When she had gone away from me, restless, anxious, afraid to be out of hearing, I went out, myself, as restless, as incapable of banishing all these anxieties from my mind as she. The night was almost dark, soft and mild. It was one of those nights when the moon, without being visible, softens and ameliorates the gloom, and makes of night a sort of twilight. While I went pacing softly about, to occupy myself, a soft small rain began to fall; but this did not affect me in any way. It was rather soothing than disagreeable. I went down to the side of the loch, where the pale light on the water was touched by innumerable dimplings of the rain, then up again, round and round the house, not caring where I went. At this hour I had always avoided the Lady’s Walk, I can scarcely tell why. To-night, in my strange familiarity with everything, and carelessness of all but one subject, I suddenly turned into it with a caprice I could not account for, perhaps with an unexpressed wish for company, for somebody who might understand my thoughts. The mystic footsteps gave me a sort of pleasure. Whether it was habit or some new sense of human fellowship which Charlotte’s impassioned words had caused, I can scarcely tell; but the excitement with which I had always hitherto regarded the mysterious watcher here was altogether gone out of my mind. I felt a profound and tender pity for her rising in me instead. Was it possible that a spirit could be “over-anxious,” as Charlotte said, endeavouring vainly, and yet not undutifully, to take God’s supreme guardianship out of His hands? The thought was new to me. To think that a good and blessed creature could so err, could mistake so humanly and persevere so patiently, though never able to remedy the evils, seemed somehow more possible than that a guardian from Heaven could watch and watch for generations with so little result. This gave me a great compassion for the lonely watcher thus rebelling in a heavenly way of love against the law of nature that separated her from visible life. My old idea, that it might be Charlotte herself in an unconscious shadow-shape, whose protecting motherly love made these efforts unawares, glided gratefully into the feeling that it was an earlier Charlotte, her very kin and prototype, who could not even now let God manage her race without her aid. While I was thus thinking, I was startled once more by the same sigh which I had heard with Charlotte. Yes, yes, it might be the wind. I had no time to bandy explanations with myself. It was a soft long sigh, such as draws the very breath out of an over-laden bosom. I turned half round, it was so near to me; and there, by my side, so close that I could have touched her, stood the Lady whom I had seen so often—the same figure which I had met in the London streets and in the woods of Ellermore. I suppose I stepped back, with a little thrill of the old sensations, for she seemed to put out a hand in the pale gloom, and began to speak softly, quickly, as if there was scarcely time enough for what she had to say.

“I am going away like the rest,” she said. “None of them have ever bid me go before; but it is true—it is true what she says. I have never done any good—just frightened them, or pleased them. It is in better hands—it is in better hands.”

With this there came the familiar movement, the wringing of the hands, which was like Charlotte, and she seemed to weep; but before I could say anything (and what could I have said?) she cried with eagerness, “I came to you because you loved her, but you were too late—and now again, again! you may help if you will. It will be set before you to help, if you will.”

“How can I help?” I cried. “Tell me, Lady, whoever you are; I will do it, I will do it!—but how can I do it? Tell me——”

I put out my hand to touch her dress, but it melted out of my hold. She withdrew with a swift, shy movement. “It will be set before you,” she said, with a breathless faintness as if of haste; and already her voice was further off breathing away. “It will be set before you—I must not say more. One can never say more.”

“What can I do?” I cried; so much had I forgot the old terror that I put myself in her path, stopping the way. “Tell me how, how! Tell me, for God’s sake, and because of Charlotte!”

The shadowy figure retreated before me. It seemed to fade, then reappeared, then dissolved altogether into the white dimness, while the voice floated away, still saying, as in a sigh, “You may help, you may help, you may save——” I could hear no more. I went after this sighing voice to the end of the Walk; it seemed to me that I was pursuing, determined to hear her message, and that she softly fled, the hurrying footsteps becoming almost inaudible as they flew before me. I went on hotly, not knowing what I did, determined only to know what it was; to get an explanation, by what means I did not care. Suddenly, before I knew, I found my steps stumbling down the slope at the further end, and the pale water alive with all the dimplings of the rain appearing at my very feet. The steps sank upon the loch-side, and ceased with a thrill like the acutest sound. A silence more absolute than any I have heard in nature ensued. I stood gasping, with my foot touching the edge of the water; it was all I could do to arrest myself there.

I hurried back to the house in a state of agitation, which I cannot describe. It was partly nervous dread. I do not disguise this; but partly it was a bewildered anxiety and eagerness to know what the chance was which was to be set before me. That I had the most absolute faith in it I need hardly say. “You may help them if you will! You may help them if you will! I said it over and over to myself a thousand times with a feverish hurry and eagerness. Indeed, I did nothing but repeat it. When Charlotte came down late to tell me her father was asleep, that the doctor who had been sent for had pronounced his recovery real, I was walking up and down the half-lighted drawing-room, saying these words over and over to myself.

