half-past eleven.

Adrienne saw that her morning would be fully occupied, but she went off cheerfully at once to her duties, and very soon Madame heard her singing in the gardens.

At eleven o'clock she was back in Madame's room, helping her arrange her hair, and tidying up generally. And while she was so employed, she was hearing for the twentieth time an account of all Madame's illnesses since her husband's death. The one person who was sincerely appreciated by her aunt was her doctor, Monsieur Caillot. He came to see her pretty frequently. Monsieur Bouverie was mentioned with bated breath.

"If he comes here, my dear, you must be very, very polite and pleasant. He is a little man, but he is a great power here; his wife is my abomination, but I dare not quarrel with her. I will tell you all my troubles one day. I feel sometimes like a tangled ball of silk—impossible, quite impossible to be disentangled and unknotted! Monsieur pulls here and there, but for a little smooth bit, there appears more knots and tangles to come. Ah! It's a weary world for a forlorn and lonely woman!"

"I should think," said Adrienne tentatively, "that Cousin Guy is a very good one for disentangling tangles."

Madame threw up her hands:

"Ah! No! He is an American, hard and keen and implacable! Everything with him is black or white. No mellowing greys, no misty uncertainties. He terrifies me; though I am his stepmother, I am afraid of him. He bends everyone to his will. He is a mass of steel and iron, and does not possess a heart."

"Oh, Aunt Cecily, think of his music! A man with such music at his fingers' end must possess feeling!"

"Tut! Tut! Music is an accomplishment. He is clever. He takes after his father in that. My dear Philippe—ah!" Out came the scented handkerchief; tears began to fall.

Then Adrienne listened to a long account of her Uncle Philippe's perfections. She was relieved when the bell sounded for déjeuner.

It was a long meal, but her aunt talked incessantly, and Adrienne vainly tried to get her away from herself.

After it was over, Adrienne accompanied her back to her room, made her comfortable for her afternoon siesta, and was given a quantity of old lace to mend.

"We have tea at four, and then we will walk for a little in the garden or wood."

Adrienne took her lace into the garden. The sun was so hot that she looked about for a shady nook, and found it under a chestnut tree just below the terrace. Here on a seat she got out her work-basket, and here it was that an hour later Guy found her.

His eyes rested upon her with satisfaction.

"You have very quickly fitted yourself into your niche here," he said, as he drew up a lounge chair and seated himself in it. "Well, how do you find your aunt? Win her confidence if you can. I have failed to do so."

"She is afraid of you," said Adrienne, regarding him with frank steady eyes; "I wonder why?"

His eyes met hers for an instant, with a glint of sternness in them, then they softened and a sparkle of amusement shone in them.

"I am always reading between the lines, and discovering more than I am meant to discover," he said; "ma mère does not like her defences to be pierced."

"Perhaps you do it triumphantly," said Adrienne; "nobody likes to be triumphed over."

"Would you like to come and see your steed?" he asked, waiving the subject.

Adrienne rose at once.

"I should love to," she said, "but how and when I am to ride is the problem."

"In the early morning," he responded; "as early as you like. Six, seven or eight. Will either of those hours suit you?"

Adrienne smiled.

"Yes. Make it seven. I feel that time will be mine. But will you be able to come with me? I am quite accustomed to ride about alone."

"I want to show you our country. I will bring the horses round at seven to-morrow morning."

They arrived at the stables; Adrienne was introduced to Sultan, a coal-black horse, with a coat like satin, and a gentle chastened mien. He lifted his head and looked at Adrienne with two rather sad and weary eyes. She caressed his nose, and he lifted his head, and pricked his ears when he felt the touch of her soft fingers.

Then Guy called out for Gaston, who was groom as well as house-boy, and a brand-new lady's saddle was produced.

Adrienne protested:

"You have bought this new for me?"

"I saw it in Orleans this morning," said Guy.

Then he busied himself with it; and when Sultan was satisfactorily adorned with it, Adrienne was invited to mount.

She rode round the yard and out into the paddock, and was delighted with Sultan's smooth, easy paces.

"He has been a good horse in his time," said Guy; "you won't be too hard on him. And for gentle exercise you won't beat him."

Then, looking at her watch, Adrienne found it was just four.

"I must go," she said; "are you coming in for a cup of tea?"

He shook his head.

"I shall be ready for your aunt in the library at five," he said. "That is our business-room; have you seen it? No? Then come now, I will show it to you. It used to be a hall of justice, and the ceiling is worth looking at."

