time went on, and robert streightley received no fresh intelligence to guide him to the one object for which he now cared to live. the terrible disappointment of the hopes inspired by the only suggestion he had received had utterly prostrated him; and now, even the revived conviction that news of her must come in some way, that though he might never see her again, this cloud of absolute ignorance of her fate must drift away--had yielded to the slow influence of the passing days. charles yeldham had succeeded in inducing him to be calm and quiet; in convincing him that no means of discovering what he wanted to find out should be neglected; and that the best way to insure success was to allow some time to elapse, after which katharine's precautions would probably relax of themselves. robert knew his friend's zeal and fidelity; and in his depressed state of mind, and weakened condition of bodily health, he was obliged, and thankful, to rest in that knowledge, and security, not indeed from his sorrow, but from exertion on his own part. he had once more begun to tax his intellectual energies by application to business; and the former habits of his life were regaining their dominion over him. he had resumed his residence in his mother's house at brixton, without the smallest regret for the luxurious abode he had quitted. he had regarded all the surroundings of the brief period of display and luxury which had succeeded to his marriage with perfect indifference on his own account, and now he forgot them. he was to all outward appearance, in habits and tastes, the same man who had gone city-wards from the same house, year after year, before the brilliant interruption; the difference was unseen, undiscernible by any eyes but those of the father of spirits.

it is probable that at this time mrs. streightley was as happy as she had ever been in all her blameless but uninteresting life. she did not care much about public repute, except in the sense of the impugnment of commercial honesty; and as robert's character stood as high as ever, in spite of his pecuniary disasters, she cared not at all that the world should talk about his domestic affairs. the world which did so talk was not her world. brixton and clapham, the pratts and the perkinses, the "connection," and the ministers thereof, said little about the separation between her son and his beautiful "high-flying" wife, and that little had a consolatory tendency; for these good people seemed to think robert's eternal prospects improved by the occurrence, and it was no part of their creed to trouble themselves about those of katharine. the old lady had her son with her again; the former routine was resumed: if robert was unhappy, he did not show it; and she could not understand how he could fret after a woman who had never been a wife to him,--"not what i call a wife, at least," she would say, on the very rare occasions when she mentioned the matter. she was a good woman in her way; but she essentially belonged to the narrow-minded order of human beings, and was quite incapable of realising the fact that though she had seen nothing to like, and little even to admire, in katharine, her son had seen in her all the value and the glory of life to him, and was living, under her kind, motherly, but unobservant eyes, a broken-hearted man.

ellen, whose weakness of character rendered her amiability and her enthusiasm almost valueless, had begun to forget katharine. she had been charmed by her beauty and kindness, but she had always felt a little restrained, a little puzzled by her; and as she had never thought of applying such intellect as she possessed to the solution of the puzzle, it had remained, to make her uncomfortable. from the first katharine's flight had been a silent subject between her brother and her; and by degrees ellen had ceased to think of it much, and the image of her sister-in-law had become faint in her memory. besides, the rev. decimus had always decidedly disapproved of her; and he had improved the occasion, entirely to his own satisfaction, and very nearly to ellen's conviction, by his eloquent exposition of the dangers of riches, the snares of fashion, the undesirableness of beauty, and the enormity of self-will. the reverend gentleman, who was a good creature in his small way, had one or two defects of character, not altogether unknown in his class. he was uncharitable in his judgments, and implacable--piously so, of course, and with the utmost deprecation of such a sentiment--in his resentments. robert's marriage had been distasteful to his brother-in-law elect from every point of view, personal and professional; and he had never been able to perceive the slightest concession to his influence on the part of katharine; indeed he felt perfectly certain that on the few occasions of their meeting she had never remembered his existence, after giving him the prescribed bow or word of recognition. if he could have believed that mrs. streightley had disliked or feared him or his doctrines, he would have been far less bitter against her than he really, though secretly, was;--for he mourned over her in the true unctuous style of self-exaltation, and depreciation of the sinner, familiar to "professors" of his sort;--he would then have been enabled to poser en martyre, a sufferer of contumely for conscience' sake; and great would have been his reward in brixton and clapham circles, where katharine was utterly unknown, except as an object of holy detraction and affected pity, in the days of her pride and prosperity. but no such resource was open to mr. dutton; he knew perfectly well that mrs. streightley had never thought of him, had never formed any opinion about him at all; that he had simply been completely indifferent to her. strange are the complications of human nature, the self-delusions of the best among us. here was a really good man, disinterested, zealous, perfectly sincere; a man indifferent to wealth (except for missionary purposes), and with whom ellen streightley outweighed in attraction the whole of womankind; a man to whom the smallest, the most transient infidelity, either as lover or husband, would have been as impossible as picking a pocket or forging a bill--filled with resentment because a woman, a rich and beautiful woman, had shown herself politely oblivious of him. and he a clergyman too! ah, there was the rub--the egotism of the good creature was a divided egotism, after all; he could not understand feminine indifference to the cloth! his experiences were partly polynesian, and partly claphamite, and he judged, as he lived, according to his lights.

