"That's well. After all I suppose one may pay too dearly for sentiment—it wouldn't do to sacrifice one's life to a garden, would it? No, I think you are right-I've no doubt it was the best thing to do."

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Only you wouldn't have done it?" "Oh, I don't say that. I daresay I might if I'd been sufficiently tempted. Besides I don't think it's quite a parallel case; you see I knew the place before the time when I met you here; I stayed with the Macleans a long while ago when I was a lad. I suspect the old garden was more to me than to you -naturally, you know."

Oh heaven! The garden was more to him than to her "naturally, you know." More to him when she would have watered it with her heart's blood to keep it fair for his home-coming. And she shivered as she walked by his side, because it seemed to her that the leaf-sprays which he brushed with his slim fingers as he spoke must surely betray her, must burst into some novel and splendid blossom to greet him for whom they and she had waited so long.

"Yes," said Philip, "no doubt you were right." He looked up suddenly, "I'd forgotten that tree-what is it?"

"It's a pear," said Mary.

one

that matter I wasn't as much surprised as you were I'm certain you took me for my own ghost."

"Well," said Mary, "I didn't expect to see you. I thought you were abroad."

"Abroad? What made you think that? No, I'm living in West Kensington-why should I be abroad?"

"I thought you were in New Zealand with your brother."

"Oh no! I've been in Kensington for a year and a half-nearly two years. Who told you I was going to New Zealand? No -did I really? By Jove, what an unconscionable fellow I am! I'm always telling people all my hopes and fears. I don't know why they are so kind, I wonder they don't kick me out for a bore. Yes, I did think once, when my uncle married, that I might have to go, but I always felt as if something must turn up. It would have been too absurd-fancy me in New Zealand!" "Something did turn up then?" said the girl faintly.

"Well, yes. My uncle's marriage wasn't such a calamity after all. His wife took rather a liking to me, I think, (another of the kind people!) and the old gentleman said he'd continue my allowance for a bit. He is always dabbling in stocks and shares, you know, and he made one or two lucky hits just about that time. So there was an end of the New Zealand scheme, and I started on my own account, with a commission to paint my aunt's picture to begin with." "And you are succeeding?"

"That's too much to say," Philip answered with his pleasant smile. "But I think I may succeed some day-I've good friends, and good hopes. Ah, by the way, Miss Medland-Miss Wynne, I mean (why didn't you keep your old name too? It would have been very nice, Medland-Wynne, and would have given one time to think,) by the way, you might be one of the good friends if you would."

"What do you mean? I couldn't have my portrait taken!" cried Mary, with

"I hope so."

"For, after all, it will always be a memory, won't it? And this is a very pleasant ending. But I was surprised when the gate flew open and there you were! Though, for

"Oh no!" Wargrave laughed, "I don't tout for orders like that! No, don't apologise, it did sound exactly like it. No, but you might let me make a study of the garden. I came down to see if that were possible, and then heard it was such a dragon-guarded spot

"Oh, of course!" said Mary. "Yes, I can

fortune. Do you remember a Miss Hillier who came with some friends of yours in the spring? Well, she took it into her head that I should find the subject for a picture here a girl's figure with the old garden for a background. A Guardian Genius she wanted to call it, but I think I'd rather have it Eligible Building Ground. What do you say?"

66

Yes, I think perhaps it would be best." Wargrave nodded. "I think it's an idea," he continued confidentially. "Suppose the garden had fallen into the hands of some one to whom it was a real pain to part with it-some one like Ethel Hillier herself for instance-compelled to give it up, say by loss of fortune-can't you fancy the last pathetic look round the dear old place? Yes, I think she was right."

"Do you know Miss Hillier very well?" "Pretty well," said the young man. He paused by a rosemary bush, broke off a shoot and looked fixedly at it, smiling and even colouring a little in a very becoming manner. "The fact is I'm engaged to be married. I've been engaged since the spring, and Ethel Hillier and Evelyn-she's a Miss Seymour-are sworn friends. If this thing

were a real success

66

'Well, you must make it so," said Mary. "And you must let me congratulate you."

It was speedily arranged that the young man should begin work at once. "There is no time to lose in these October days," he said. "I put up at the Horn,' in the High Street, you know, last night. I'll just go and get what I want-it isn't far."

