“Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.”  
MACBETH.
 
“L’incertitude est vraiment le pire de tous les maux parcequ’il est le seul qui suspend nécessairement les ressorts de l’ame, et qui ajourue le courage.”
 
OCTAVE FEUILLET.
 
 
 
MR. VERE breakfasted alone that morning. He was surprised at his daughter’s absence, more particularly as he was considerably later than usual, having had a sleepless night. In spite of himself he was beginning insensibly to feel pleasure in Marion’s society. Of late he had felt strangely weakened and unhinged, and when obliged by utter weariness to rest from his usual occupations, he found it soothing and refreshing to watch his gentle little daughter. She was just the sort of woman one could imagine at home in a sick room. Calm, cheerful, and with immense “tact” of the very best kind—that which springs from no worldly notions of policy or expediency, but from the habit of consideration for others—the quick instinctive sympathy which may be cultivated, but hardly, I think, acquired.
 
So, as the breakfast was getting cold and no Marion appeared, Mr. Vere fidgeted and fussed, and ended by ringing the bell, and desiring Brown to enquire the reason of Miss Vere’s absence.
 
The servant soon reappeared.
 
“Mrs. Evans wished me to say, sir, that Miss Vere is rather upset this morning. Indeed she thinks Miss Vere must have had some bad news, and she would be glad, if so be as you could step up to her room, sir, as before you go out.”
 
“Bad news!” exclaimed Mr. Vere, “nonsense. If there had been any bad news I should have heard it.”
 
But his hand shook as he hastily emptied his coffee-cup; and without further delay he hastened up to his daughter’s room. It was the first time for years that he had been in it, and, as he entered, he was struck by its plainness and simplicity. It was the same room she had had as a child, and her innocent girl life might almost have been read in a glance at its arrangements and contents. There were the book-shelves on the wall, the upper ones filled with the child’s treasures she had not liked to set aside; the lower ones with the favourites of her later years. There were the plaster casts she had saved her pence to buy many years ago, now somewhat yellowed and disfigured by London fogs and smoke. The framed photograph of Harry over the mantel-piece, and a little water-colour sketch of the dear old cottage at Brackley, the only pictures on the walls.
 
Somehow it all came home to the father’s heart, and for almost the first time a strange misgiving seized him. Had he after all done wisely in the life he had marked out for himself? Had he not deliberately put away from him treasures near at hand, which, now that failing health of mind and body was creeping upon him, might have been to him the sweetest of consolations—strength to his weakness, comfort in his need?
 
Nor were his misgivings merely from this selfish point of view. Something of fatherly yearning towards his child, pity for her loneliness and admiration of the gentle, uncomplaining patience with which, of late especially, she had borne his coldness and irritability, caused him to speak very kindly, and touch her very softly, as he stood beside the bed on which, in her paroxysm of grief, she had thrown herself, her face buried in the pillows.
 
“Marion, my dear,” he said, “you alarm me. What can be the matter, my poor child? Surely, surely,” he went on hurriedly, as for the first time a dreadful possibility occurred to him, “there can be nothing wrong with Harry?”
 
She sat up, mechanically pushing back from her temples the hair, usually so neat and smooth, which had fallen loose as she lay. Her father caught her upraised hand, and held it gently in his. But she seemed hardly conscious of the unusual kindness of his manner.
 
“No, not Harry,” she replied, “but, oh, Papa, look here,” and as she spoke, with her other hand she pointed to those dreadful four lines in the newspaper lying on the pillow beside her, “it is Cissy, my dear Cissy—the only sister I ever had—my own dear, kind Cissy.” And the sobs burst out again as violently as at first. Mr. Vere, hardly understanding what she said, stared at the place she pointed out, but for a minute or two could not decipher the words.
 
When their meaning at last broke upon him, he staggered and almost fell.
 
“This is very dreadful,” he said, “very sad and dreadful. So young and bright and happy! My poor little Cissy! It is like her mother over again. Marion, my dearest child, you can hardly feel this more than I do. You don’t know all it brings back to me.”
 
And Marion, now glancing at her father, saw his face pale with deep emotion, while one or two large tears gathered in his eyes.
 
It was the best thing to bring her back to herself.
 
