I SAY NO

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She began by admiring the diamonds--with a certain reserve.
"Nothing like so large as Sir Jervis's diamonds; but choice
specimens no doubt. Might I ask what the value--?"

She stopped. The inscription had attracted her notice: she began
to read it aloud: "In loving memory of my father. Died--"

Her face instantly became rigid. The next words were suspended on
her lips.

Alban seized the chance of making her betray herself--under
pretense of helping her. "Perhaps you find the figures not easy
to read," he said. "The date is 'thirtieth September, eighteen
hundred and seventy-seven'--nearly four years since."

Not a word, not a movement, escaped Mrs. Rook. She held the
locket before her as she had held it from the first. Alban looked
at Emily. Her eyes were riveted on the housekeeper: she was
barely capable of preserving the appearance of composure. Seeing
the necessity of acting for her, he at once said the words which
she was unable to say for herself.

"Perhaps, Mrs. Rook, you would like to look at the portrait?" he
suggested. "Shall I open the locket for you?"

Without speaking, without looking up, she handed the locket to
Alban.

He opened it, and offered it to her. She neither accepted nor
refused it: her hands remained hanging over the arms of the
chair. He put the locket on her lap.

The portrait produced no marked effect on Mrs. Rook. Had the date
prepared her to see it? She sat looking at it--still without
moving: still without saying a word. Alban had no mercy on her.
"That is the portrait of Miss Emily's father," he said. "Does it
represent the same Mr. Brown whom you had in your mind when you
asked me if Miss Emily's father was still living?"

That question roused her. She looked up, on the instant; she
answered loudly and insolently: 'No!"

"And yet," Alban persisted, "you broke down in reading the
inscription: and considering what talkative woman you are, the
portrait has had a strange effect on you--to say the least of
it."

She eyed him steadily while he was speaking--and turned to Emily
when he had done. "You mentioned the heat just now, miss. The
heat has overcome me; I shall soon get right again."

The insolent futility of that excuse irritated Emily into
answering her. "You will get right again perhaps all the sooner,"
she said, "if we trouble you with no more questions, and leave
you to recover by yourself."

The first change of expression which relaxed the iron tensity of
the housekeeper's face showed itself when she heard that reply.
At last there was a feeling in Mrs. Rook which openly declared
itself--a feeling of impatience to see Alban and Emily leave the
room.

They left her, without a word more.

CHAPTER X.

GUESSES AT THE TRUTH.

"What are we to do next? Oh, Mr. Morris, you must have seen all
sorts of people in your time--you know human nature, and I don't.
Help me with a word of advice!"

Emily forgot that he was in love with her--forgot everything, but
the effect produced by the locket on Mrs. Rook, and the vaguely
alarming conclusion to which it pointed. In the fervor of her
anxiety she took Alban's arm as familiarly as if he had been her
brother. He was gentle, he was considerate; he tried earnestly to
compose her. "We can do nothing to any good purpose," be said,
"unless we begin by thinking quietly. Pardon me for saying
so--you are needlessly exciting yourself."

There was a reason for her excitement, of which he was
necessarily ignorant. Her memory of the night interview with Miss
Jethro had inevitably intensified the suspicion inspired by the
conduct of Mrs. Rook. In less than twenty-four hours, Emily had
seen two women shrinking from secret remembrances of her
father--which might well be guilty remembrances--innocently
excited by herself! How had they injured him? Of what infamy, on
their parts, did his beloved and stainless memory remind them?
Who could fathom the mystery of it? "What does it mean?" she
cried, looking wildly in Alban's compassionate face. "You _must_
have formed some idea of your own. What does it mean?"

"Come, and sit down, Miss Emily. We will try if we can find out
what it means, together."

They returned to the shady solitude under the trees. Away, in
front of the house, the distant grating of carriage wheels told
of the arrival of Miss Ladd's guests, and of the speedy beginning
of the ceremonies of the day.

"We must help each other," Alban resumed.

"When we first spoke of Mrs. Rook, you mentioned Miss Cecilia
Wyvil as a person who knew something about her. Have you any
objection to tell me what you may have heard in that way?"

In complying with his request Emily necessarily repeated what
Cecilia had told Francine, when the two girls had met that
morning in the garden.

Alban now knew how Emily had obtained employment as Sir Jervis's
secretary; how Mr. and Mrs. Rook had been previously known to
Cecilia's father as respectable people keeping an inn in his own
neighborhood; and, finally, how they had been obliged to begin
life again in domestic service, because the terrible event of a
murder had given the inn a bad name, and had driven away the
customers on whose encouragement their business depended.