“He says it is wonderful, but it may be complete recovery,” Charlotte said; “only to tell him nothing we can help, to keep all the circumstances from him; especially, if it is possible, about Ellermore. But how is it possible? how can I do it? ‘Help if you will?’ Mr. Temple, what are you saying?”

“It is nothing,” I said; “some old rhyme that has got possession of me.”

She looked very anxiously into my face. “Something else has happened? You have seen or heard——” Her mind was so alive to every tone and glance that it was scarcely possible to conceal a thought from her.

“I have been in the Walk,” I said, “and being excited and restless, it was more than my nerves could bear.”

She looked at me again wistfully. “You would not deceive me, Mr. Temple,” she said; then returned to her original subject. The doctor was anxious, above all things, that Mr. Campbell should leave Ellermore to-morrow, that he should go early, and above all that he should not suspect the reason why. She had the same dread of the removal as ever, but there was no alternative, and not even a day’s delay was to be thought of, for every day, every hour, made the chances of discovery more.

“But you cannot keep up the delusion for ever,” I said, “and when it is found out?”

Again she wrung her hands. “It is against my judgment; but what can I do?” She paused a moment, and then said, with a melancholy dignity, “It can but kill him, soon or syne. I would not myself have my life saved by a lie; but I am weak where my father is concerned, and God understands all. Oh, I am beginning to feel that so, Mr. Temple! We search and search, and think what is best, and we make a hundred mistakes, but God sees the why and the wherefore. Whoever misunderstands, He never mis­understands.”

She went away from me in the calm of this thought, the secret of all calm. It seemed to me that I, in my blind anxiety guessing at the enigma that had been given to me, and my poor Lady vagrant from the skies, still trying to be the providence of this house, were left alike behind.

Next morning Charlotte came down to breakfast with me, which she had not done before. She told me that her father had passed a good night, that he had shed tears on awaking, and began to talk tenderly and calmly of Colin, and that everything seemed to promise that the softening and mournful pre-­occupation of grief, distracting his mind from other matters, would be an advantage to him. He was pleased to be left with Margaret, who had adored her nursling, and who had been fully warned of the necessity of keeping silence as to the circumstances of Colin’s death. The post-bag came in while we were talking. It lay on the table for a few minutes untouched, for neither of us were anxious for our correspondence. We were alone at table, and Charlotte had rested, though I had not, and was almost cheerful now that the moment had arrived for the final severance. The necessity of doing inspired her; and perhaps, though I scarcely dared to think so, this tranquil table at which we sat alone, which might have been our table, in our home, in a new life full of peace and sober happiness, soothed her. The suggestion it conveyed made the blood dance in my veins. For the moment it seemed as if the hope I dared not even entertain, for one calm hour of blessedness and repose, had come true.

At last she gave me the key, and asked me to open the bag. “I have been loth to disturb this peaceful moment,” she said, with a smile which was full of sweetness and confidence, “and nothing outside seems of much consequence just now; but the boys may have something to tell, and there will be your letters—will you open it, Mr. Temple?” I, too, was loth, more loth than she, to disturb the calm, and the outside world was nothing to me, while I sat here with her, and could fancy her my own. But I did what she told me. Letters are like fate, they must be encountered with all that is good and evil in them. I gave her hers, and laid out some, probably as important to them, though they seemed to me so trifling and unnecessary, that were for the servants. Then I turned to my own share. I had two letters, one with a broad black border, which had been forwarded from one place to another in search of me, and was nearly ten days old; for, like most people, I examined the outside first; the other a large, substantial blue letter, which meant business. I can remember now the indifference with which I opened them, the mourning envelope first. There were so many postmarks on it, that that of its origin, which would have enlightened me at once, never struck me at all.

Heaven above! what was this that met my eyes? An announcement, full of the periphrasis of formal regret, of the death of my old cousin Jocelyn ten days before. I gave a sort of fierce cry—I can hear it now—and tore open the second, the official letter. Of course I knew what it was; of course I was aware that nothing could interfere; and yet the opportuneness of the announcement was such, that human nature, accustomed to be balked, would not allow me to believe in the possibility. Then I sprang from my seat. “I must go,” I cried; “there is not a moment to lose. Stop all proceedings—do nothing about the going, for God’s sake, till I come back.”

“Mr. Temple, what has happened? Charley——,” cried Charlotte, blanched with terror. She thought some other catastrophe had happened, some still more fatal news that I would not tell her. But I was too much absorbed in my own excitement to think of this.

