and with a door of its own into the garden. "Quite snug," he said rubbing his hands and glancing round with an air of pride, "and delightfully secure from interruption. You see this part of the garden is completely private, away both from the road and the yard. My predecessor used it as a parish room, and at first the people were always coming through the side gate to this door; but I put a stop to all that."

The same hard frost prevailed everywhere when I went out to see the church. Gregory wanted Barbara to go with us, and at first she seemed well inclined, but finally said she would rather remain indoors,—she had letters to write. Janie was winding wools for Eleanor, so we went alone. The pleasure-grounds about the Rectory were not large, but there was a sheltered rose-garden open to the south, and a thick belt of shrubbery which screened the road; and on the other side was a flat space of lawn with accommodation for a couple of sets of tennis, and an orchard and two fields beyond. The shrubbery served also as a screen from the churchyard. The little gray church was very ancient, Gregory said, and the high worm-eaten pews had doubtless served many generations of worshippers. They were barely a quarter filled by the inhabitants of the scattered cottages; many of the people were lax churchgoers, and a certain proportion of them were Catholics settled on the Beryngton's estate.

"I hope to bring about a reform in many ways," said the new rector looking about him, "but it will take time. Rome was not built in a day, you know, even in Italy; and certainly it would not have been at Ditchborough. We have begun, of course, with the chancel, and that is more to my mind than it was. You should have seen it when

we came here! The main difficulty

of course is funds. There is hardly any one in the parish who could or would give anything, and I cannot be expected to bear all the expense single-handed. Redworth helped me with this, and it was the more generous of him because unsolicited; I could not have asked from one of a different communion. Now you have your bonnet on, Susan, you may as well walk up through the woods and look at Coldhope. Only the outside of the house, of course, as Redworth is away; but he begged us from the first to use the park and grounds as if they were our own. Barbara and Janie used constantly to go there sketching before,-before the difficulty I told you of."

The Coldhope woods bordered the opposite side of the road, and арpeared to stretch for a considerable distance, indeed Gregory told me the entrance-lodge was a quarter of a mile further on; but there was a door in the paling opposite the church, and a path wound up the hill through an evergreen undergrowth, the dark green foliage of which was pointed everywhere with the delicate lace-work of the frost. The bare trees stood in close rank, and their branches arched above us till "the skies were in a net." I made some remark on what would be the summer depth of shade, and Gregory said I must see it when the rhododendrons were in flower in early June, and before the leafage overhead had wholly outgrown the tender greens of spring. you will indeed call it lovely, and Redworth will make you as free here as the rest of us; I am sure of that."

"Then

About ten minutes' brisk walking brought us to the point of view Gregory wished for, from which we could see the house. I did not think much of it, though I believe it is considered fine. I do not care for that stiff redbrick style with stone facings and

A

heavy pediments; and it was hardly so large as I had fancied in the glimpse caught of it from the road above. massive centre with one wing at right angles had rather an awkward effect; but the garden lying round it looked attractive, and some pea-fowl were spreading themselves to the winter sunshine on the stone balustrades of the terrace. Mr. Redworth had his study and laboratory in the wing, Gregory told me. He was preparing a treatise on the ancient uses and symbolic metaphors of alchemy, and he was also an Egyptologist and a student of the methods of embalming practised in the land of the Pharaohs.

I listened to all this with half an ear as it were, for I was not greatly interested in the eccentric neighbour who seemed so important a figure on the scene of Ditchborough. What I really cared about was all the lovely background against which the prosaic red-brick house stood revealed; the wide stretches of park, the faint blue of the distance, the brown woods rising to the sky-line, even the dead autumn leaves that crisped under my feet. I do not think Coldhope ever looked so fair to me again as on that first wintry afternoon, though I saw it later in all its changes to golden autumn from the first budding of spring.

CHAPTER III.

DICK SUDELEIGH did not return till just before the dinner-hour; and he ran up to his room to dress, begging us not to wait for him, so we all filed into the dining-room. Eleanor said Barbara must take the head of the table for her; she had done so last night in my honour, but now she would revert to the arm-chair at the corner, which was her usual place. So Barbara sat opposite her father, and a very fair young hostess she made. She No. 433.-VOL. LXXIII.

was dressed that night in some shimmering gray stuff which had lace about it and a crimson breast-knot, and which opened low enough at the neck to show a slender chain of silver filigree that clasped her white throat. Janie sat opposite me, and the vacant place for Mr. Sudeleigh was between her and Barbara. She wore a white wool barège very simply fashioned; I notice it because of a change later.