They returned to the house; he took her to the end of the hall up a few steps along a corridor, and then opened the door into a big panelled room with beautifully carved ceiling. The coat of arms of the Beaudesserts was carved over the great mantelpiece. A long table with an imposing-looking carved chair at the head of it was in the centre of the room. The walls were lined with books behind glass doors. In a corner of the room was a big writing-table, covered with books and papers, and it was in this corner that Guy seated himself when Adrienne had duly admired the ceiling and the room.

She left him there, and went upstairs to her aunt.

Tea was brought to them in her boudoir adjoining her bedroom.

She made a little moue, when Adrienne mentioned Guy.

"Oh, yes, I have to be called over the coals by him, my perfect irreproachable prig of a stepson! But as to any help or assistance, it is useless to expect it of him."

"He always speaks so sympathetically of you," said Adrienne, feeling she must defend the absent one.

"Oh, là!"

Madame shrugged her shoulders in French fashion, and Adrienne said no more.

It was with very slow steps that Madame descended the stairs to the library.

"I shall not be long. We will go for a little walk; will you put out my hat and coat for me? You will find them in my wardrobe."

But it was three-quarters of an hour before Madame joined her again, and when she did so, Adrienne saw at once that she had been crying.

"He is an inquisitor, my stepson," she said angrily to Adrienne; "he questions and cross-examines, and ferrets out every minute detail that I would keep to myself. But we will not talk of him; we will take the air."

They walked in the grounds of the Château, afterwards had a quiet dinner together, and then in the salon, over their bright wood fire, Madame suddenly made a confidante of Adrienne. She poured out in a torrent of talk all her trials and money troubles, and Adrienne listened and tried to advise and comfort. Monsieur Bouverie, the notary, figured largely in the background.

"What can a woman do without a man to assist her? Monsieur Bouverie manages all for me. He is like an agent as well as a lawyer; he knows the ins and outs of all my husband's estate; he comes to me for necessary repairs. Guy is angry because he says that the new fences I have paid for on paper are not in existence; he says I ought to walk round and see that the repairs I pay for are done. How can I? Then he wants me to give up my pretty fiat in Orleans. I am there most of the winter. I entertain, and enjoy myself. How could I stagnate here through the snow? Monsieur Bouverie has helped me pay my bills again and again. He has taken the shooting, he rents it, also the fishing—and—but promise me you will not tell Guy this. I was in such straits a few years ago—I am very fond of Bridge, but I had been unlucky, and could not find the ready money to pay my debts, and there were many bills that were pressing from Orleans tradesmen, you know, so I borrowed money from Monsieur Bouverie and he has taken the Château as security."

"Does that mean you have mortgaged it?" asked Adrienne.

"Well, yes—but I must have ready money."

"I thought the Château belonged to Guy, and that you were only living here for your lifetime?"

"Oh, some years ago, he presented it to me as a deed of gift. He does not care about it. He is not married; it is not as if he has a son to succeed."

"But he may marry; he may have children."

"My dear Adrienne, I cannot plan and live for the future. I have been cheated and taken in on all sides; I have had no income to speak of, and Monsieur Bouverie has been my mainstay through these difficult years."

"I wonder if he is quite honest."

Adrienne's frank comment displeased her aunt.

"My dear, he is my man of business; he has invested for me; he pays my bills; he does all he can to help and support me. He has helped me in selling the old china and some of the old plate—I was forced to part with them. I have been living from hand to mouth. Guy is very angry because my account is overdrawn at the Bank. How can I help it? I have not enough to live upon. The last time he was over, he put me straight and left me something to go on with. I hoped he would do it this time. He must. After all, I am his father's widow."

"Is he very wealthy himself?"

"I do not know, he is so secretive; his hobby over here is the farm—he makes it pay, I believe, but he is not civil to Monsieur Bouverie; they look at each other like angry dogs. I dread them meeting. The thing I am worried about now is, that I am not able to pay Monsieur Bouverie his interest. How can I do so? I can barely make my income feed myself and the servants, and he dropped a hint the other day, or rather she did—she's an atrocious woman—she hinted that they would soon take possession here. It is this that troubles me. Her one ambition is to own a Château and she eggs her husband on. It would kill me if I had to leave this. It has wound itself round my heart."

"I should tell Cousin Guy the whole thing," advised Adrienne. "He is a strong man. Leave him to deal with this lawyer of yours."