“My poor father,” she thought, “how I have misjudged you!” And with a sudden loving impulse, she threw her arms round his neck, and clung to him as she had hardly, even in her confiding infancy, ever clung to him before. Nor was she repulsed.
 
In a little while her father spoke to her; kindly and gently, in a way she would hardly have believed it possible for him to speak; he, in general, so cold and satirical, so unbending and severe.
 
He left her in a short time, promising to write at once to Cheltenham for details of this sad news; and volunteering also to send for Harry for a day or two, that she might feel less solitary in her grief.
 
This kindness soothed and calmed her, and in an hour or two she crept down stairs, and tried to employ herself as usual. But it would not do. Ever and anon it rushed upon her with overwhelming force, the remembrance of those dreadful printed words:—
 
“On the 10th of August, Cecilia Mary Vere.”
 
“The 10th of August,” that was the time she and Harry were at Brighton, possibly the very day they were talking and laughing with M. de l’Orme!
 
And then another thought, of aggravating misery, occurred to her. With Cissy had gone the last, the very last link between herself and Ralph! Ralph, whom more than ever in this her time of sorrow, she hungered for; Ralph, whom she could not live without.
 
“If only he were here,” she thought, “merely to sit beside me and hold my hand, even though I knew he was never to be more to me afterwards! Oh, if only, only, he knew of my bitter grief, he would, I know, find some way to comfort me. But he will never, never know it, never hear of me again. For most likely my poor Cissy never got my letter at all. Oh, why are things so cruel upon me? Why may I not be happy? Why could not my one, only woman friend have been left me? It is more than I can bear, this losing Ralph again. For I had been counting so on Cissy.
 
And the sad, weary day went by, followed by others as sad and weary, and Marion thought she had drained sorrow to its dregs. She had only one comfort—her father’s continued kindness and gentleness. She clung to him wonderfully, poor child, in those days; but more was before her that she little thought of. In her absorption she did not observe Mr. Vere’s increasing illness; but when Harry me home on the following Saturday he was much startled by it, and amazed, too, at the strange, unwonted softness and tenderness almost, of his father’s manner to both his sister and himself, though especially to the former.
 
Before leaving Marion on the Monday the boy debated with himself whether he should confide his misgivings to her. But he decided that it was better not to do so.
 
“It is not as if she could do any good,” thought he, “and after all I may be exaggerating the change in my father. I think it is as much his unusual kindness as his looking ill that has struck me so. May has trouble enough already.”
 
Still it was with a strange feeling of anxiety and impending sorrow, that he shook hands with his father and kissed his sister that Monday morning, when he left them to return to his tutor’s.
 
His presentiments were realized only too correctly. On the following Friday he was telegraphed for, and arrived at home to find his father already dead, and Marion sitting by his bedside in speechless, tearless sorrow.
 
“Just as he was beginning to care for is a little,” she said, in a dull, husky voice, that did not sound the least like her own. “Oh, Harry, I am so lonely, so miserable! I have only you, and soon you will be going away. Except for you I wish I might die.”
 
It was very pitiful. These two solitary children clinging to each other in their great desolation, as, long ago, they had clung to each other for comfort in their little trifling child!
 
“It,” Marion whispered to her brother, “had been very sudden, dreadfully sudden.” Mr. Vere had been presiding at a large public meeting the day before that or his death, and had come home late, saying he felt tired.
 
“But I never thought he was really ill, Harry,” said Marion; “I had no idea of it. At breakfast yesterday morning he seemed very well. He got several letters, and read them while he eat his breakfast.”
 
“Could there have been anything in his letters to startle or annoy him?” suggested Harry.
 
“No, I think not. I have them all here. Among them was one from young Mr. Baldwin—Geoffrey Baldwin, you remember, Harry?—saying that he would come to see him, as he wished, ‘to-morrow or Monday.’ Papa seemed pleased at this, and gave me the letter to read. He began to speak about Mr. Baldwin, and told him he had appointed him our guardian, or trustee, in his will. It surprised me a little his talking this way to me. He has generally been so reserved about these sort of things.”
 