“Do nothing,” I said; “I will meet Charley on the way, and tell him. All will be right, all will be right, only wait till I come back.” I rushed to the door in my haste, then came back again, not knowing what I did, and had caught her in my arms before I was aware—not in my arms, but with my hands on her shoulders, holding her for one wild moment. I could hardly see her for the water in my eyes. “Wait,” I said, “wait till I come back! Now I can do what she said! Now my time is come; do nothing till I come back.” I let my hands drop down to hers, and caught them and kissed them in a wild tremor, beyond explanation. Then I rushed away. It was a mile or more to the little quay where the morning boat carried communications back to the world. I seemed to be there as on wings, and scarcely came to myself till I descended into the noise, the haze, the roar of the damp streets, the crowds and traffic of Glasgow. Next moment (for time flew and I with it, so that I took no note of its progress or my own) I was in the clamour of the “Works,” making my way through the grime and mud of a great courtyard, with machinery clanging round me on every side, from the big skeleton houses with their open windows—into the office, where Charley, in close converse with a stranger, jumped up with terror at the sight of me. “What has happened?” he cried; “my father?” I had scarcely breath enough to say what I had to say. “Your father,” I cried, “has come to himself. You can make no sale without him—every arrangement must be stopped at once.” All that I was capable of knowing was with a certainty, beyond all proof, that the man with whom Charley was talking, a sportsman in every line of his countenance and clothes, was the intending purchaser of Ellermore.

I remember little of the conversation that followed. It was stormy and excited, for neither would Charley be convinced nor would the other consent to be off his bargain. But I made my point clear. Mr. Campbell having recovered his faculties, it was clear that no treaty could be concluded without his consent. (It could not have been legal in any case, but I suppose they had in some way got over this.) I remember Charley turning upon me with a passionate remonstrance, when, almost by violence and pertinacity, I had driven his Cockney sportsman away. “I cannot conceive what is your object, Temple,” he said. “Are you mad? my father must give his consent; there is no possibility of a question about it. Ellermore must be sold—and as well to him as to another,” he said, with a sigh. I took out my blue letter, which I had huddled into my pocket, and laid it before him. “It is to me that Ellermore must be sold,” I said.

My inheritance had come—there was nothing wonderful about it—it was my right; but never did inheritance come at a more suitable moment. Charley went back with me that afternoon, after a hurried conference with his young brothers, who came round me, shaking my arms nearly off, and calling to each other in their soft young basses, like rolls of mild thunder, that, whatever happened, I was a good fellow, a true friend. If they had not been so bashful they would have embraced me, less I verily believe from the sense of escape from a great misery which they had scarcely realised, than from generous pleasure in what they thought a sort of noble generosity: that was their view of it. Charley perhaps was more enlightened. He was very silent during the journey, but at one point of it burst out suddenly upon me. “You are doing this for Chatty, Temple. If you take her away, it will be as bad as losing Ellermore.” I shook my head. Then, if never before, I felt the hopelessness of the position. “There is but one thing you can do for me: say not a word of that to her,” I said.

And I believe he kept counsel. It was of her own accord that Charlotte came up to me after the hurried interview in which Charley laid my proposal before her. She was very grave, though the sweetness of her look drew the heart out of my breast. She held out her hands to me, but her eyes took all warm significance out of this gesture. “Mr. Temple,” she said, “you may think me bold to say it, but we are friends that can say anything to one another. If in your great generosity there may yet be a thought—a thought that a woman might recompense what was done for her and hers——” Her beautiful countenance, beautiful in its love and tenderness and noble dignity, but so pale, was suddenly suffused with colour. She took her hands out of mine, and folded them together—“That is out of my power—that is out of my power!” she said.

“I like it better so,” I cried. God help me! it was a lie, and so she knew. “I want no recompense. It will be recompense enough to know you are here.”

And so it has remained ever since, and may, perhaps, for ever—I cannot tell. We are dear friends. When anything happens in the family I am sent for, and all is told to me. And so do I with her. We know all each other’s secrets—those secrets which are not of fortune or incident, but of the soul. Is there anything better in marriage than this? And yet there is a longing which is human for something more.

That evening I went back to the Lady’s Walk, with a sort of fanciful desire to tell her, the other, that I had done her bidding, that she had been a true guardian of her race to the last. I paced up and down through the dim hour when the sun ought to have been setting, and later, long into the twilight. The rain fell softly, pattering upon the dark glistening leaves of the evergreens, falling straight through the bare branches. But no soft step of a living soul was on the well-worn track. I called to her, but there was no answer, not even the answer of a sigh. Had she gone back heartsick to her home in Heaven, acknowledging at last that it was not hers to guard her race? It made my heart ache for her to think so; but yet it must have been a sweet grief and easily healed to know that those she loved were most safe in God’s only care when hers failed—as everything else must fail.