when the rev. decimus, then, spoke of katharine with solemn horror, as an utterly lost sheep, and without the slightest suggestion that it was any body's business to follow her into the wilderness and bring her back, ellen listened to him with her usual adoring respect, and made no protest. as her future husband, and a clergyman in esse, decimus was doubly a law to her; and obedience was as deep-seated in ellen's nature as revolt is in that of some women. her curiosity respecting the cause of katharine's flight, the "cause of complaint" against her brother which robert had assigned, without explaining, remained in her mind long after her sorrow and her affection for the lost sheep had subsided. there was not the least probability that it would ever be gratified; and she began to take the view of the matter insinuated by mr. dutton, though he had not the smallest grounds for such a conjecture, and was innocent of intentional slander in the suggestion. "rely upon it, ellen," he had said, "robert's generosity leads him to shelter his unhappy wife from additional disgrace, by assuming the blame of this wretched business himself. i daresay he made some discovery concerning her former life--the life of a worldling and an unbeliever, my dearest, has no doubt always disgraceful secrets in it--and this is the result. your brother is very generous, and i am sure capable of such a sacrifice."

this was quite a new idea to ellen, and it took some time to absorb; but at length she said, with a little air of wisdom:

"well, but, decimus, in that case he would know where she is, and all about her."

"and how do you know that he does not know? he never says a word on the subject, does he? i think i understood from you that he never mentioned her since he came back to live here."

"o no, never; not to mamma even, or to old alice. he has never once pronounced her name. my reason for thinking he does not know any thing about her is because hester says she feels sure he does not, and that he and his friends--friends we know nothing about--are making every effort to find out where she is."

"mrs. frere is always right, to be sure; but in this case, i think, she would be certain to know it positively, if such were the case. frere would know it--he is so great a friend and ally of robert--and he would tell her. no, no, ellen; on this point i stick to my own opinion." which was, indeed, the reverend gentleman's habit in all matters wherein he differed from his fellow-creatures.

mr. dutton's dislike of katharine streightley was only exceeded by his regard for hester frere. this sentiment, like all his sentiments, was entirely disinterested, and had sprung into existence long before hester had taken any active interest in his affairs. according to her usual wise custom, miss gould had made herself agreeable to her friend's lover before she was in a position which enabled her to patronise him; and he had conceived a genuine liking for her, into which the element of gratitude was now introduced. hester had brought her common-sense, her unfailing tact, and her powers of deferential persuasion to bear upon ellen's betrothed respecting the missionary question; and as she understood the good little man's weaknesses as well as she understood his narrow sincerity and stupid zeal, she came out of the discussion with entire success. mr. dutton was brought to recognise the force of the reasoning which maintained that english savages are as well worth saving as polynesian savages, and that the labour implied in the task is at least as arduous, and considerably more repulsive. hester had her own notions as to his fitness for either task; but she kept them to herself, being supremely indifferent to the spiritual welfare of the world on either side of the equator. "i daresay his parishioners won't swallow his doctrines," she said to herself contentedly; "but then neither will they swallow his wife." and she derived very great satisfaction from the promptitude and skill with which mr. thacker had executed the commission intrusted to him, before the great absorbing interest of this woman's life had arisen, to overpower every other. a living had been found in a situation which almost realised the conditions prescribed by hester, and the marriage of ellen and decimus was to take place immediately.

