Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/689

1868.] would be spent; but love promises, through tenderest fulfilment of whose spirit all the years to come had been made sweet!

Steven, Steven. His name rang through her brain with a persistency that grew at last into a positive bodily torture, and so to still it, as a child seeks to still a ghost-terror by calling on it aloud, she forced herself, with trembling lips, to bring out his name. "Steven Lawrence won't come to my wedding, Bella, did you know? but he accepted the invitation, papa tells me, to dine with them yesterday. Perhaps it's natural he should stay away, from the wedding, I mean; but I'm glad to think he has dined once more at the Dene, and that he and Lord Petres have met. I'd like to think," the wistful sound of her voice made this a question, " that I should see his face once more in this world!"

"But why should you not see it, as many times as you like?" replied Mrs. Deering, with characteristic generosity. "Steven Lawrence's position has been awkward as regards you, hitherto, from the warm way in which you espoused poor Dora's part. But time softens everything. You and Lord Petres both like Steven Lawrence. I should think nothing would be easier and kinder than for you to invite him to Ecclestone."

"But before long he will have left England forever," said Katharine. "I hear, at second-hand, of course—it's more than a year since he has spoken to me; but the people in Clithero all say Steven Lawrence means to sell his farm and return to America. No opportunity of being kind to him with the Atlantic between us!"

"Then ask him to Ecclestone, without delay," said Mrs. Deering; "though really, in these days, a man's going to India or America scarcely seems more to separate him from his friends now than his going to Ireland. Space is so relative, and—and talking of India, we have left out Freddy Marsland! Is there time yet, do you think, to send him a note?" And then again the conversation went back to the wedding breakfast and the wedding guests, and continued in the same channel until they drove up before Mrs. Deering's house, in Hertford street.

A lad, in the red and blue uniform, at sight of which so many a heart has turned cold, was standing before the front door as the carriage stopped. "Tom!" cried Mrs. Deering aloud ("Tom" was the Deerings' oldest son at school at Brighton). "Steven!" said Katharine's heart; both women's fears at once going to what was dearest to them on earth. Mrs. Deering leaned forward and beckoned the messenger to the carriage. She was not generally a weak or an impulsive woman, but her hand shook as she took the envelope and glance at its address. "Thank God!" she cried. "Kate, my dear," handing it to Katharine, "the message is to you. It can't be very important!"

Katharine broke open the envelope; the telegram was from Lord Petres, and, by some quicker process than reading, she knew its contents. "I must go down to Clithero," steady-voiced she began, then turned with a face all changed and ashen to her sister. "I have not a moment to lose."

"Kate, Kate, what has happened? Mamma—Lord Petres?"

"Steven Lawrence has had a fall from his horse; he is badly hurt, and I am going to him. It is a quarter-past six now," for she had taken out her watch, and was looking at it. "I shall be in time for the seven o'clock train from London Bridge. Do you go with me, Bella?"

"Go with you, Kate! Can you ask such a question? Of course, if you really think our presence necessary, I go with you." And then a servant having