"No, no, I could not. He must never know it. He does not know things are so serious. He would blame me for it."

Adrienne sighed. It seemed hopeless to comfort her aunt. And she could not understand her. At one moment she would talk as if ruin were close to her; at another, of all the gaieties and amusements she hoped to enjoy, when she returned to Orleans for the winter.

"You must stay on with me, and come with me to Orleans. There will be young people there and plenty of gaiety. I stay here in the summer for my health; I get patched up for my festivities in the winter."

When Adrienne eventually got to bed, she felt as if this day had been the longest in her life. Her aunt's confidences had depressed and tired her. But sleep came to her, and with it refreshment and rest.

When the morning dawned, she faced life once more with courage and cheerfulness.

She had her coffee early, and at seven was down on the terrace in her riding habit which she fortunately had brought with her.

Guy was there with the two horses. He mounted her, and then they rode off in the fresh morning air.

He took her through the village, up a steep lane, under flowering limes, and then they came to some green turf beside the pine woods upon which they had a good canter.

Adrienne's pink colour and sparkling eyes showed how much she enjoyed it.

And presently they began to talk about her aunt.

"Have you won her confidence yet?" he asked her.

"Not entirely," said Adrienne; "I cannot understand many things. She seems to have plenty of money and yet is always in difficulties."

"I want you to help her," said Guy earnestly; "you are young and happy, get her to be interested in the simple things of life. As regards money, she has a way of letting it filter through her fingers; her flat in Orleans costs her more for six months than a year's sojourn here. And Bouverie is quietly, determinedly and systematically robbing her. I have come to her rescue more than once, but I'm going on another tack now. I'm allowing him enough rope to hang himself."

"I wonder how much you know," said Adrienne, looking at him thoughtfully.

"More than you do," he retorted pleasantly.

Adrienne was silent.

"Broaden her outlook. Get her interested in others. What did your song say:

"'Give as the fresh air, and sunshine are given, Lavishly, utterly, carelessly give.'

"You can give her so much and she has so little."

"But you are quite mistaken in me," said Adrienne. "I have nothing worth passing on."

"You must make little Agatha's acquaintance," he said; "she will show you what can be done. All of us who come in contact with Agatha are strengthened, and bucked up to do, and to give. You're meant to be one of the givers in life; you show it in your face."

Adrienne laughed.

"What do I show?" she asked.

"Sunshine," he replied tersely.

"I've always been so happy," Adrienne said almost apologetically; "but then my circumstances have been bright. If I were Aunt Cecily, I dare say I should be quite as miserable, for I'm perfectly certain I should cling to this old Château as she does. I think it's quite enchanting. I love every bit of it—the waxed floors, the wood fires, the big spacious rooms; the blue shutters, and windows down to the floor, and the mellow colour of its wood and decorations. And outside it the chestnut avenue and the gardens and the wood, and the darling little village! It all bewitches me. I long to be able to spend money on it, and give Aunt Cecily a happy old age in it."

"You and I will work to do the last bit; but unless our good notary departs this life, the spending money on it will be a problem."

Then he pointed to a distant Château, and began to give her some historic reminiscences of the part through which they were riding.

When later they were returning through the village, he showed her the little white house in which Agatha lived.

"I will introduce you to her one day. She's altered my whole view of life. She did it three years ago when I was home. I was hopeless, was surrounded by a maze of intricate obstacles and intrigues, and was just about washing my hands of the whole concern, and going off to the wilds again, when I struck against her."

"How wonderful she must be!" said Adrienne.

"You've only to be with her for half an hour to feel her power—or," he added in a low voice, "the Power that dwells with her. That's what she considers it. You wouldn't imagine a little peasant girl in an out-of-way village like this could have any influence on men, would you? Yet I've seen the biggest blackguard in the place on his knees before her, and her little hands laid softly on his head. And not only has he been reduced to tears, but sent off to the Curé, and then to make restitution to the one he has wronged."

They had reached the Château; then, as she was dismounting, Adrienne said:

"I wonder if Aunt Cecily rides? It is such a good receipt for the dumps. And if she doesn't ride, isn't there a carriage for her?"

"There's an old pony chaise in the coach-house, I believe. Get her out and about by all means."

Adrienne found plenty to employ her hands that morning, but she sang as she worked, and met her aunt with a sunny face. The Countess scouted the idea of driving out in the pony chaise.