to this, as to most other external circumstances, robert was indifferent; he had lost his interest in such things now: his only feeling about it was regret that he could not give his sister a large dowry, as he had once hoped to do. he had been consulted in a formal way by both decimus and ellen, and he had agreed to all their plans; then, his duty being done, he turned away again, and fed upon his sorrow in silence,--in a silence growing submissive, full of repentance and humility. his sin had found him out, and the chastisement was heavy upon him; but robert was discerning more and more clearly that the hand which was dealing it was god's hand, and he was learning to kiss the rod. very, very slowly were these lessons learned: the progress of the human soul in the school of the wisdom which is not of this world, is never rapid; but neither is it ever arrested, turned aside, or ineffectual.

the long winter, the bright spring, the gay summer had twice come and gone, since that november day which had witnessed katharine's flight, and the rich tints of autumn were upon the beautiful beechwoods of middlemeads. the place that was to know her no more, never again to be adorned by her graceful presence or enlivened by her beauty, was, to all outward appearance, not a whit the worse for the privation. it was still splendid, still luxurious, still gay; still the home of youth and beauty, of fashion and frivolity. it was hester frere's home now; and gordon was master of the house from which the woman whom he had loved and lost had turned resolutely away, to be lost in utter obscurity. he thought of this at times with keen pain; for a change had passed upon him too, and he was more serious than he had been; which seriousness his wife marked, and, assigning to it as a primary cause one which was but secondary, bitterly resented. gordon had learned with displeasure as well as astonishment that his wife was the possessor of middlemeads; the "profitable investment" had no charms for him to counterbalance the unpleasantness and what he felt to be the difficulty of such a position. but what could he do? his wife's friendship with the streightleys was no reason why she should not live at middlemeads, since it was evident that not one of those concerned had any notion that her living there was any offence to that friendship. the real reason against it was confined to his knowledge, and must not be imparted to his wife. had he arbitrarily crossed her wishes, he would have been gratuitously unkind, and that it was not in gordon's nature to be; and so he went to middlemeads against his will, and remained there, deriving very moderate pleasure from the abode, and feeling that the coldness and restraint which had sprung up between him and hester since the occasion of their conversation about katharine were inexplicably increased by the possession of the place.

since that memorable night katharine's name had never been spoken between them. hester knew that her husband and robert streightley were much more intimate than they had previously been; and this knowledge fed the jealous passion which devoured her. "they meet to talk of her, these two men whom she took from me," she would think; and her once-powerful and well-trained common-sense failed to come to her aid here, when her need was at its utmost. she would have been desperately angry had she known that gordon had told robert his objection to living at middlemeads, and that it was robert who had quieted his scruples.

"don't mind about me, frere," robert had said. "what does it matter to me? i could never see the place again, you know; and it makes no difference to me who lives there. hester always liked it, i remember; and i am glad to think she has it now. i am indeed, frere; i am, upon my honour."

and he was. all this was only a trifle, a secondary point of delicacy, a nothing; it had no influence upon his fate, it did not wound his feelings; the calamity that had come upon him left him no sensitiveness to spare for minor suffering. he never saw hester now; but that was accident, not design: he had not the remotest notion that she had any meaning in his life beyond the trifling meaning she had always had; he never thought of her at all, indeed. when she was in town ellen was much with her, he knew; and he also knew that she had procured the living whose charms had diverted decimus from those of black heathendom; he knew that ellen was to pass some time with her at middlemeads in the autumn; but that was all. it had occurred to him to wonder a little how ellen would feel at middlemeads without katharine. but robert knew his sister; and he smiled at the passing thought, and at himself.

