265

CHAPTER XXII.

FATAL, FAIRE GIFT то ME.

"It came with silent, owly flight,
In the still quiet of the night:

I heard the wind, I heard the brook,
But the love slid into my soul like light."

"GOING out again, Cyril?" asked Cicely in a fretful voice, raising herself on the sofa, as her husband glanced into the drawing room the following evening.

"My dear, why not? You surely do not object to my going down to the club?"

"O Cyril, it is Christmas-day! I do think you might stay at home."

Betty, reading over the fire, thought so too; however, she did not utter her thoughts aloud, but rose and moved quickly towards the door.

"Where are you going?" asked Cyril, sharply. "For the third volume of my story," his sister made reply, without turning her head.

His question sounded rather like a cry for help, and as such Betty interpreted it. 'But I do not

really think," she said to herself, her lips the while parting in an amused smile, "that I am bound to save him from his wife."

Cyril felt annoyed-unreasonably annoyed-with Elizabeth when she closed the door. It seemed to him that he was being left just when he stood most in need of help, and that was not at all agreeable to his ideas-for a shield in time of danger was always his first thought. He hated scenes and

storms or as he himself would have put it, he valued domestic peace above every other earthly blessing. But then his idea of obtaining domestic peace was to be quietly allowed his own way in everything, and more even than that-that it should be delicately insinuated to him at the same time that he was most unselfish and considerate, for the pricks of conscience were as much to be warded off as any other annoyance.

Now this was a rôle that Cicely was not at all prone to play. She was not one to suffer neglect quietly when it interfered with her own comfort, for the sake of offering balm to Cyril's conscienceand of this her husband was quite aware.

So, painfully conscious that a storm was impending-a storm in which unpleasant words might be uttered, which would tend to embitter his whole. evening-it was with a most angry feeling in his heart that he saw the door close on Betty, and found himself alone in the room with his wife.

"Father and Jessie are coming this evening,' was Cicely's first remark, "so you ought to stay in."

"I think that is rather a reason against it," Cyril replied, lightly; "of course I would not have thought of leaving you if you had been quite alone"-and at the moment of speaking he really believed that his words were true. "In fact, I daresay you would prefer my room to my company, if you really owned to what you would like.'

"No, I should not," Cicely retorted sharply, raising her voice a little; "and you know it. I think you are behaving unkindly to me, and most slightingly to my father-not that either of those considerations are likely to weigh heavily with you. However, I shall tell them that you found the society of the club more amusing."

"I do not think that is a kind way of speaking, Cicely; neither do I think that a woman has much self-respect who complains, even to her own family, that her husband is wanting in attention to her and hers. And," after a pause-Cicely evidently meanwhile meditating a disagreeable reply—" you know such want of attention may be construed by an impartial judge into showing that if the husband was not all he should be, perhaps the wife was not either."

This was a crushing retort, and for a second it silenced Cicely, who was accustomed only to Cyril's way of slipping out of the duties he did. not care about - not openly stating an opinion about them and in that moment's pause Cyril made his way to the door, feeling that for once he had had the best of it, and that having had the last word, he could now leave, carrying away with him

the pleasing sensation that he had given a welldeserved reproof must judiciously, and with a light, easy conscience of his own-so easy is it, in blaming another, to forget that we ourselves may have been a little guilty also.

But he was not doomed to escape so easily.

Cicely soon recovered her senses and voice, and though Mr Stevens took refuge in silence, he could not avoid hearing the greater portion of the shower of sharp, angry words raining down upon him.

But he made no reply; being bent upon taking his own way, he knew there would be no use trying to soothe her; and in the midst of her anger Cicely became suddenly aware that the door had closed behind her husband, and that she was alone, which served to check her, with the sensation that cold water had been thrown in her face. Before she had quite made up her mind whether to run after him or not, the shutting of the hall-door told her that he was beyond her reach.

Cicely told her father, as she had threatened, that the reason of Cyril's absence was, that he preferred the society of his club to that of his wife and her family; but old Mr Arbuthnot took her speech in a half-playful sense, not noting the bitter tone in which it was uttered. Not so Jessie.

"Father," she said, as they drove home, "do you think Cicely is happy?"

"Happy, my dear! Of course she is. What do you mean?" he added, a little uneasily.

"I don't think so. She looks wretched, and-" "She is ill, my dear; but as for anything else, it

is impossible. Did she not marry Cyril for love? They were devoted to one another.”

"Were," Jessie insisted; "that is a very different thing."

"I wish, Jessie," Mr Arbuthnot said, rousing himself, and speaking rather irritably, "that you would be more careful in what you state. It is quite wrong of you to say such things on supposition, for you know how it worries me, even though I am certain that there is no truth in this; for if Cicely were unhappy, I should have been the first person to find it out."

Jessie had never been remarkable for tact, and here was a fresh instance that she had not even yet acquired very much of that useful quality; for her father, usually so placid and easy-going, was evidently thoroughly vexed, and all to no purpose. But notwithstanding Mr Arbuthnot's vexation and disbelieving words, Jessie remained unconvinced. "She is not happy," she said, shaking her head wilfully, as she went up to her own room; "I am certain of it."

Mr Rayton remained faithful to his promise, and at four o'clock on the day after Christmas-day he entered the drawing-room of No. 1. He was not even yet quite certain in his own mind whether he was acting rightly and wisely in coming.

All the previous day, at intervals, he had half thought of writing instead, but, nevertheless, here he was; and when Delicia turned her serious grey eyes upon him, with a look of welcome he had