"I hire the car from the inn when I need it—the one that met you at the station. I ought to have one of my own, of course. Madame Bouverie rolls about in her Daimler, but it is the lower classes who ride now. We walk. I have asked my friend Madame Nicholas to tea this afternoon. We will have it on the terrace."

"I hope I shan't disgrace you by my French," said Adrienne.

"Oh, she understands and speaks English; she is much in England, for a sister of hers lives there."

Madame Nicholas arrived at half-past three. She was a handsome, vivacious little woman, and the Countess visibly brightened when talking to her. Not knowing the neighbours round, Adrienne did not feel much interested in the conversation, for it was entirely about them, and their sayings and doings. She poured out tea for her aunt instead of Pierre, who was thankful to be spared the task, and let her gaze wander over the tree-tops in the distance. Her thoughts were in England, when she suddenly heard an ejaculation from her aunt, and looking up saw a smart car gliding up the avenue.

"It is that hateful woman; she has seen us. We cannot get away."

In another moment Pierre was conducting a very stout, short woman along the terrace to them. She was dressed in the extreme fashion of the moment. Very tight short skirts from which two enormously fat legs in flesh-coloured stockings appeared. Her shoes with their tiny heels and big buckles seemed unable to contain her feet. Her hat was very small, her face very big, and Adrienne felt a feeling of distaste sweep over her as she saw her.

But her face radiated with cheerful good humour.

"Ah, Madame," she said, taking the Countess's hand in hers as if she were her dearest friend, "how delighted I am to see you look so well and charmante. And is this your English niece? I have come to make her acquaintance. I said to Henri that I must be one of the first to pay my respects to our English visitor. And how do you like us, Mademoiselle? Do you not find our Château enchanting?"

She waved her hand at the old building as she spoke.

For a moment her fluent French made Adrienne a little shy of airing her own. The Countess and her friend resumed their seats.

Madame Nicholas had only given a stiff little bow to the new-comer, which was returned with an air of affable condescension by the notary's wife. Then Madame Nicholas and the Countess went on talking confidentially to one another, whilst Adrienne was left to entertain Madame Bouverie, who with raised voice made every word of hers audible to the two elder ladies.

"You must come and see my flowers. Your poor aunt has not health to garden, and every true gardener knows that it cannot be left to village men or boys. They know all about vegetables, but flowers—bah! They serve them cruelly. If I had this garden—" she gazed over the terrace with a greedy look in her eyes—"I would make a perfect dream of it. Can you not see glowing beds of scarlet and white in front of us, and vases with drooping pink and mauve, and long winding borders of every colour under the sun?"

Then Adrienne said rather naughtily:

"But I love the cows under the shady trees, and the buttercups and the flowering grass. I think they are so restful and pastoral."

Madame Bouverie shrugged her shoulders.

"And how do you find your dear aunt? We tell her she ought not to shut herself up so, it is so bad for her nerves; she should spend more time in Orleans, and only come here for the very hot weather. There is really, entre nous, no society here, a few old fossils, who from pecuniary reasons cannot leave their tumbledown places, and just vegetate with the cows and goats."

Madame Nicholas was rising to go. She took an affectionate leave of the Countess, then turned to Adrienne, asking her the next day to come with her aunt "pour passer l'après midi avec moi."

And Adrienne, after a quick glance towards her aunt, accepted the invitation with her pretty grace.

Before Madame Nicholas had passed out of hearing, Madame Bouverie's shrill voice made itself heard:

"Now, Madame, we can be happy together; I have something good and confidential to tell you. My husband is following me to bring you the good news. Is your niece in your confidence, may I ask? She looks so sweet and sympathetic I am sure she must be."

Adrienne had made a movement as if she were going to leave her aunt alone with her visitor, but the Countess signed to her to remain.

Chapter VII

The Loss Of An Heirloom

THE poor Countess was now ill at ease; she reminded Adrienne of a mouse under the fascination of the playful taps of a cat's paws.

Then Madame Bouverie proceeded to give her good news:

"A rich American, a client of my husband's, is anxious to give his daughter, an only child, a little souvenir of his visit to Orleans. He wants something antique, historic, with perhaps a little romance attaching to it. He does not mind how much he gives, and we thought, dear friend, of your great need, and cast our mind on your many treasures. Suddenly I bethought myself of your beautiful watch set in diamonds—the enamel one given to your family by Queen Marie Antoinette. It is a rare chance; you will never have such another."