so hester was in possession. the dream she had dreamed had become a reality. she was mistress of middlemeads, owner of the home of her unconscious enemy, and of the possessions which had belonged to the man who had preferred another before her. more than this, she was the wife of the man her enemy had loved--still loved, perhaps: she had no clue to katharine's thoughts, no power to read the change which time had wrought in her. was ever revenge so safe, so sure as hers? was ever revenge so complete? and it had not compromised her in the least: she was all the richer in money, and none the poorer in friends; she could talk of mrs. streightley with polite pity, and if by any extraordinary chance the fugitive should ever again come to the surface of society, she could even meet her, unsuspected, unrebuked. truly her success had been marvellous, her good fortune and her good management unsurpassed; and her secret was so entirely her own. a little impetuousness, the least loss of self-control, and she might have betrayed herself to thacker. (hester was quite unconscious of the tone in which she had spoken in the church-porch on the occasion of robert's marriage.) but she had never lost her self-control; and he knew nothing. supposing him to suspect, what matter? she dreaded not suspicion, but knowledge.

hester was happy, then. happy in her wealth, her popularity, her authority, in her success and prosperity. happy, as she sat with lady henmarsh, who was clad in the deepest and glossiest of widow's weeds, having been disembarrassed of sir timothy by the kind hand of death early in the preceding spring, and was now enjoying hester's hospitality, which she proposed to enjoy as fully and for as long a period as possible. the scene suggested happiness. the two ladies were seated at the large french window of the room which the former mistress of middlemeads had occupied as a dressing-room, and which was furnished in a style at once sumptuous and tasteful; yet it was not furnished as in katharine's time. the conservatory, with the fountain and the marble floor, the aviary, and the flight of marble steps by which the italian garden was to be reached, were there, but the "lady-kilmantan" hangings and furniture, the subject of mrs. stanbourne's remonstrance with katharine, had disappeared. hester, consistent even in the novel defects she was acquiring, had sent all these things to ellen's future home. she would dissociate herself as far as possible from katharine,--her private rooms should bear no trace of her; but she would make a judicious use of articles of property, notwithstanding gordon noticed the alteration, and gave his wife offence by doing so.

"didn't you like the blue-and-silver things in your dressing-room, hester? i thought them very pretty."

"no," she answered shortly; "blue is horribly unbecoming to me. i have not a faultless fair complexion, you know."

"i didn't know complexion had any influence on the choice of furniture," said gordon, smiling, and quite unconscious of the feelings his careless remark had excited.

"didn't you? no, i don't suppose men understand those things. read the duchesse d'abrantes, and you'll be wiser."

the obnoxious blue-and-silver had been replaced by the freshest and prettiest of chintzes; and the apartment, if less splendid, was even more elegant and inviting. traces of hester's intellectual tastes were to be seen about it; and hester herself was no insignificant ornament. the development of her beauty had been steadily going on, and now the new mistress of middlemeads need not have greatly feared competition with the former. with all the accessories of wealth and refinement around her, hester frere was a beautiful woman to the most critical eye--more beautiful indeed to the critical than to the careless; for hers was the beauty of form and expression, the accuracy of feature and symmetry of form, the correct loveliness which is less sympathetic but more satisfying than the lighter, more brilliant, and more striking kinds of beauty.

"and you actually had mr. thacker's sisters down here for a month, hester? how very good of you! were they very dreadful?"

hester smiled. "you forget," she said, "that i lived all my life among similar people, and am of them. you can't expect me to admit that they are dreadful."

