you may catch a momentary gleam of blue, faint and infinitely far away, deep, untroubled, most beautiful. Judith had caught such a glimpse that evening, as she bade Percival good-night.

CHAPTER XLVII.

CONSEQUENCES.

THE story of the elopement was in all the local papers, which seemed for once to be printed on Judith Lisle's heart. It was the latest and most exciting topic of conversation in the neighbourhood of Standon Square and St. Sylvester's, and was made doubly interesting by the utter collapse of Mr. Clifton's Easter services, which were to have been something very remarkable indeed. Everyone recollected the young organist, who was so handsome, and who played so divinely. People forgot that his father had failed very disgracefully, and only remembered that Bertie had once been in a much better position. There was a sort of general impression that he was an aristocratic young hero, who lived in lofty poverty, and was a genius into the bargain. No one was very precise about it, but Beethoven and Mendelssohn, and all those people, were likely to find themselves eclipsed some fine morning. Emmeline Nash, of course, became a heroine to match, vaguely sketched as slim, tall, and fair. She had stayed on at Miss Crawford's at an age when a girl's education is generally supposed to be finished, and she had not always gone home for the holidays. These facts were of course the germs of a romance. There was a quarrel with her father, who wished

her to marry Some One. No one knew who the some one might be; but as he was only a shadowy figure in the background, his name was of no importance. Emmeline and her music-master had fallen in love at first sight; and when the moment came for the girl to return home, to be persecuted by her father's threats, and by the attentions of the shadowy lover, her heart had failed her, and she had consented to fly with the As Judith had said, it was young musician. a young Lochinvar romance-a boy and girl attachment. No one seemed to think much the worse of Bertie. Hardly anyone called him a fortune-hunter, for Emmeline's money seemed trivial compared with the wealth that he was supposed to have once possessed. And no one thought anything at all of Judith herself or of Miss Crawford.

It would soon be over and forgotten, but Judith suffered acutely while it lasted. Perhaps it was well that she was forced to think about her own prospects, which were none of the brightest.

"Shall you go to Rookleigh?" Percival asked her a couple of days

later.

She shook her head. "No; I'm too proud, I suppose, or too

miserable. I can't have my failure here talked over. Aunt Lisle's conversation is full of sharp little pin-pricks, which are all very well when they don't go straight into one's heart."

He saw her lip quiver, as she turned her face away.

"Where will you go, then?" he asked, with gentle persistence. It was partly on his own account, for he feared that a blow was in store for him, and he wanted to know the worst.

"I shall not go anywhere. I shall not leave Brenthill."

The blood seemed to rush strongly to his heart; his veins were full of warm life. She would not leave Brenthill.

"I will stay, at any rate, while Miss Crawford remains here. She will not speak to me; she has forbidden me to attempt to see her; but I cannot go away and leave her here alone. I may not be of any useI do not suppose I shall be—but while she is here I will not go."

"But if she left?"

"Still I would not leave Brenthill if I could get any work to do. I feel as if I must stay here, if only to show that I have not gone away with Bertie, to live on Emmeline's money. Poor Emmeline! And when he used to talk of my not working any more, and he would provide for me, I thought he meant that he would make a fortune with his opera. What a fool I was!"

"It was a folly to be proud of."

He was rewarded with a faint smile, but the delicate curve of the girl's lips relaxed into sadness all too soon.

The table at her side was strewn with sheets of roughly blotted music, mixed with others, daintily neat, which Judith herself had copied. "His opera," she repeated, laying the leaves in order. "Emmeline will

be promoted to the office of critic and admirer now, I suppose. But I think the admiration will be too indiscriminate even for Bertie. Poor Emmeline!"

"What are you going to do with all these?" said Thorne, laying his hand on the papers.

"I am putting them together to send to him. I had a letter this morning, so I know his address now. He seems very hopeful, as usual, and thinks her father will forgive them before long."

"And do you think there is a chance of it?"

"No, I don't. Bertie did not hear what Mr. Nash said that afternoon to Miss Crawford and to me," she replied; and once again the colour rushed to her face at the remembrance.

"Miss Lisle!" said Percival suddenly, "I am ready to make every allowance for Mr. Nash; but if—”

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Oh, it was nothing! He was angry, as he had reason to be, that was all. And you see I am not used to angry men."

"I should hope not. I wish I had been there!"

"And I don't," said Judith softly. "I think you might not have been very patient, and I felt that one ought to be patient for Miss

Crawford's sake.

Besides, if you had been there I could not have▬▬ Bertie writes in capital spirits," she continued, with a sudden change of tone. "He wants me to go and join them. He is just the same as ever, only rather proud of himself."

"Proud of himself! In heaven's name, why?"

"Why, he is only two-and-twenty, and has secured a comfortable income for the rest of his life by his own exertions. Naturally, he is proud of himself." Percival had learned now that Judith never suffered more keenly than when she spoke of Bertie in a jesting tone, and it pained him for her sake. He looked sorrowfully at her. "Mr. Thorne," she went on, "he does not even suspect that what he has done is any thing but praiseworthy, and rather clever. He does not so much as mention Miss Crawford. And I am haunted by a feeling that we have somehow wronged my mother-wronging her old friend."

Percival did not tell her that he too had had a letter from Bertie. It was in his pocket as he stood there, and when he went away he took it out and read it again.

Bertie was as light-hearted as she had said. He enclosed an order for the money taken from the desk, and hoped Thorne had not wanted it; or, if he had been put to any inconvenience, he must forgive him this once, as he, Lisle, did not suppose he should ever run away in that style again.

