Two Strangers

, the parties of guests occasionally assembled in the house either for political motives or in discharge of what he felt to be his duty as an important personage in the cou

at the day promised well, to examine the horizon all round, and discuss the clouds with the head gardener, who was a man of much learning and an expert, as might be said, on the great question of the weather. That great authority gave it as his opinion that it would keep fine all day. "There may be showers in the evening, I should not wonder, but the weather will keep up for t

cy, "He promised{90} us fine weather the day of the bazaar, a

to be more wonderful still, he asked if the house were to be open, and if it was to be expected that any of th

is so very kind of you to think of it, of yourself. Of course it will be wished-everybody will wish it; but I gen

any one's," he said, in his perfectly gentle yet pointed way, which made the others, even Mrs. Wradisley herself, fe

going to exhibit, mother," said Ralph.

get out your savage stores. If the whole country is coming,

you wouldn't do anything," said Lucy, half aggrieved, n

her brother said; "and I understood fro

said Mrs. Wradisley, with

season, of course-and in th

tle. She allowed Lucy to run on with exclamations{92} and conjectures after the master of the house had retired. "What is the

all, my dear. He has just taken a fancy to have everything very nice. It is delightful of him to let his collection be seen. That almost makes us indep

er's last entertainment to her neighbors? It was not a very pleasant thought, for nothing had occurred for a long time to disturb the quiet tenor of Mrs. Wradisley's life, and Ralph had come{93} bac

which all the sentimentalists{94} are against, would be for the moment a great shock. She might feel the shock all the more if she felt, too, that there was something in her heart that answered to that alarming proposal, and might feel that to push off the thought with both hands, with all her might, was the only thing possible. But the reflections of the night and of the new morning, which had risen with such splendor of autumnal sunshine, would, he felt almost sure, make a great difference. Mrs. Nugent did not wear mourning; it was probably some years since her husband's death. She was not very well off, and did not seem to have many relations who could help her, or she would not have come here so unfriended, to a district in which nobody knew her. Was it likely that she should resist all that he had to offer, the love of a go

. "Of course I'll meet some fellows I know," Ralph said. "Shall I though? The fellows of my age are knocking about somewhere, or married and settled, and that sort of thing. I'l

but strangers-but so

ut between you and me, Bertram, there ain't very much in women for fellows like us. I'm not a marrying man-neither are you, I suppose? The most of t

never was any need to go into such questions before, and you may believe I don't want to carr

g whistle{97} and a lifting of t

ot telling you before. In that case I'll

but married or single, we're the same two fellows that have walked the desert together, and helped each other throu

d everything, and-You say you know nothing about that sort of thing, Wradisley. Well, I won't say anything about it. I fell in love with a lady every way better than I-she was-perhaps yo

ied Ralph softl

d then-We were married again, my wife and I-she allowed that; but

n his beard; and they walked on in silence f

"I never was one to talk; but it's very hard lines on you,

radisley, don't you know, the longer they{99} go, the wider apart they get-or at least that's my experience. They say your whole body changes every seven years-it doesn't take so long as that to alter a man's

e life for myself, but not exactly in

"You'll use your own discretion about telling this sorry tale of mine, Wradisley. I felt I had to tell you. I can't go about

of it. He knew very well in what way Ralph would tell his story. He would not announce it as a discovery-it would drop from his beard like the most casual statement of fact: "Unlucky beggar, Bertram-got a wife and{101} all that sort of thing-place down Devonshire way-but he and she don't hit it off, somehow." In such terms the story would be told, without any mystery at all. But Bertram, who was a proud man, did not feel that he could live among a set of people who looked at him curiously across the table and wondered how it was that he did not "hit it off" with his wife. He knew that he would read that question in Mrs. Wradisley's face when she bade him good-morning; and in Lucy's eyes-Lucy's eyes, he thought, with a half smile, would be the most inquisitive-they would ask him a hundred questions. They would say, with almost a look of anxiety in them, "Oh! Mr. Bertram-why?" It amused him to think that Lucy would be the most curious of them all, though why, I could not venture to say. He got himself ready very slowly