Mary saw him off, gave orders to the maid that he was to be re-admitted on his return, and then went up to her own room and closed the door. She had been quite calm and composed through all the latter part of her talk with Philip, and she was quite calm now. She sat down by her bedside and gazed blankly at the light-coloured wall, on which her shadow was faintly pencilled by the pale sunshine.

In a

It is curious how quickly the great changes come which shape us and all our destinies. It is a moment, not an hour, which turns love to hate, or despair to hope. lightning flash the whole aspect of the world is transformed, sun, moon, and stars are new in new heavens, the tides and currents of our lives are all reversed. It was not twenty minutes since Philip had turned to her with shining eyes and ready congratulations. "What! married?" The words rang yet in her ears, though, as it seemed, she had lived a lifetime since they were spoken.

She felt sick and strange with a horror of her foolish passion. He had never thought of her, never cared for her, he was "always telling people his hopes and fears," and she had carried these easily uttered, hackneyed confidences of his in her heart, not suspecting that she shared her treasure with Miss Evelyn Seymour, Miss Ethel Hillier, and, most likely, half-a-dozen more. For the sake of such words as these she had suffered in silence, she had fought against her conscience the whole summer through, she had left the people at her gate to fever and misery. Yes, but, thank God, she had yielded before she knew the truth-thank God! thank God! Now she would escape from Brenthill, and the garden would be destroyed, the beautiful, hateful garden. It would drive her mad to live through another round of seasons shut in by its walls. Life had been nothing but a long, malarious dream since first she knew the place, a bewildering, blossoming, suffocating dream, full of idle fancies and memories and cravings. She was overwhelmed with hot shame, she thought she would never draw breath freely till the last tree fell, and the last fibre of root was torn from the soil.

A bell jangled sharply through her reverie. Philip back from the Horn' already? She sprang to her feet and went to the glass to make a critical inspection of her colour and expression. As she bent forward to the face which leaned to meet her there came a knocking at the door.

"I suppose that is the gentleman who left just now?" she said without turning her head. "Ask him if he likes to go straight into the garden."

"No, miss, it isn't that gentleman." And the maid presented a card on which was inscribed, "Mr. Thomas Brydon," with a hurriedly written line below, "Pray let me see you for five minutes."

Her champion, her deliverer-what could he have to say to her? Perhaps he had some scheme for facilitating her departure, he might be too impatient to wait till after the sale, which was fixed for the middle of November. "Show Mr. Brydon into the drawing-room," she said as she refastened the little brooch at her throat. It hampered her, she could not breathe.

She found her visitor standing at the window, looking out, a small sharply-cut silhouette against the clear glass. He turned and came forward.

"Thank you for letting me speak to you," he began hurriedly. "They told me you didn't see anybody, but as it was a matter of business-" All at once he broke off and

well, really?"

66

Are you

Quite well, except for a headache or two. I think it feels close here after the sea-breezes. Won't you sit down?" By this time Mary had drawn him away from the window, and the light fell on his face. "You don't look very well, Mr. Brydon."

"I'm well enough, only a bit worried," he said shortly. "It's about this business of ours."

"I guessed as much. You want to come in sooner-is that it?"

"Not exactly. coming in at all.”

The question is about my

Mary gazed at him with parted lips, but did not speak.

"Look here," said Brydon, "I've been thinking things over, and the more I think the less I like this plan of mine. What right have I to turn you out of your home? When I first proposed it I thought it was only a matter of money, but it has never been a matter of money with you. Suppose I fail in my scheme-suppose my factory doesn't answer and my cottages fall into bad hands-then I shall have robbed you of your garden, and all for nothing, for worse than nothing. After all, there must be some risk whichever way I set to work-why shouldn't I take the risk at Holly Hill? It might only be waiting a little, and perhaps it would be best; indeed, I think it might be. And you would be glad, wouldn't you?"

The words were uttered in tones of unwonted softness, but Mary could not answer. O heaven! was this garden to live and flower in spite of her? Was she to be caught and thrust back into it, to dwell for ever with empty mocking memories—the garden living and everything else dead, even the throbbing of the looms silenced behind the long red wall?

"Tell me," said Brydon; "you would be glad?"

66

Glad," she repeated in a strangled meaningless voice. "You have changed too,

then?"

"Yes, I've changed-time I did, I think. What is the matter?"

"Not you! I never thought you would change!"