The Countess straightened herself in her chair:

"But, Madame," she said stiffly, "I told you that was an heirloom, not to be taken out of the family. I have no desire, no power to sell that. I told you so when you wished yourself to buy it from me."

"Oh, dear Madame, you have the power. Who can prevent you? Not your stepson? To me he seems an amiable young man quite absorbed in his farm, and indifferent to you and your Château. Well, well—I see my husband coming up the drive, he will talk to you about it. It will smooth out all your difficulties if you consent to part with it. Now, Mademoiselle, shall we take a little walk together round the garden, and leave these two to talk over business matters?"

Monsieur Bouverie had arrived. Adrienne was prepared to dislike him, but as his dark, piercing eyes met hers, she felt a slight shiver down her spine.

He reminded her of a snake's head lifted to strike. Though a smile was upon his lips, unhidden under his very slight dark moustache, his eyes seemed to hold both malice and power in them. He bowed as he was introduced to her, but his eyes lingered—Adrienne felt he was asking himself this question:

"Will this girl help me or hinder me?"

And she suddenly resolved there and then that, with all her might, she would fight against him.

She felt herself drawn away by his wife. She had no trouble in talking to her, for Madame Bouverie held the conversation in her own hands, and Adrienne found herself listening, with an occasional assent or exclamation.

"My poor husband! He is so devoted to your aunt's interests, and it is so sad about her circumstances! No money to keep up the Château, and the repairs and expenses of the property eating her out of house and home! If it had not been for my husband, long, long ago the Château would have been in the market to sell. He is so clever, so generous to his clients, and he has such an affection for the family, that he would sacrifice himself in their service.

"Do you know the young Count? So different to his father. Such a silent, uncouth creature—so little to say! Of course, he likewise has no money; he seems unable to relieve your aunt. She is such a dear, helpless, irresponsible creature! She always has been. My husband puts into her hand money that he has scraped together with the greatest difficulty, rents from the tenants, sums by sales of timber and pasture, and by his economy in every direction. It would last most people quite a long time, but dear little Madame lets it flutter here, there, and everywhere; she is always in debt, but nothing deters her from buying. Has she shown you her wardrobe of Paris gowns? All too grand for this poor village, but kept for her time in Orleans. And when my husband comes next time, the money is all gone! And the poor lady wringing her hands in despair!

"But we will not fill your young head with such dismal talk. I wonder now if you could take me into the Château. I do so enjoy looking at the pictures in the upper corridor."

Adrienne accordingly piloted her into the house. As she went upstairs, she pointed out to Adrienne improvements that might be made.

"I should have a fountain and marble floor in the entrance hall, and red felt carpet down this cold stone staircase. Ah well! Perhaps one day this old Château will fall into the hands of those who can spend upon it! It will be a happy thing for us when that occurs."

She was darting from side to side of the corridor by this time, looking at the old cabinets, touching the velvet hanging to the windows, then she paused beneath the portrait of a former Count de Beaudessert in hunting dress with a falcon on his hand.

"Oh!" she said. "An artist who was staying here long ago told my husband that this picture was worth a fortune. It is one of Van Dyck's. Rather like the present Count, is it not?"

Adrienne glanced up at the handsome broad-shouldered man smiling down upon them with lordly condescension.

"No, I don't think it is at all like Cousin Guy," she said. "He is simpler, straighter, and not such a society man as this Count must have been."

"Oh, you funny girl! I quite agree that the Count is not a society man. Well, well, I must go! I am glad to have had a look at him again. I dote upon good pictures; but then, though I do not paint myself, I am an artist by nature."

As they were retracing their steps, they met the Countess coming hastily out of her boudoir. She looked surprised at seeing them, and Adrienne explained matters, but her aunt said nothing. She was evidently uneasy and frightened.

Madame Bouverie occupied Adrienne's time and attention, till her husband had finished his talk with Madame, and then they both took their leave and rolled away in their car, Madame Bouverie with pleased elation in her eyes. Adrienne guessed, without her aunt telling her, that the valuable old watch had changed its owner. Of course she was told all about it very soon, and the Countess cried like a child.

"It is no good, my chérie," she said, "what can I do? The bailiffs will be in possession unless I pay some of my bills. This watch will bring me a nice little sum. Two hundred and fifty pounds in English money is not to be despised."

"Have you got the money?" Adrienne could not refrain from asking.

"Oh, no, no, but in a few days I shall receive it. My dear, I think we could take the car to Orleans and do a little shopping. I want to call at my flat, and you would like to see the old town, would you not? We will give ourselves some pleasure. A little ready money is so acceptable in these bad times."