Listening in silence, Alban remained silent when Emily's
narrative had come to an end.

"Have you nothing to say to me?" she asked.

"I am thinking over what I have just heard," he answered.

Emily noticed a certain formality in his tone and manner, which
disagreeably surprised her. He
seemed to have made his reply as a mere concession to
politeness, while he was thinking of something else which really
interested him.

"Have I disappointed you in any way?" she asked.

"On the contrary, you have interested me. I want to be quite sure
that I remember exactly what you have said. You mentioned, I
think, that your friendship with Miss Cecilia Wyvil began here,
at the school?"

"Yes."

"And in speaking of the murder at the village inn, you told me
that the crime was committed--I have forgotten how long ago?"

His manner still suggested that he was idly talking about what
she had told him, while some more important subject for
reflection was in possession of his mind.

"I don't know that I said anything about the time that had passed
since the crime was committed," she answered, sharply. "What does
the murder matter to _us?_ I think Cecilia told me it happened
about four years since. Excuse me for noticing it, Mr.
Morris--you seem to have some interests of your own to occupy
your attention. Why couldn't you say so plainly when we came out
here? I should not have asked you to help me, in that case. Since
my poor father's death, I have been used to fight through my
troubles by myself."

She rose, and looked at him proudly. The next moment her eyes
filled with tears.

In spite of her resistance, Alban took her hand. "Dear Miss
Emily," he said, "you distress me: you have not done me justice.
Your interests only are in my mind."

Answering her in those terms, he had not spoken as frankly as
usual. He had only told her a part of the truth.

Hearing that the woman whom they had just left had been landlady
of an inn, and that a murder had been committed under her roof,
he was led to ask himself if any explanation might be found, in
these circumstances, of the otherwise incomprehensible effect
produced on Mrs. Rook by the inscription on the locket.

In the pursuit of this inquiry there had arisen in his mind a
monstrous suspicion, which pointed to Mrs. Rook. It impelled him
to ascertain the date at which the murder had been committed, and
(if the discovery encouraged further investigation) to find out
next the manner in which Mr. Brown had died.

Thus far, what progress had he made? He had discovered that the
date of Mr. Brown's death, inscribed on the locket, and the date
of the crime committed at the inn, approached each other nearly
enough to justify further investigation.

In the meantime, had he succeeded in keeping his object concealed
from Emily? He had perfectly succeeded. Hearing him declare that
her interests only had occupied his mind, the poor girl
innocently entreated him to forgive her little outbreak of
temper. "If you have any more questions to ask me, Mr. Morris,
pray go on. I promise never to think unjustly of you again."

He went on with an uneasy conscience--for it seemed cruel to
deceive her, even in the interests of truth--but still he went
on.

"Suppose we assume that this woman had injured your father in
some way," he said. "Am I right in believing that it was in his
character to forgive injuries?"

"Entirely right."

"In that case, his death may have left Mrs. Rook in a position to
be called to account, by those who owe a duty to his memory--I
mean the surviving members of his family."

"There are but two of us, Mr. Morris. My aunt and myself."

"There are his executors."

"My aunt is his only executor."

"Your father's sister--I presume?"

"Yes."

"He may have left instructions with her, which might be of the
greatest use to us."

"I will write to-day, and find out," Emily replied. "I had
already planned to consult my aunt," she added, thinking again of
Miss Jethro.

"If your aunt has not received any positive instructions," Alban
continued, "she may remember some allusion to Mrs. Rook, on your
father's part, at the time of his last illness--"

Emily stopped him. "You don't know how my dear father died," she
said. "He was struck down--apparently in perfect health--by
disease of the heart."

"Struck down in his own house?"

"Yes--in his own house."

Those words closed Alban's lips. The investigation so carefully
and so delicately conducted had failed to serve any useful
purpose. He had now ascertained the manner of Mr. Brown's death
and the place of Mr. Brown's death--and he was as far from
confirming his suspicions of Mrs. Rook as ever.

CHAPTER XI.

THE DRAWING-MASTER'S CONFESSION.

"Is there nothing else you can suggest?" Emily asked.

"Nothing--at present."

"If my aunt fails us, have we no other hope?"