"o, i know all that; you need not talk like that to me, hester, or pretend that you ever were like the thacker girls. they are like human peonies. i shall never forget rebecca's parasol, with a pink-coral handle, and her opera-cloak with amber buttons."

"they are very fond of bright colours and jewelry, certainly. i don't dispute that, or hope to correct it; but they are old friends, and i am very constant to them."

"so you are to all friends, hester, and in that wonderfully unlike most women of the world; and you know the world as well as any one, i think. but talking of old friends and constancy, what about that silly girl streightley's sister, that katharine, and you too, hester, bored one to death with last year?"

"she is coming to me shortly, to stay with me while gordon goes to the scotch moors; and i shall keep her until we go to town. then she is to be married early in the winter."

"indeed!" said lady henmarsh in a dissatisfied tone, which referred to the earlier portion of the reply. "i wonder her brother likes her coming here; it must be rather awkward for her, and for him too."

"o no, i think not," replied hester quickly, and with a slight change of colour. "she does not mind, i am sure."

"that's well," said lady henmarsh. "do you see much of poor streightley? i have not heard of him for an age. i never can get over his unfeeling conduct to poor ned guyon. i know all about it, you know; for ned wrote me every thing--refusing him money when he was on the brink of ruin; horrid, wasn't it? so i really know nothing of him. i suppose, nothing has been heard of that unfortunate mad woman?"

"mad woman! why do you call mrs. streightley a mad woman, lady henmarsh?" asked hester with surprise.

lady henmarsh was rather confused. she felt she must make some reply, and she did not know exactly how to make a judicious one, for she had forgotten for a moment the strange complication in the position of the woman she was speaking of, and that of the woman she was speaking to.

"well, really," she answered awkwardly, "you have only to look round you and out of window for an answer. no sane woman would run away from such a home as this, i presume."

"but she could not have remained here," said hester; "mr. streightley's affairs were embarrassed before she went away."

"yes; but then she did not know it," said lady henmarsh. "i suspected always that she knew nothing about her husband's affairs; and streightley admitted that she did not. no, no, worse luck for him; he declares that it was his own fault that she left him; and i know katharine well. she has, as her poor father used to say, 'a devil of a temper;' and she is as proud as lucifer, and gave me an immense deal of trouble; but i am perfectly sure, if she had known the truth, and the trouble streightley was in, she would have forgiven him."

"forgiven him what, lady henmarsh? do you know?--did he ever tell you?"

"no, never. he only said he was to blame--that she had a cause of complaint against him;--you know exactly what he said. however, she is the chief sufferer by her folly, and it is no concern of ours."

hester was a remarkably keen observer, even where she was much less interested than, since her fatal revelation of her jealousy to gordon frere, she had been about every thing which concerned katharine; and her quick observation now revealed to her that lady henmarsh knew more than she was willing to tell, and was very anxious to conceal her knowledge. she did not allow her discovery to appear; and soon after the two ladies separated to dress for dinner.

an hour later mrs. frere stood at one of the windows of the long drawing-room, gazing thoughtfully out with eyes that took no heed of the objects they saw. she was beautifully dressed in sheeny satin and soft rich lace; she looked proud, composed, and beautiful; and the thoughts she was thinking were these:

"she will know sooner or later that misfortunes have come on him, and she will return. then gordon will see her again, when the little love he ever gave me is dead; when he has become her husband's friend; when there is no confidence between him and me--and she has been the means of its withdrawal. yes, it was she, not myself, not my betrayal of my feelings--how could i help that? how could any wretched creature like me avoid that?--it was she! he is always thinking of her. what is his friendship for robert but love of her? i know he works for him; he goes to him whenever he goes to town; and ah, how often he goes! he does not like this place--i can see it--because it ought to be hers--forsooth, ought to be hers! and bought with my money. but he does not care for my money, and he does not care for me. i wish--i wish i was dead!"

you see hester's success had been complete; and the mistress of middlemeads, reigning in her rival's stead, must needs be perfectly happy.