She was looking almost as pale as her gown when Mr. Sudeleigh came in with a laughing apology for his tardiness; but as he passed to his seat, he bent over her with an inquiry about the ankle. He put a hand on her shoulder in brotherly fashion, and both the gesture and the speech were kind;—too kind, for the quick colour rose hotly all over her face, and her eyes filled with tears. She managed some kind of stumbling answer; and as he was appealed to instantly by Eleanor on another matter, her discomposure passed without notice except by me.

It seemed not unusual for her to be silent, and we others chatted and laughed on without her, seldom making any attempt to draw her into the conversation. But towards the end of the meal her mantle appeared to fall upon Barbara, who sat idly tracing an imaginary pattern on the cloth with a dessert-fork, so deep in thought that she look up bewildered when addressed. "What is the matter with you, child?" said her father; and instead of giving back as usual some jesting reply, she covered her face and shuddered. had bad dreams last night," she said, "and I was thinking of them again. I am glad you spoke, for I do not want to go back to them any more."

"I

The shadow which had touched her seemed to spread with a certain chill to us all, and I think it was to cover it that Gregory began to talk in a joking way to Janie about it being her

F

turn next, asking how she would feel if she were in Barbara's place, so near to being a bride. I could have given the world to stop him, divining all the pain he was inflicting; but he went blundering on like a man; and directly we rose to leave the dining-room Janie made her escape. I saw her running up the staircase at the end of the hall, regardless of the hurt foot; and then I turned to Eleanor, who was slowly moving across on Barbara's

arm.

The gentlemen followed us almost immediately, not caring to sit over their wine, and presently there was the usual outcry for Janie. Gregory had been talking about the disputed architecture of a church in the east of Cornwall which was half a ruin, and wanted to illustrate his argument by showing us certain photographs, which it seemed were in the inner drawer of a locked escritoire in his study. There were private papers in the drawers, and he did not care to send a servant with the key, nor to disturb himself from the comfortable firesidenook in which he was settled. Janie ran all the errands and knew where everything was, and Janie must fetch the pictures. Then Eleanor was waiting also for the game of chess which was her nightly recreation, and Janie was always her antagonist. I could not offer myself as a substitute, for I barely knew the moves; and for neither of these needs did the parents seem to think of turning to Barbara. She was sitting with that same abstracted look on her face which I had noticed in the dining-room; but on Eleanor fretfully remarking for the third time on Janie's continued absence, Dick Sudeleigh asked if she would accept his challenge. It was long since he had played, he said, but he would make the attempt, provided Barbara would look on and give him the benefit of her advice. Barbara said carelessly

that her advice was not worth having, and evidently took little interest in the match; for as the game was drawing to a crisis, and Dick's king came for the first time under check, she rose and began to wander about the room; then turning to her father said, as if by a sudden impulse, "Give me the keys, Dad, and I will fetch your photographs. Janie will be ages yet."

Gregory was still fuming and tapping the small bunch impatiently on the arm of his chair; he now surrendered it at her offer, impressing on her the particular right-hand drawer which she must open, and that she must be careful about closing and relocking the bureau. I can see her as she paused to listen to the instructions, with the key-ring threaded on one slender finger, her pretty face and figure, so young, so brilliant, so wellbeloved. And then she went swiftly out, closing the drawing-room door upon us four.

The time must then have been about nine o'clock, perhaps a little later; we could not afterwards fix it with any certainty; we had dined at half-past seven, but had lingered rather over the meal. The first game of chess resulted in a victory for Eleanor, but she was defeated in the second; so a third was undertaken and hard fought to a lingering conclusion; but still Barbara had not returned, and Janie did not appear. Gregory had dropped into a doze in his corner oblivious of the Cornish church, when Eleanor looked up with one of her few remaining pieces poised in cogitation of a critical move, and said sharply : "Where are the girls? Susan, I should be so much obliged if you would call Barbara. What can she be doing all this time in the study?"

I went, nothing loth, being weary of the monotonous click of my knitting needles and the warm sleepy silence about me, only broken by a word now

were for the most part silently intent upon their game. I found the passage in darkness, but the study-door was ajar and showed a light within. A hand-lamp burned on the table, the flame blowing wildly in the draught from the outer door into the garden which stood partly open to the night, and half the window-shutter was folded back. Barbara was not there, but Gregory's bureau was still open with his keys hanging in the lock, and a small drawer had been dropped in the middle of the floor with a heap of scattered papers.

There was nothing specially portentous about her absence where first sought, but the earliest chill of misgiving struck on me then and there with the blank of the empty room and that current of icy air. My first impulse was to close and fasten the door, but then I remembered I might be barring her out into the wintry dark, so I left it as it was, and hastened back to the drawing-room.