"I wish you need not have parted with the watch," said Adrienne.

"Yes, I refused absolutely at first, but somehow Monsieur Bouverie always persuades me against my will. When he is looking at me and talking in his pleasant, smiling way, I feel absolutely in his power. And he does reason things out so. And it is very true that Guy does not care about these things, and as Monsieur Bouverie says—for whom am I keeping them? When I die, they will be sold in a sale for mere bagatelles!"

Adrienne was silent; she felt that things were going wrong, but that she was unable to right them. And she had a longing desire that her cousin might know about this latest exploit of Monsieur Bouverie's.

She was not surprised in a few days' time, when she came into her aunt's room, to find her once more in tears.

"Oh, my dear, such a disappointment! Monsieur Bouverie has only sent me a hundred francs for that watch!"

"What a villain he must be!" ejaculated Adrienne.

"No, no, he has explained it all. It appears that the big account for repairing one of our small farms was overlooked. I certainly thought I had paid it; but my memory is not good, and I forget so. And the builder is pressing for the money, and Monsieur Bouverie has settled it up, and this hundred francs is the balance left. Of course, he congratulates me upon having this heavy bill settled, but I really had forgotten its existence; and it seems that I have lost my watch, and am no richer than I was. I fear our little visit to Orleans must be given up, unless—well—I will speak to Guy about it. He dines here this evening. Oh, what a miserable thing it is to be so poor!"

"Never mind Aunt Cecily. I am quite happy here. I don't want to go to Orleans. I love the country at this time of year."

"But not if it rains, as it is doing now," said her aunt, looking out at the rain which was driving against the windows; "it has kept us in now three days, and prevented us from going to Madame Nicholas."

"We'll have a game of 'Colorado' together," said Adrienne cheerfully.

She was an adept at games from "Chess" to "Snap." She had even tried to entice her aunt into the billiard-room, which was an unused, dreary apartment, but this the Countess had firmly declined to enter. She did not mind an occasional game of any sort, but "Bridge" was her hobby, and she could not very often get the requisite number for it.

Adrienne's sunny temper and habitual cheerfulness was having a good effect upon her; she was altering her sedentary life, and was really taking an interest in the garden. Adrienne was making many improvements to the flower part of it, digging and weeding and planting; and the Countess looked on at first with some amusement, and then with dawning interest.

The days did not seem so long now with this bright young niece, and it was only after a visit from the notary, that she was plunged into tears and depression.

Upon this particular evening they had a very bright dinner table. Adrienne began telling her aunt about her Uncle Tom's aversions to wet days, and the guiles and wiles with which she beset him to keep him happy. Guy was reminiscent too, and his experiences in an old Indian bungalow during the monsoon made Adrienne very merry.

When they adjourned to the salon they gathered round the wood fire, and then the Countess said to her stepson:

"I want Adrienne to see Orleans; she would like to see it too. Only for a few days; don't you think it could be managed? We ought to let her see something of our country. Of course it is a question of expense—but it would not cost much for a short time."

"I think we can manage it," said Guy, smiling across at Adrienne.

The girl's cheeks flushed.

"Oh, no," she cried, "I am content with this, Aunt Cecily. I will not put you to any extra expense. It would make me miserable."

"Not at all," said Guy cheerfully; "your aunt has plenty of ready money at present. It is a good opportunity."

The Countess looked at him with startled eyes:

"What do you mean?" she said falteringly. "You are quite mistaken."

"What?" he said, and his voice was a little stern. "Did you give away our watch, ma mère? I can hardly believe that much."

The Countess's hands trembled. She fidgeted with her watch-chain, then looked across at Adrienne reproachfully.

Adrienne spoke at once:

"I have never told him, Aunt Cecily. Believe me, I have not. I think he must be a wizard."

"It is a pity, ma mère, you do not take me a little more into your confidence, for I could assuredly prevent a good deal of robbery going on. Now will you kindly tell me how much you received for that, one of our most precious heirlooms?"

The Countess's ready tears rose to her eyes.

"Tell him all, Adrienne. I cannot. I am always in the position of a convicted naughty child."

So Adrienne, with her frank, sweet eyes fixed on Guy's imperturbable face, gave a short account of the shabby transaction.

And when she had finished, the Countess sobbed out:

"A hundred francs, only a hundred francs!" Guy produced a notebook and pencil from his pocket in a business-like manner.