"I have hope in Mrs. Rook," Alban answered. "I see I surprise
you; but I really mean what I say. Sir Jervis's housekeeper is an
excitable woman, and she is fond of wine. There is always a weak
side in the character of such a person as that. If we wait for
our chance, and turn it to the right use when it comes, we may
yet succeed in making her betray herself."

Emily listened to him in bewilderment.

"You talk as if I was sure of your help in the future," she said.
"Have you forgotten that I leave school to-day, never to return?
In half an hour more, I shall be condemned to a long journey in
the company of that horrible creature--with a life to look
forward to, in the same house with her, among strangers! A
miserable prospect, and a hard trial of a girl's courage--is it
not, Mr. Morris?"

"You will at least have one person, Miss Emily, who will try with
all his heart and soul to encourage you."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," said Alban, quietly, "that the Midsummer vacation
begins to-day; and that the drawing-master is going to spend his
holidays in the North."

Emily jumped up from her chair. "You!" she exclaimed. "_You_ are
going to Northumberland? With me?"

"Why not?" Alban asked. "The railway is open to all travelers
alike, if they have money enough to buy a ticket."

"Mr. Morris! what _can_ you be thinking of? Indeed, indeed, I am
not ungrateful. I know you mean kindly--you are a good, generous
man. But do remember how completely a girl, in my position, is at
the mercy of appearances. You, traveling in the same carriage
with me! and that woman putting her own vile interpretation on
it, and degrading me in Sir Jervis Redwood's estimation, on the
day when I enter his house! Oh, it's worse than thoughtless--it's
madness, downright madness."

"You are quite right," Alban gravely agreed, "it _is_ madness. I
lost whatever little reason I once possessed, Miss Emily, on the
day when I first met you out walking with the young ladies of the
school."

Emily turned away in significant silence. Alban followed her.

"You promised just now," he said, "never to think unjustly of me
again. I respect and admire you far too sincerely to take a base
advantage of this occasion--the only occasion on which I have
been permitted to speak with you alone. Wait a little before you
condemn a man whom you don't understand. I will say nothing to
annoy you--I only ask leave to explain myself. Will you take your
chair again?"

She returned unwillingly to her seat. "It can only end," she
thought, sadly, "in my disappointing him!"

"I have had the worst possible opinion of women for years past,"
Alban resumed; "and the only reason I can give for it condemns me
out of my own mouth. I have been infamously treated by one woman;
and my wounded self-esteem has meanly revenged itself by reviling
the whole sex. Wait a little, Miss Emily. My fault has received
its fit punishment. I have been thoroughly humiliated--and _you_
have done it."

"Mr. Morris!"

"Take no offense, pray, where no offense is meant. Some few years
since it was the great misfortune of my life to meet with a Jilt.
You know what I mean?"

"Yes."

"She was my equal by birth (I am a younger son of a country
squire), and my superior in rank. I can honestly tell you that I
was fool enough to love her with all my heart and soul. She never
allowed me to doubt--I may say this without conceit, remembering
the miserable end of it--that my feeling for her was returned.
Her father and mother (excellent people) approved of the
contemplated marriage. She accepted my presents; she allowed all
the customary preparations for a wedding to proceed to
completion; she had not even mercy en ough, or shame enough, to
prevent me from publicly degrading myself by waiting for her at
the altar, in the presence of a large congregation. The minutes
passed--and no bride appeared. The clergyman, waiting like me,
was requested to return to the vestry. I was invited to follow
him. You foresee the end of the story, of course? She had run
away with another man. But can you guess who the man was? Her
groom!"

Emily's face reddened with indignation. "She suffered for it? Oh,
Mr. Morris, surely she suffered for it?"

"Not at all. She had money enough to reward the groom for
marrying her; and she let herself down easily to her husband's
level. It was a suitable marriage in every respect. When I last
heard of them, they were regularly in the habit of getting drunk
together. I am afraid I have disgusted you? We will drop the
subject, and resume my precious autobiography at a later date.
One showery day in the autumn of last year, you young ladies went
out with Miss Ladd for a walk. When you were all trotting back
again, under your umbrellas, did you (in particular) notice an
ill-tempered fellow standing in the road, and getting a good look
at you, on the high footpath above him?"

Emily smiled, in spite of herself. "I don't remember it," she
said.

