CHAPTER XLIII.

FAINT HEART WINS FAIR LADY.

Percival Thorne would have readily declared that it was a matter of utter indifference to him whether his landlady went at the end of March to pay a three weeks' visit to her eldest sister or whether she stayed at home. He took very little notice when Mrs. Bryant told him of her intention. She talked for some time. When she was gone Thorne found himself left with the impression that the lady in question was a Mrs. Smith, who resided somewhere in Bethnal Green; that some one was a plumber and glazier; that some one had had the measles; that trade was not all one could wish, nor were Mrs. Bryant's relations quite what they should have been, but that, she thanked Goodness, they were not all alike. This struck him as a reasonable cause for thankfulness, as otherwise there would certainly have been a terrible monotony in the family circle. He also had an idea that Mrs. Smith had received a great deal of good advice on the subject of her marriage, and he rather thought that Smith was not the sort of man to make a woman happy. "Either Smith isn't, or Bryant wasn't when he was alive--now which was it?" smiled Percival to himself, ruffling his wavy hair and leaning back in his chair with a confused sense of relief. And then the dispute about the grandmother's crockery came in, and the uncle who had a bit of money and married the widow at Margate. "I hope to Goodness Mrs. Bryant will stay away some time if she has half as much to say on her return!"

The good woman had not gone into Mr. Thorne's room for the purpose of giving him all this information. It had come naturally to her lips when she found herself there, but she merely wished to suggest to him that Lydia would be busy while she was away, and money-matters were terribly muddling, weren't they? and perhaps it would make it easier if Mr. Thorne's bill stood over. Percival understood in a moment. The careworn face, the confused manner, told him all. Lydia would probably waste the money, and the old lady, though with perceptible hesitation, had decided to trust him rather than her daughter. It was so. Lydia considered that her mother was stingy, and that finery was indispensable while she was husband-hunting.

"You see, there'll be one less to feed, and it would only bother her; and you've always been so regular with your money," said Mrs. Bryant wistfully.

"Oh, I see, perfectly," Thorne replied. "I won't trouble Miss Bryant about it. It shall be all ready for you when you come back, of course. A pleasant journey to you!"

The old lady went off, not without anxiety, but very favorably impressed with Percival's lofty manner. And he thought no more about it. But the time came when he wished that Mrs. Bryant had never thought of visiting Mrs. Smith of Bethnal Green at all.

Easter fell very late that year, far on in April, and it seemed to Judith that the holidays would never come. At last, however, they were within a week of the breaking-up day. It was Sunday, and she could say to herself, "Next Thursday I shall be free."

Bertie and she had just breakfasted, and he was leaning in his favorite attitude against the chimney-piece. She had taxed him with looking ill, but he had smilingly declared that there was nothing amiss with him.

"Do you sleep well, Bertie?" she asked wistfully.

"Pretty well. Not very much last night, by the way. But you are whiter than I am: look at yourself in the glass. Even if you deduct the green--"

Judith gazed into the verdant depths. "I don't know how much to allow," she said thoughtfully. "By the way, Bertie, I'm not going with you to St. Sylvester's this morning."

"All right!" said Bertie.

"I have a fancy to go to St. Andrew's for once," said Judith, arranging the ribbon at her throat as she spoke--"just for a change. You don't mind, do you?"

"Mind? no," said Bertie, but something in his voice caused her to look round. He was as pale as death, grasping the chimney-piece with one hand while the other was pressed upon his heart.

"Bertie! You _are_ ill! Lean on me." The little sofa was close by, and she helped him to it and ran for eau de cologne. When she came back he was lying with his head thrown back, white and still, yet looking more like himself than in that first ghastly moment. Presently the blood came back to cheek and lip, and he looked up and smiled. "You are better?" she said anxiously.

"Oh yes, I'm better. I'm all right. Can't think what made me make such a fool of myself."

"No, don't get up: lie still a little longer," said Judith, standing over him with the wicker flask in her hand. "Oh, how you frightened me!"

"Don't pour any more of that stuff over me," he answered languidly. "You must have expended quarts. I can feel little rivulets of it creep-creeping at the roots of my hair."

"But, Bertie, what was the matter with you?"

"I hardly know. It's all over now. My heart seemed to stop beating just for a moment. I wonder if it did, really? Or should I have died? Do sit down, Judith. You look as if you were going to faint too."

She sat down by him. After a minute Bertie's slim, long fingers groped restlessly, and she held them in a tender grasp. So for some time they remained hand in hand. Judith watched him furtively as he lay with closed eyes, his fair boyish face pressed on the dingy cushion, and a great tenderness lighted her quiet glance. Suddenly, Bertie's eyes opened and met hers. She answered his look of inquiry: "You are all I have, dear. We two are alone, are we not? I must be anxious if you are ill."

He pressed her hand, but he turned his face a little away, conscious at the same moment of a flush of self-reproach and of a lurking smile. "Don't!" he said. "I'm not ill. I'm all right now--never better. Isn't it time for me to be off? I say, my dear girl, if you don't look sharp you'll be late at St. Andrew's."

"St. Andrew's!" she repeated scornfully. "_I_ go to St. Andrew's _now_, and think all the service through that my bad boy may be fainting at St. Sylvester's! No, no: I shall go with you."

"Thank you," said Bertie, sitting up and running his fingers through his hair by way of preparation for church. "I shall be glad, if you don't mind."

"That is," she went on, "if you are fit to go at all."

"Oh yes. I couldn't leave old Clifton in the lurch for anything short of sudden death, and even then he'd feel himself ill used. Stay at home because I felt faint? It would be as much as my place is worth," said Bertie with a smile of which Judith could not understand the fine irony.

"I'll go and get ready," she said. But she went to the door of Percival's sitting-room and knocked.

"Come in," he answered, and she opened it. He was stooping over his fire, poker in hand. She paused on the threshold, and, after breaking a hard lump of coal, he looked over his shoulder: "Miss Lisle! I beg your pardon. I thought they had come for the breakfast things."

"Oh!" she said, in a slightly disappointed tone. "You are not going to church to-day." For Thorne was more picturesquely careless in his apparel than is the wont of the British church-goer.

A rapid change of mind enabled him to answer truthfully, "Yes, I am. I ought to get ready, I suppose. Did you want me for anything, Miss Lisle?"

"Were you going to St. Sylvester's, or not?"

Percival had known by her tone that she wanted him to go to church. But he did not know which church claimed his attendance, so he answered cautiously, "Oh, I hardly know. I think I should like some one to make up my mind for me. Are you going with your brother?"

"Yes," said Judith. "He isn't very well to-day. I was rather frightened by his fainting just now."

"Of course I'll go with you," said Percival. "I'll be ready in two minutes. Been fainting? Is he better now?"

"Much better. Will you really?" And Judith vanished.

Percival was perhaps a little longer than the time he had named, but he soon came out in a very different character from that of the young man who had lounged over his late breakfast in his shabby coat. He looked anxiously at young Lisle as they started, but Bertie's appearance was hardly such as to call for immediate alarm. He seemed well enough, Percival thought, though perhaps a little excited. In truth, there was not much amiss with him. He had got over the uneasy sense of self-reproach: the sudden shock which had caused his dismay was past, and as he went his way, solemnly escorted by his loving sister and his devoted friend, he was suffering much more from suppressed laughter than from anything else. Everything was a joke, and the narrowness of his escape that morning was a greater joke than all. "By Jove! what a laugh we will have over it one of these days!" thought Lisle as he put on his surplice.

Loving eyes followed him as he went to his place, and his name was fondly breathed in loving prayers.