"Of course not. I didn't think so myself." "You told me you would not!" she cried. "I was so sure of you. I thought you cared for those poor people that you would be

true to your plans; I thought that any tim -any time-and I put it off, and now have tired you out and it is too late!

"No, no," Brydon exclaimed, "it isn' like that don't you reproach yourself. know what you are thinking of. But if I can really manage to do without your garder --why did I ever torment you so about it: if you could keep it with a clear .com science- ("If I could keep you for ever close at hand!" he was thinking as he stammered over his spoken words.)

"Mr. Brydon, you are giving me more for the garden than it is worth," Mary interrupted him with passionate abruptness. "I know it-I have known it all the time. I don't want so much. Take it, but only give me half for it. That will be enough--it will indeed. I want you to build your cottages -you must! you must! I will tell Mr. Eddington that it is my doing."

The small young man had started to his feet, and seemed to have grown taller. He faced her, he was furious.

Thank you, Miss Wynne! So you think that is at the bottom of it--you think I came here to try to sneak out of my bargain be cause I didn't like the price, and wasn't man enough to say so! Well, if you wanted to clinch the business you've gone the right way to work, for I'll have the garden now, by God! And you'll take my offer, for the matter has gone too far-unless we both agreed to break it off, and that I won't do!"

"Don't! don't! I can't bear it," said the girl. "I didn't mean that-you must know I didn't. I don't know what I did mean, but not that I couldn't! You must be more patient with me, please!"

"I'm a brute!" said Brydon instantly. "I beg your pardon."

There was a brief silence. "I don't quite understand," he continued after a moment. "You wish me to take it?"

She answered "Yes," with pale lips that scarcely uttered a sound.

"Then of course I will. And I will do the best I can. Perhaps," he said musingly, "I might use part, a strip by the factory, and another bit, at the lane end, you know. If I had the frontage there"

"But you must build your cottages," she said again. "I thought of them while I was at Salthaven. I ought to have let you begin in the spring. Why did you never tell me the people in the lane had had fever?"

"It wasn't much. Only two cases and they are all right."

"If they had died it would have been my fault."

66

Hardly," said B you were feeling lik to me after you cam "And you wil

"But I knew when you wrote

"she insisted,

colouring with a guilty consciousness of the mixture of motives which he could not divine.

"Yes, I will build. But if I can spare a bit near the house, just two or three elms for a home for your rooks, a bit of turf, and that old buttressed wall with the lilies and the lavender at the foot of it-the wall with the tufts of snapdragon-you would like that? You would like to know that that bit was safe and cared for wherever you were, wouldn't you? And perhaps some day you would come back and see it?"

Mary shook her head. "No," she said, "I thank you a thousand times, but let the garden go; I ought to have given it up before now. I would rather it all went; I would, really. Don't cramp the cottages to save a useless piece of it."

'I know what that means," said Brydon, looking steadily at her.

But

"And pray what does it mean?" she herself knew so well what it meant that she could not meet his gaze.

"It means that you will never come back. That you can give up the whole as readily as the half because nothing will ever induce you to set foot in Brenthill when once your garden has been touched. That you will remember it as it is now, and hate the thought

"No," cried Mary, moved by a sudden impulse. "I never will come back to the garden or any part of it-never! But if you will take it and carry out your plan-if you will make amends for all my selfishness and folly-" She had risen and faced him with eloquent eyes.

"What will you do?"

"I will come back and see your cottages when they are built."

She was startled at her own words, as if an alien voice had uttered them; she could not think what had prompted her. She could almost have doubted whether she had spoken them had it not been for Mr. Brydon's face.

"I take that as a promise," he said simply. "You will let me know where you are, and you shall hear when they are finished." He was content to say no more, and held out his hand instantly in leavetaking.

Mary accompanied him to the hall, where they found Philip Wargrave, who had just been admitted by the maid. The men looked

a little curiously at each other, and she introduced them, not without a touch of wondering pride in her own calmness. "Mr. Wargrave is going to make a sketch of the garden for his next picture," she added in an explanatory tone.

"A little remembrance of a favourite spot, just for a background, you know," said Philip, smiling regretfully. "I've heard of you from Miss Hillier."

Brydon murmured something about "the pleasure of meeting Miss Hillier in the spring."

"You made a deep impression, I assure you," said the young artist. "She took such an interest in the garden. I think myself there is a peculiar charm about the dear old place."

