Of what was his mind full? He fell silent after this, and for some time no more was said. But it gradually came to be impossible to Joyce to keep silence. She turned to him, scarcely seeing him in the rush of blood that went to her head. "Did you know my mother?" she said. "Oh, sir, will you tell me? Do you know who she was ?" "I can't tell-I can't tell," he said, shaking his head. "It may be all a mistake. We must not make too sure. "Then you think- -"she cried, and stopped, and looked at him, searching his face for his meaning -the anxious open face which was held before her like a book-though he did not look at her in return. She put her hand, with a light momentary touch, on his arm. "Perhaps you don't know," she said hurriedly, "that I have things of hers things she left that would settle it-that would show you' He made a little gesture of assent, waving his hand. "My wife is there that is what keeps me in this suspense." 66 "Where? Where?" He pointed vaguely in the direction of Joyce's house. "She has gone to see everything!" he said. For the moment a flash of sudden anger came to the eyes of Joyce. They are all mine!" she cried. "It was to me she ought to have come. I am the one chiefly concerned!" Then the sudden flash quenched itself, and her look grew soft and wistful once more. "Oh, sir," she said, "if it was the Joyce you thought-if it was her you supposed-who was she. To tell me that, even if it should turn out all different, would do no harm." "It would do no good either,” he said then turned round to her, and took her hand between his two large brown hands, which were trembling. "You are very like her," he said,-"so like her that I am forced to believe. She looked just as you are doing when I saw her last. Some relationship there must be-there must be!" Here he dropped her hand again, as if he had not known that he held it. "There was wrong done to her— the Joyce I mean. She was made very unhappy; but no wrong was meant on-on my-on-on his part. Would you really like to hear the story? But it may turn out to be nothing-to have nothing to do with you.' 66 Oh, tell me; it will fill up the time; it will ease the suspense." "That is what I feel," he said; "and you will keep the secret—that is, there is no secret; it is only what happened to what happened long, long ago-to-to one of my friends: you understand," he said tremulously, but with an effort to be very firm, looking at her, "to -one of my friends." leave her and go back-to his duty: and then she heard from some wicked person-oh, some wicked person!-God forgive her, for I cant'-that it was not a true marriage. It was, it was! I protest to you no thought of harmgood Lord! nothing but love, honest love-and it was all right, all right, as it turned out." "But she thought-she had been deceived!" Joyce listened with her head drooping, keeping down the climbing sorrow in her throat, hardly able to find her voice. "She was always hasty," he said. "I am not the one to blame her-oh no, no-it was not wonderful, perhaps, that she should believe. And letters to India were not then as now they took so long a time; and something happened to delay the answer. It was what you call nobody's fault-only an accident an accident that cost "You are very, very kind-oh, you are kind; you speak as if you had felt for her with all your heart -as if she had been your own." He gave her a startled look, and made a momentary pause: then he proceeded, "That's all,-all that anybody has known. She disappeared. His letter came back to him. He could not get home to search for her. It had to be trusted to others. After years, when I came back, I—I. - but nothing effect upon Colonel Hayward. He turned round upon her, steadying himself, looking her in the face, with momentary wonder and something like indignation; then the energy died out of him all at once, and he nodded his head again. "My father! then I have a father," said Joyce, with a voice as soft and tender as a dove's. She was not now paying any attention to him or his looks, but was entirely absorbed in this new wonderful discovery of her own. For But he started with a sudden cry-"Good God!" as if something new-something too astounding to understand had flashed upon him. Her father! why, so it was! - so he- He had thought of no subject but this for days, and yet this point of view had not opened upon him. They had reached the head of the lane, and were now in the village street, turned towards the cottage in which Joyce had lived all her life, and near enough to see the light little figure of Mrs Hayward standing at the door. This caught his attention, but not hers. Joyce had plunged suddenly with a new impulse back into the enchanted country of her dreams. A father-and one who had done no wrong-who was not to blame -a father living! It was only when she turned to Colonel Hayward, after the first bound of exhilaration and breathless pleasure, to ask him, clasping her hands unconsciously, "Who is my father?" that she saw the extraordinary commotion in his face. He was looking at her, and yet his eyes made quick voyages to and from his wife. The lines of his face had all melted into what Joyce felt to be the "kindest" look she had ever met. And yet there was alarm and boundless anxiety This question had the strangest in it. He looked as if he did not could ever be found." "Sir," said Joyce, gasping a little to keep down her sobs, "I think that must have been my mother. I think it must be. She begins in her letter to tell him- she calls him Harry-was that his name?" The old Colonel made a noise in his throat which sounded like a sob too: he nodded his head in assent, as if he could not speak. "She begins to tell him-is he living still?" hear her question, but suddenly laid his hand upon hers, and gave it a strong momentary pressure. "I must know first. I must speak to my wife," he said, incoherently. "God bless you! I must ask Elizabeth. You must wait: I must speak to