"You wore a brown jacket which fitted you as if you had been born
in it--and you had the smartest little straw hat I ever saw on a
woman's head. It was the first time I ever noticed such things. I
think I could paint a portrait of the boots you wore (mud
included), from memory alone. That was the impression you
produced on me. After believing, honestly believing, that love
was one of the lost illusions of my life--after feeling, honestly
feeling, that I would as soon look at the devil as look at a
woman--there was the state of mind to which retribution had
reduced me; using for his instrument Miss Emily Brown. Oh, don't
be afraid of what I may say next! In your presence, and out of
your presence, I am man enough to be ashamed of my own folly. I
am resisting your influence over me at this moment, with the
strongest of all resolutions--the resolution of despair. Let's
look at the humorous side of the story again. What do you think I
did when the regiment of young ladies had passed by me?"

Emily declined to guess.

"I followed you back to the school; and, on pretense of having a
daughter to educate, I got one of Miss Ladd's prospectuses from
the porter at the lodge gate. I was in your neighborhood, you
must know, on a sketching tour. I went back to my inn, and
seriously considered what had happened to me. The result of my
cogitations was that I went abroad. Only for a change--not at all
because I was trying to weaken the impression you had produced on
me! After a while I returned to England. Only because I was tired
of traveling--not at all because your influence drew me back!
Another interval passed; and luck turned my way, for a wonder.
The drawing-master's place became vacant here. Miss Ladd
advertised; I produced my testimonials; and took the situation.
Only because the salary was a welcome certainty to a poor
man--not at all because the new position brought me into personal
association with Miss Emily Brown! Do you begin to see why I have
troubled you with all this talk about myself? Apply the
contemptible system of self-delusion which my confession has
revealed, to that holiday arrangement for a tour in the north
which has astonished and annoyed you. I am going to travel this
afternoon by your train. Only because I feel an intelligent
longing to see the northernmost county of England--not at all
because I won't let you trust yourself alone with Mrs. Rook! Not
at all because I won't leave you to enter Sir Jervis Redwood's
service without a friend within reach in case you want him! Mad?
Oh, yes--perfectly mad. But, tell me this: What do all sensible
people do when they find themselves in the company of a lunatic?
They humor him. Let me take your ticket and see your luggage
labeled: I only ask leave to be your traveling servant. If you
are proud--I shall like you all the better, if you are--pay me
wages, and keep me in my proper place in that way.

Some girls, addressed with this reckless intermingling of jest
and earnest, would have felt confused, and some would have felt
flattered. With a good-tempered resolution, which never passed
the limits of modesty and refinement, Emily met Alban Morris on
his own ground.

"You have said you respect me," she began; "I am going to prove
that I believe you. The least I can do is not to misinterpret
you, on my side. Am I to understand, Mr. Morris--you won't think
the worse of me, I hope, if I speak plainly--am I to understand
that you are in love with me?"

"Yes, Miss Emily--if you please."

He had answered with the quaint gravity which was peculiar to
him; but he was already conscious of a sense of discouragement.
Her composure was a bad sign--from his point of view.

"My time will come, I daresay," she proceeded. "At present I know
nothing of love, by experience; I only know what some of my
schoolfellows talk about in secret. Judging by what they tell me,
a girl blushes when her lover pleads with her to favor his
addresses. Am I blushing?"

"Must I speak plainly, too?" Alban asked.

"If you have no objection," she answered, as composedly as if she
had been addressing her grandfather.

"Then, Miss Emily, I must say--you are not blushing."

She went on. "Another token of love--as I am informed--is to
tremble. Am I trembling?"

"No."

"Am I too confused to look at you?"

"No."

"Do I walk away with dignity--and then stop, and steal a timid
glance at my lover, over my shoulder?"

"I wish you did!"

"A plain answer, Mr. Morris! Yes or No."

"No--of course."

"In one last word, do I give you any sort of encouragement to try
again?"

"In one last word, I have made a fool of myself--and you have
taken the kindest possible way of telling me so."

This time, she made no attempt to reply in his own tone. The
good-humored gayety of her manner disappeared. She was in
earnest--truly, sadly in earnest--when she said her next words.

"Is it not best, in your own interests, that we should bid each
other good-by?" she asked. "In the time to come--when you only
remember how kind you once were to me--we may look forward to
meeting again. After all that you have suffered, so bitterly and
so undeservedly, don't, pray don't, make me feel that another
woman has behaved cruelly to you, and that I--so grieved to
distress you--am that heartless creature!"

Never in her life had she been so irresistibly charming as she
was at that moment. Her sweet nature showed all its innocent pity
for him in her face.

He saw it--he felt it--he was not unworthy of it. In silence, he
lifted her hand to his lips. He turned pale as he kissed it.