"It is very pretty," the mill - owner agreed. "I remember Miss Hillier admired it."

66

'Yes, and she remembers you-as Adamant! I believe she habitually thinks of you as the Desolator, for she was sure you would get your own way."

"Mr. Brydon came this morning to tell me he could do without the garden," said Mary quietly, in her clear voice.

"No!" cried Wargrave. "Oh Miss Medland, you might have spared me this!" "Spared you what?"

He

"Oh, why did you tell me? Why didn't you leave me in ignorance till my picture was finished? Why did you upset your arrangements to-day of all days?" bemoaned himself tragically, and yet with a little laughing self-mockery about his lips. "Here was I, steeped to the very eyes in sentiment; to my finger tips," he stretched out his long slender hands, "I've been steeped in it ever since Ethel Hillier came back; I was aching deliciously with helpless regret for the old garden, I believe my work would have been a masterpiece of pathos-Oh, a masterpiece!-and you and Mr. Brydon have conspired together to ruin it. It will be a sham now, the trees and I posing together in a make-believe farewell. It's cruel cruel! One doesn't have such fine feelings every day of one's life." And Wargrave threw himself on one of the hall chairs, while Brydon stood and smiled.

"You'd better go and paint the masterpiece. I didn't accept Mr. Brydon's sacrifice it's all right," said Mary.

"I'll undertake that the trees haven't six weeks to live, if that will do," the Desolator chimed in encouragingly.

"Oh!" said Philip getting up, and looking from one to the other. "Well, you've

spoilt my morning, anyhow. What do you suppose I'm going to do after such a shock as this? I shall have to meditate sadly on inexorable fate till I can get myself into tune again."

"Meanwhile we all seem to be of one mind at last," said Mary with a little lingering emphasis as she shook hands with Brydon.

The sale is over, it is late in November, and Miss Wynne left Brenthill ten days ago. Philip Wargrave is at work in his West Kensington studio, he has high hopes of his picture. He certainly never planned anything before which promised half as well as this. Ethel Hillier is standing for the figure of the Guardian Genius; Philip Genius; Philip asked her because he felt that he and she really understood and cared for the old place as no one else did.

Brydon is exceedingly unpopular in Brenthill just now. The Ladies' Committee abuse him over their tea-cups for his refusal to spare the "historic pleasure-ground" till May or June, when they intend to hold their bazaar in aid of Female Education in India. He answered their deputation of whom he secretly stood in extreme terror with the desperate frankness of a shy man compelled to speak. When they assured him that it could not really make any difference if the people in the lane waited a few months longer for their cottages, and that he could begin to build just as well in July, he told them that they didn't know what they were talking about, and it was perfectly absurd. They I did not like this. And when he offered them a barrow-load of historic brickbats to sell as souvenirs, they took his innocent readiness to oblige them for a mocking insult, threw his brickbats, figuratively, in his face, and went away to give various very

graphic versions of the interview, in all of which Mr. Brydon came off very badly indeed. And if the ladies are disp'sed, so also are the good folks in the lane-they can't think what call he has to be meddling there. It was well enough if he would have let things be, but this is worse than the mess he made there in the summer with his nasty dirty drains. It was a pity somebody couldn't go and muddle about Mr. Brydon's own house till he didn't know which way to turn, and see how he'd like it.

e

The young man takes no heed of scowling brows, but goes his way with an obstinately good-humoured look on his face. The work of destruction advances fast, and he stops late at night to inspect it on his way home from the office. The workmen have made a wide cartway through the wall where the little door used to be, and he looks in through the great yawning breach. The light shines on its jagged edges, but there is a thin white fog which makes the garden beyond, with its poor remnant of trees, a place of sheeted ghosts. The ct down already, the double thorn, broken and disconsolate, stands waiting its fate, the rooks have been scared away, the turf in the foreground, "mossy-fine," is seamed with gaping ruts. It will soon be all over. Dead, long ago, the hands that planted those trees and laid those bricks, and the whole garden is vanishing like a picture seen in the fire, or a drifting smoke-wreath, vanishing in the love-quarrels, ambitions, and plans of little lives, so brief beside its long, pe growth. Thomas Brydon, stumbling over fragmentary building materials as he leaves the spot, has no time for its memories, he is too intent on the thought of the cottages which Mary Wynne will come some day to see. MARGARET VELEY.

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