Elizabeth. But God bless you, my dear!" He was already gone, hastening with long steps up the street. The thought passed through Joyce's mind that this must have been a dear friend, some one, perhaps, who had loved her mother: and a man with the tenderest heart. There was something in his "God bless you" which seemed to fall upon her like the dew-a true blessing; the blessing of one who had always been her friend, though she had never known him. She did not hurry to follow him to satisfy herself, but went on quietly at her usual pace, looking at the old gentleman's long swift steps, and thinking of a camel going over the ground. He was from the East, too; and he devoured the way, hastening to the little figure which had perceived and which was waiting for him. Joyce had the faculty of youth to remark all this, yet keep up her own thoughts at the same time. She saw old Janet standing at the door looking out, with the hem of her apron in her hand, which was her gesture when her mind was much occupied or troubled; and the little lady in the street standing waiting, and then, her own old friend, the Colonel, hurrying up, putting his arm within the lady's, leading her away with his head bent over her. There was a certain amusement in it all, which floated on the surface of the great excitement and wonder and delight of the discovery she had made. A father; and a dear old friend, the kindest, the most sym pathetic, who blessed her, and who had a right to bless her, having loved (she could not doubt it) her mother before her. Joyce did not know what the next disclosure might be,-did not think for the moment that, whatever it was, it must change the whole tenor of her life. Nor did she think that there was still a doubt in it,—that it might yet come to nothing, as he had said. Oh no, it could not come to nothing; everything pieced in to the story. The doubt with which Janet had always chilled her, that a young creature disappearing so utterly, with no one to care for her, no one to inquire after her, must have had a story in which shame was involvedhow completely was it dissipated and explained by this real tale! Oh, no shame! she had felt sure there could not be shame-nothing but the cruel distance, the fatal accident that had delayed the letter, those strange elements of uncertainty which mix in every mortal story which (Joyce remembered from that reading which had hitherto been her life) the ancients called fate. And what could they be called but fate? If it had come in time that letter! as letters which mean nothing, which are of no consequence, come every day and yet he had said the delay was nobody's fault. Was it less fatal, less fateful than those incidents that lead towards the end of a tragedy in the poets? and this was a tragedy. Oh, how sad, how pitiful, to the Joyce of twenty years ago! but not to our Joyce, who suddenly found this July morning her vague dreams of youth, her fancies that had no foundation, suddenly coming true. "You've been a long time away," said Janet from the door. She had watched Joyce's approach until they were within a few steps of each other, when she had suddenly 'Granny, have I ever given you any reason to say that?" Janet withdrew her apron from her eyes. Her eyes were red with that burden of tears which age cannot shed like youth. The passion of love and grief which overflowed her being could only get vent in this irritation and querulous impatience. Her long upper lip quivered, a hot moisture glis"It is the first day of the holi- tened on the edges of her eyelids. days, granny," said Joyce. She She looked at the young creature, came in smiling, and put down standing half on the defensive beher book, and going up to her fore this sudden attack, yet half faithful guardian, put an arm disposed to meet it with tender round her, and laid her cheek laughter and jest. "Oh, ye can against hers. Caresses are rare in make licht o't," she cried. "What a Scotch peasant's house. Janet is't to you? just the life ye've aye half turned away her own wrinkled been craving for-aye craving for, cheek. The intensity of the love-ye canna say nay. within her rose into a heat which simulated wrath. But to me what is it?" said the old woman. In home to dinner-or for those who could not, the children or the wife were hurrying forth to carry it; but to Janet and Joyce there was no mistaking the one tread among so many. Janet got up hurriedly from the chair. "Wheesht! no' a word before him; it's time enough when it comes," she said. Joyce had not waited even for this, but had begun to lay the table, so that Peter when he came in should find everything ready. He came in with his usual air of broadly smiling expectation, and took his bonnet from his grizzled red locks, which was a fashion Joyce had taught him, as he stepped across the threshold. "It's awfu' warm the day," were his first words, as he went in, notwithstanding, and placed himself in the big chair near the fire. The fire was the household centre whether it was cold or warm. "So you've gotten the play?" he added, beaming upon Joyce, awaiting something which should make him open his mouth in one of those big brief laughs that brought the water to his eyes. It was not necessary that it should be witty or clever. Joyce was wit and cleverness embodied to her foster-father. When she opened her lips his soul was satisfied. And before Peter the cloud disappeared like magic. Janet was cheerful, and Joyce like everyday. They listened to his talk about the ripening corn, and where it was full in the ear, and where stubby, and about the Irish shearers that will be doun upon us like locusts afore we ken," and a wheen Hieland cattle too," said Peter, who was not favourable to the Celts. Then the broth was put on the table and the blessing said, and the humble dinner eaten as it had been for years in the little family which held together by nature, and which, so far as had appeared, nothing could ever divide. |