"I think the old man will come round without much fuss," Bertie went on. "We have been very penitent-the waste of note-paper before we could get our feelings properly expressed was something frightful; but the money was well laid out, for we have heard from him again, and there is a perceptible softening in the tone of his letter. Emmeline assures me that he is passionately fond of music, and reminds me how anxious he was that she should learn to play. The reasoning does not exactly convince me, but if the old fellow does but imagine that he has a passion for music, I will conquer him through that. And if the worst comes to the worst, and he is as stony-hearted as one of his own fossils, we have only to manage for this year, and we must come into our money when Emmeline is twenty-one. But I have no fear. He will relent, and we shall be comfortably settled under the paternal roof long before Christmas.

"What did old Clifton say and do And how did the Easter services go off? that he was in such a state of mind about! me as graphic a description as you can.

when he found I had bolted? Those blessed Easter services Was he very savage? Send

"Excuse a smudge, but Emmeline and I are bound to do a good deal of hugging and kissing just now--a honeymoon after an elopement is something remarkably sweet, as you may suppose and her sleeve brushed the wet ink. This particular embrace was on the occasion of her departure to put on her things. We are going out.

"Don't they say that married women always give up their accom

plishments? Emmeline is a married woman, therefore Emmeline will give up her music. How soon do you suppose she will begin?"

Half a page more of Bertie's random scribble brought him to a conclusion, but it was not a final one, for he had added a couple of lines. "P.S. Persuade J. to shake herself free of Brenthill as soon as possible; there can be no need for her to work now, thank God! You know it has always been my daydream, and hope, to provide for her. You must come and see us too. Come soon, before we go to my father-in-law's. Goodbye-we are off. P.S. No. 2. No, we are not. E. has forgotten her parasol, and is gone for it. How is Lydia? What did she say when she heard the news? I suppose by this time everybody knows it."

Percival's lip curved with scorn and disgust as he refolded the letter, in which Emmeline, Judith, and Lydia jostled each other as they might have done in a bad dream. Then he looked up, being suddenly aware of eyes that were fixed upon him. Miss Bryant stood in the doorway.

"You've heard from him, Mr. Thorne ?"

Percival did not choose to answer as if he were in Miss Bryant's secrets, and knew as a matter of course that "him" meant Lisle. Neither did he choose to say that he did not know who was intended by the energetic pronoun. He looked back at Lydia politely and inquiringly, as if he awaited further information before he could be expected to reply.

'Oh, you know," said Lydia, scornfully. "You have heard from Mr. Bertie Lisle?"

"Yes," Percival acquiesced, gravely.

"Well?"

"Well-what, Miss Bryant?"

"What does he say?" Lydia demanded; and when Thorne arched his brows, "Oh, you needn't look as if you thought it wasn't my business. I've a right to ask after him, at any rate, for old acquaintance sake."

"I'm sorry to hear you take so much interest in him," he rejoined. "Why? You may keep your sorrow for your own affairs-I'll manage mine. I can take very good care of myself, I assure you, and I won't trouble you to be sorry for me," said Lydia, shortly. I do not think she had ever spoken to a young man before, and been unconscious that it was a young man to whom she spoke. But she was utterly heedless of Percival as she questioned him, and he perceived it, and preferred this angry mood. "Can't you tell me anything about him?" said the girl. "Is he well-happy?"

"He writes in the best of spirits."

Lydia advanced a step or two. "And is it all true what they are saying? He has married this young lady?"

"Yes, he has married her."

"And do you suppose he cares for her?" said Lydia, slowly.

Thorne's brows went up again. "Really, Miss Bryant"Because, if he does, he has told lies enough-that's all." ("And he isn't a miracle of honour if he doesn't," said Percival.) "But that's quite likely," Lydia went on, unheeding. "I knew all the time that he didn't mean any good. He thought I believed him, but I didn't-not more than half, anyhow. But when he went away, 1 didn't guess it was for this."

"You knew he was going?" said Thorne.

Lydia half smiled, in conscious superiority.

"You don't seem to have served yourself particularly well by keeping his secrets. You are deceived at last, like the rest."

"Well, if I haven't served myself, I've served him," said Lydia. "And I don't know but what I am glad of it. He wasn't as stuck up and proud as some people. One likes to be looked at, and spoken to, as if one wasn't dirt under people's feet. And, after all, I don't see that there's any harm done." There were red rims to Lydia's eyes, telling of tears which must surely have been too persistent to pass for tears of joy at the tidings of Bertie's elopement. "I suppose a marriage like that is all right?" she asked, with a quick glance.

"Of course-no doubt of it," said Percival very shortly. He had pitied her a moment earlier.

"Ah! I supposed so. But things ain't always all right when people run away. And the money's all right too, is it?"

"Some of it, at any rate," said Thorne, taking a book from the table.

"Wouldn't he be sure to take care of that! And there's more to come if the father likes, isn't there? He'll get that too-see if he doesn't."

"It is to be hoped he will-for Mrs. Lisle's sake. Otherwise I cannot say I care to discuss his prospects."

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Well," said Lydia after a pause, during which she turned a ring slowly on her finger. "Well-I'll wish him all the happiness he deserves."

Percival's lip curved a little. pitiless?"

"Miss Bryant, are you absolutely

Lydia's expression was rather blank. "What do you mean? No, I ain't," she said. "I've nothing more to do with him. He hasn't done me any harm, and I won't wish him any. At least-only a little!" With which small ebullition of feminine tenderness and spite, she fled hurriedly downstairs to shed a few more tears, and left Thorne to write his letter to Lisle, It was brief, and none the sweeter for that recent

interview.

"I return the money," Percival wrote, "which you say was so useful to you. I know that what you have sent me is not yours but your wife's, and I cannot conscientiously say that I think Mrs. Herbert Lisle is indebted to me in any way.