"Have you the receipt from this builder which Monsieur Bouverie has paid?" he asked the Countess.

She shook her head.

"He keeps the bills; he does all my accounts, Guy: I have told you so, again and again."

"Do you know if it is La Firmant Farm which he mentioned?"

"Yes."

Guy dotted it down and replaced his notebook in his pocket.

Then he gave a little smile.

"I walked into Bouverie's study to-day. It opens into their salon, as you know. He kept me waiting, and I just happened to glance up at the sun shining in there, and it caught the diamonds. The watch has already been hung up above the fireplace in a place of honour. I can fancy what a pleasure it is to Madame Bouverie."

"But," cried the Countess, "it was an American who bought it. Don't tell me that Madame Bouverie is keeping it for herself?"

"She has got it for a hundred francs," said Guy gravely; "I do not think, ma mère, that it is good to give away our heirlooms in such a manner."

"What abominable thieves!" cried Adrienne. "Oh, Cousin Guy, I hope you are going to get it back."

He shook his head.

"I never interfere with your aunt's proceedings. If I did, it would only return again to the Bouveries later on."

There was a dead silence.

The poor Countess was white with horror and agitation.

"To think that he should have dared to deceive me so! And she, she has robbed me! I could bear anything rather than this! Don't look at me like that, Guy! I didn't want to part with it, but you will never understand how hard pressed I am."

"I think I could, if you were to tell me," suggested Guy quietly.

But the Countess began to sob bitterly, and Adrienne knew that nothing would induce her to be perfectly frank with her stepson.

At last she was so overcome with anger and misery that she said she would retire to bed.

Adrienne accompanied her, and when she had helped her with her toilette and seen her comfortably in bed, she went back to the salon for a book which she had left there. To her surprise she found Guy still sitting by the fire, apparently lost in thought. He looked up when she came in, then got up from his chair.

"Well, I must be going. Your pauvre tante," he said with a tender note in his tone. "She is her own worst enemy, did she but know it."

"Oh," said Adrienne passionately, "we must do something, Cousin Guy. You seem half asleep, quite indifferent to the frauds of this wicked little man. I'd like to tell you something, but I have promised not. Aunt Cecily must be freed somehow from his clutches."

"I again repeat that you can tell me little that I do not know. I suppose you are alluding to the mortgage he holds of this place, and of his resolve to foreclose as soon as possible."

"You know, then? How did you discover it? You are quite wonderful."

Guy very slowly and deliberately drew out a pocketbook from his coat pocket.

"Here," he said, "are about twenty pages of his frauds, as you call them. I have them all verified. I have spared no trouble or time in the doing of it. The watch is the last item."

"But oh, if you know, can't you relieve Aunt Cecily's mind? Is there no way of paying up the mortgage?"

"Your aunt is what we may term difficile. Were I to pay off the mortgage to-day, and settle all her debts, she'd have a glorious time of contracting new ones, and of borrowing on the security of the Château afresh to-morrow. I honestly think that no one in this wide world could keep her out of debt. She's made that way. She can't help it."

"It seems awful to me. Her brothers would be horrified. Poor Aunt Cecily. I do feel so sorry for her. Are you going to let the Château slip away from her?"

"Ah! That requires consideration. Sometimes I think it would be best, for she would then settle down in her town flat and have no notary plaguing her life out."

"But that would be allowing the wicked to prosper on stolen gains!" said Adrienne passionately. "And if you won't stop him, I will. I feel inclined to go off to his house at once, and confront Madame Bouverie. She said in my presence that the watch was for an American. I suppose that that bill for the farm had been already paid?"

Guy turned over the pages.

"At all events he had the money to settle it, as long ago as last November. I have the date and the amount."

"But you mean to bring him to account, surely?"

"Yes, sooner or later I think I shall."

Then he smiled at her.

"Justice is always slow," he said; "don't be impatient. I have learnt that to make haste means mistakes, and mistakes spell failure."

Then Adrienne smiled up at him. Relief and a sense of confidence in him crept into her heart.

"Good night," she said; "now I shan't have a flutter of despondency or fear for Aunt Cecily's future."

She left the room, and slept peacefully that night.

Her aunt was also sleeping from sheer exhaustion.

Guy was the only one who till the small hours of the night was pacing his room in the farm.

But strangely enough his thoughts were not centred upon his stepmother nor upon her business affairs, but wholly and entirely upon Adrienne.