"Say that you agree with me?" she pleaded.

"I obey you."

As he answered, he pointed to the lawn at their feet. "Look," he
said, "at that dead leaf which the air is wafting over the grass.
Is it possible that such sympathy as you feel for Me, such love
as I feel for You, can waste, wither, and fall to the ground like
that leaf? I leave you, Emily--with the firm conviction that
there is a time of fulfillment to come in our two lives. Happen
what may in the interval--I trust the future."

The words had barely passed his lips when the voice of one of the
servants reached them from the house. "Miss Emily, are you in the
garden?"

Emily stepped out into the sunshine. The servant hurried to meet
her, and placed a telegram in her hand. She looked at it with a
sudden misgiving. In her small experience, a telegram was
associated with the communication of bad news. She conquered her
hesitation--opened it--read it. The color left her face: she
shuddered. The telegram dropped on the grass.

"Read it," she said, faintly, as Alban picked it up.

He read these words: "Come to London directly. Miss Letitia is
dangerously ill."

"Your aunt?" he asked.

"Yes--my aunt."

BOOK THE SECOND--IN LONDON.

CHAPTER XII.

MRS. ELLMOTHER.

The metropolis of Great Britain is, in certain respects, like no
other metropolis on the face of the earth. In the population that
throngs the st reets, the extremes of Wealth and the extremes of
Poverty meet, as they meet nowhere else. In the streets
themselves, the glory and the shame of architecture--the mansion
and the hovel--are neighbors in situation, as they are neighbors
nowhere else. London, in its social aspect, is the city of
contrasts.

Toward the close of evening Emily left the railway terminus for
the place of residence in which loss of fortune had compelled her
aunt to take refuge. As she approached her destination, the cab
passed--by merely crossing a road--from a spacious and beautiful
Park, with its surrounding houses topped by statues and cupolas,
to a row of cottages, hard by a stinking ditch miscalled a canal.
The city of contrasts: north and south, east and west, the city
of social contrasts.

Emily stopped the cab before the garden gate of a cottage, at the
further end of the row. The bell was answered by the one servant
now in her aunt's employ--Miss Letitia's maid.

Personally, this good creature was one of the ill-fated women
whose appearance suggests that Nature intended to make men of
them and altered her mind at the last moment. Miss Letitia's maid
was tall and gaunt and awkward. The first impression produced by
her face was an impression of bones. They rose high on her
forehead; they projected on her cheeks; and they reached their
boldest development in her jaws. In the cavernous eyes of this
unfortunate person rigid obstinacy and rigid goodness looked out
together, with equal severity, on all her fellow-creatures alike.
Her mistress (whom she had served for a quarter of a century and
more) called her "Bony." She accepted this cruelly appropriate
nick-name as a mark of affectionate familiarity which honored a
servant. No other person was allowed to take liberties with her:
to every one but her mistress she was known as Mrs. Ellmother.

"How is my aunt?" Emily asked.

"Bad."

"Why have I not heard of her illness before?"

"Because she's too fond of you to let you be distressed about
her. 'Don't tell Emily'; those were her orders, as long as she
kept her senses."

"Kept her senses? Good heavens! what do you mean?"

"Fever--that's what I mean."

"I must see her directly; I am not afraid of infection."

"There's no infection to be afraid of. But you mustn't see her,
for all that."

"I insist on seeing her."

"Miss Emily, I am disappointing you for your own good. Don't you
know me well enough to trust me by this time?"

"I do trust you."

"Then leave my mistress to me--and go and make yourself
comfortable in your own room."

Emily's answer was a positive refusal. Mrs. Ellmother, driven to
her last resources, raised a new obstacle.

"It's not to be done, I tell you! How can you see Miss Letitia
when she can't bear the light in her room? Do you know what color
her eyes are? Red, poor soul--red as a boiled lobster."

With every word the woman uttered, Emily's perplexity and
distress increased.

"You told me my aunt's illness was fever," she said--"and now you
speak of some complaint in her eyes. Stand out of the way, if you
please, and let me go to her."

Mrs. Ellmother, still keeping her place, looked through the open
door.

"Here's the doctor," she announced. "It seems I can't satisfy
you; ask him what's the matter. Come in, doctor." She threw open
the door of the parlor, and introduced Emily. "This is the
mistress's niece, sir. Please try if _you_ can keep her quiet. I
can't." She placed chairs with the hospitable politeness of the
old school--and returned to her post at Miss Letitia's bedside.

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