Janie was entering it before me, and I remarked in the same instant with Eleanor's exclamation that she

had changed her dress. She sat op

posite to me at dinner in white as I have said; and she was now wearing a black stuff frock and looking deadly pale. She held up her right hand, round which a handkerchief was fastened, but she seemed to speak with difficulty. "I cut it with the window,"

stain. We might have heard more particulars of the accident then and there, but I broke in about the open door into the garden, and asked if it were likely Barbara had gone out. No more was thought of Janie's hand after that, or of her changed frock; but the first impression with them all seemed to be astonishment rather than Dick Sudeleigh looked at his

alarm. watch.

"Five minutes to ten!" he

said jumping up. "By Jove, I had no idea it was so late! In the garden? Why, she will catch her death of cold! I will go and fetch her in."

"She can't be in the garden," said Eleanor, and she was on her feet too for all her infirmity. "You know how nervous she has been lately; nothing would induce her to go out by herself at this hour. She must be somewhere in the house." Eleanor had reached the bell by this time and rang it sharply. "Tell Evans to call Miss Barbara," I heard her saying to the servant. "She is up-stairs, and I want her, here, immediately."

I heard the order given as I followed Gregory out; Dick Sudeleigh had already got his hat. The study was just

as I left it; Barbara had not returned. There was alarm as well as irritation in her father's voice as he said: "What can the child have been doing? I told her to be careful with the keys. This is the drawer she was sent to, and here are the photographs," and indeed he picked them up lying beneath it on the floor. "Good God, Susan! Where is she? Why has she left them here?"

Dick had dashed out into the garden, and I heard his voice calling her name. Gregory and I stood on the threshold and peered after him. The darkness was not absolute, as the moon was up; but a thick white mist shrouded the lawn and shrubberies, and we could see nothing plainly but the outline of

the tree-tops against the sky. The cold was piercing, but I never felt it, and I think he did not either. Presently we heard Eleanor behind us. "Oh, Gregory!" she said, and her voice was almost a cry. "She is not in the house; the servants have looked everywhere, and Janie knows nothing. What can have taken her out, and without a word to us?"

There was terror in her face now, and she caught at her husband with a grasp as if his arm alone kept her from falling. He did not answer, for there were footsteps outside on the frozen path, Dick's footsteps returning alone. He was pale too, and his teeth chattered as he spoke. "I have been all round; I can see nothing of her nor make her hear. If she is not indoors we must get lanterns. She may have fainted with the cold."

That was what came next, the search of the garden with lanterns, of the orchard and churchyard, and of the road for some distance either way; but not a trace could be discovered. Barbara, in her pretty evening-dress and her thin slippers, going from one room to another in her father's house, had disappeared as utterly and completely as if the ground had opened and swallowed her up. At first Eleanor would not be persuaded to leave the study, but finally I got a warm shawl round her and helped her back into the drawing-room, and induced her to swallow some wine. Janie was there too, crouched in a corner of the sofa with her face hidden. I thought she seemed more terrified than any of us in those first hours. Eleanor was greatly distressed, but part of her trouble was the scandal that might arise; she considered we had been incautious in giving the alarm at once, and enlisting the servants in the search. She was afraid it would be difficult to explain the matter to them when Barbara came back, not

admitting to herself, poor soul, that Barbara might never return.

No one at the Rectory went to bed through all that dreadful night. When the search was at last abandoned, Dick and Gregory joined us in the drawing-room round the fire which I had kept burning, while the house was lighted in every window, with open doors to the wanderer. We took counsel together, if that word be not a misnomer in such a maze of bewilderment and conjecture, while our hearts were aching with the anguish of suspense. Gregory looked years older for the passage of those hours when he came in to break their failure to his wife; and on Dick Sudeleigh's young face there was a haggard grayness of despair.

Janie

saw it, for her eyes went instantly to his; and then instead of the sort of trance of horror which had kept her dumb, she fell to crying and weeping as if her heart would break. She was the only one who had nothing to suggest among our wild guesses; but when Dick said with a groan,"She has not left us voluntarily; that I will never believe," Janie's voice responded with an emphatic, "Oh no, no!"

So the time wore on till the winter dawn might soon be expected to clear away the darkness which added to our difficulty. Our candles were burning in the sockets, and Janie had returned anew from the errand on which Eleanor had sent her again and again through the night,—to see if the fire was alight in Barbara's room, and everything ready for her. The servants were sitting up in the kitchen, beguiling their watch with what gossip and wonderment may be supposed. They had come in from time to time to see if we wanted anything; but Eleanor was impatient of any stir which interfered with her strained listening for sounds from without, for