Chapter VIII

Little Agatha

ADRIENNE was taking a walk through the village. Guy had gone to Paris for a few days on business. The Countess was in the deepest depths of despondency. Adrienne found it quite impossible to cheer her up; she refused to leave her room, said she was ill, and her favourite doctor was in attendance upon her.

Adrienne had interviewed him before she started for her walk.

"No, Mademoiselle," he assured her in fluent French; "there is nothing serious in your aunt's indisposition, except that at no time is her heart very strong, and she seems to be agitating herself unnecessarily over trifles; her mind is acting upon her body, and she cannot sleep. I have given her a sedative, and told her to rest for a few days, and then you will see her up and about again."

So Adrienne, feeling that she herself needed both air and exercise, had come away from the Château. The fresh breeze blowing down from the hills fanned her cheeks, and brought a sparkle to her eyes. She began going over in her mind the events of the last few days. Guy had come to wish his aunt good-bye before he departed for Paris. She had alluded again to the old watch.

"Can't you get it back for me?" she had asked Guy fretfully, and he had made answer:

"Ma mère, it is easy to throw pebbles into the sea; it is difficult to fish them up again. I would suggest that you throw away no more pebbles."

Then fixing her with his eye almost sternly, he had said:

"You have lost a good many things out of the Château. And it is your own concern; but you have lost more than you have gained. There is one heirloom that I must beg you do not meddle with. And that is Van Dyck's portrait of my great-grandfather. That belongs to me, as you know. I have an affection for it, and I will not have it grace the salon walls in Monsieur Bouverie's house!"

"You are very unkind," the Countess had sobbed, and she had parted with her stepson in an injured state of mind.

He had hardly left the village before the little notary arrived for a "business interview."

This had been a very long one, and so far, Adrienne had not been given any particulars of what had transpired in it.

The Countess had taken to her bed immediately afterwards, and though Adrienne had waited upon her most assiduously, she would no longer confide in her; only lay in bed propped up on satin cushions in the daintiest of boudoir caps and tea jackets, declaring that life was over for her, and that death would be welcome at any moment.

"I'm afraid," Adrienne acknowledged to herself, "that I am not equal to the emergency. And the task of keeping Aunt Cecily's spirits up is too much for my own. I don't believe anyone in the world could make her happy!"

As she mused in this despondent way, she happened to glance up, and she saw she was passing the little white house on the knoll outside the village.

A sudden impulse seized her.

"I will go and see this little Agatha, who seems to be a kind of modern saint. I dare say she may drive away my dumps."

So she made her way to the whitewashed cottage with the green shutters, and opened the little green wooden gate which led into a very pretty flower garden. Here she found Marie Berthod, a woman with a round, smiling face. She was seated just outside the door with a bowl in her lap, preparing vegetables for the midday pottage, but she welcomed Adrienne at once.

"You will be the English demoiselle at the Château. We have watched you ride past in the early hours. Come in. I will take you to my little sister. We wondered if we should have the pleasure of a visit from you."

She took her straight into a tidy little kitchen; and from thence into another room leading out of it. In this room was a big couch by the open window.

Adrienne's first impression was of great purity, great restfulness, and great peace. The room was whitewashed. All the furniture, which was of the simplest description, was painted white. Two big pictures hung on the opposite walls. One of Christ as a tiny boy upon His mother's knee; two other children gambolling on the grass at His feet were holding out flowers which they had plucked. His tiny hands were outstretched to take, but also they seemed in the act of blessing them. It was a wonderfully beautiful picture, and when Adrienne looked at it later, she was lost in admiration.

The other picture was of Christ weeping over Jerusalem; the city down below and the walls and pinnacles of the temple were touched with the golden rays of the setting sun. His Figure was in the shadow of a tree above Him, but just one ray of sun was shining upon His Face, and the tender love and longing in His Eyes was depicted by a masterly brush.

Underneath was written just these words:

"Et vous ne voulez pas!"

But for the moment Adrienne did not notice these pictures. Her eyes were upon the couch, and upon little Agatha.

She lay there, a tiny childlike figure, clad in a white woollen gown. Her bright brown hair was twisted like a coronet round her small head. Her face was very pale; she had delicate features, but determined chin, a broad brow and immense dark blue eyes fringed with black lashes. It was her eyes that held and dominated the froward, that melted into tenderness the most obdurate and hardened, that glowed always with a burning fervour. Her lips were sensitive and sweet. Her hands were clasped round a brown leather book with brass edges, and