“He must have known he was very ill,” said Harry. “He said something to me about his will last Sunday. He told me that he wished to give a little more attention to his private affairs than he had found time for, for some years past. Indeed, Marion, I may be mistaken, but I have a sort of idea that though every one has seemed to consider my father a rich man, he was not really so. He has spent an immense deal of money on public matters one way and another. That contested election two years ago, and lots of subscriptions and things always going on. It’s always the way with ‘public men,’ they neglect their own affairs to look after everybody else’s. I hope I may be mistaken, but I have my fears that we shall not be rich by any means.”
 
“I don’t care,” said Marion; “I would be just as miserable if we had millions. I don’t care for money. But I wish you would not talk about money, Harry. It seems too horrible—so soon—only yesterday!”
 
“Don’t think me heartless, dear May,” said the boy. “For myself I truly don’t care. I could go to India. It was only for you. Did my father say nothing more to you?”
 
“No,” replied his sister; “at least only a word or two almost at the last, before he became unconscious. He went up to his room after breakfast, and about half-an-hour after, Brown heard a heavy fall. He ran upstairs and found him, as he told you, in a sort of fit. I don’t understand what it was exactly. He lifted him on to his bed and sent for a doctor before telling me. Poor Brown, he was very kind and thoughtful! A little after the doctor came Papa grew slightly better, and asked for me. I was beside him. He signed for me to kiss him, and whispered to me: ‘You have been my dear little daughter. It was a great mistake, but you will forgive me. Poor Harry too.’ Then he grew uneasy, and muttered something about ‘sending for Baldwin, hoping it would be all right for them, poor children.’ I bent down and said, ‘Yes, clear Papa, it will be all right.’ He seemed pleased and smiled at me, but he did not speak again to me. Only I heard him whisper to himself very, very low—no one else heard it—the prayer of the poor publican, Harry: ‘Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.’ Then he lay quite still, seeming not to suffer at all. I had laid my head down for a minute when the doctor spoke to me. Then l knew, Harry. Oh, poor papa! Poor Papa! We did not think we cared so much for him, did we, Harry?”
 
“No,” said the boy, “nor that he cared for us.”
 
There was no exaggeration about their grief. Mr. Vere had not been an affectionate father, and his death was far from being to them the overwhelming, utterly prostrating blow, that the loss of a parent is felt to be in some happier families. Nevertheless it was, more especially from its suddenness, a very terrible shock, to Marion, in particular, whose life for several months had been one of constant suspense and disappointment, culminating in the great grief of her cousin’s death. And young natures after all, with rare exceptions, are sweet and generous, ready to forgive and forget, not backward to give their love on slight enough encouragement.
 
Mr. Baldwin came late on Monday evening. Harry received him, but Marion was tired, and begged not to be asked to see him, or any one, till after the funeral was over. Mr. Vere had left directions that this should take place very quietly; in consequence of which only a few of his most intimate friends were present. It was evident that he had for some time past suspected the state of his own health. Only two days before he had called on his lawyer about some slight addition to his will, which however there had not been time to execute; and had left with him a letter of directions; as to the arrangements of his funeral, in case of his death occurring suddenly, as he had been warned might possibly be the case.
 
So though the papers were full of the sudden death of the great man, each vying with the others as to the extent and accuracy of their biographical notices, the actual mourners were few; and with but little of outward parade or ostentation, the mortal remains of Hartford Vere were carried to the grave.
 
Ralph Severn, sitting at breakfast that morning in his mother’s villa at Vevey, observed casually that the Member for —— was dead.
 
“A useful man he was a very useful man. His party will miss him exceedingly. There are rumours, I see, that his private affairs are in some confusion. Always the case with these public men. I hope, however, it may not be true.”
 
“Was he a friend of yours, then?” asked Florence.
 
“O dear, no,” replied he, “I have seen him, of course, and heard him speak. But I never spoke to him. I am far too small a person to be hand in glove with the leading politicians of the day. But I should be sorry to think that a man who had spent his life, as he believed, for the good of his country, should leave his family unprovided for.”
 
“Has he left a large family?” asked Lady Severn.
 
“No,” said Ralph, consulting the paper; “a son and a daughter, I think it said somewhere. His wife died many years ago. By the bye, she was one of those beautiful Miss Percies of Merivale, mother.............