no. I /was/ half engaged. Now I am engaged to Mr. Plowden."
Dorothy gave a gasp of horrified astonishment.
"Engaged to that man when you were engaged to Ernest! You must be joking."
"O Dorothy, I am not joking; I wish to Heaven I were. I am engaged to him. I am to marry him in less than a month. O, pity me, I am wretched."
"You mean to tell me," said Dorothy, rising, "that you are engaged to Mr. Plowden when you love Ernest?"
"Yes, oh yes; I cannot help----"
At that moment the door opened, and Florence entered, attended by Mr. Plowden.
Her keen eyes saw at once that something was wrong, and her intelligence told her what it was. After her bold fashion, she determined to take the bull by the horns. Unless something were done, with Dorothy at her back, Eva might prove obdurate after all.
Advancing, she shook Dorothy cordially by the hand.
"I see from your face," she said, "that you have just heard the good news. Mr. Plowden is so shy that he would not consent to announce it before; but here he is to receive your congratulations."
Mr. Plowden took the cue, and advanced effusively on Dorothy with outstretched hand. "Yes, Miss Jones, I am sure you will congratulate me; and I ought to be congratulated. I am the luckiest----"
Here he broke off. It really was very awkward. His hand remained limply hanging in the air before Dorothy, but not the slightest sign did that dignified little lady show of taking it. On the contrary, she drew herself up to her full height--which was not very tall--and fixing her steady blue eyes on the clergyman's shifty orbs, deliberately placed her right hand behind her back.
"I do not shake hands with people who play such tricks," she said, quietly.
Mr. Plowden's hand fell to his side, and he stepped back. He did not expect such courage in anything so small. Florence however, sailed in to the rescue.
"Really, Dorothy, we do not quite understand."
"O yes, I think you do, Florence, or if you do not, then I will explain. Eva here was engaged to marry Ernest Kershaw. Eva here has just with her own lips told me that she still loves Ernest, but that she is obliged to marry--that man"; and she pointed with her little forefinger at Mr. Plowden, who recoiled another step. "Is not that true, Eva?"
Eva bowed her head by way of answer. She still sat in the low chair, with her hands over her face.
"Really, Dorothy, I fail to see what right you have to interfere in this matter," said Florence.
"I have the right of common justice, Florence--the right a friend has to protect the absent. Are you not ashamed of such a wicked plot to wrong an absent man? Is there no way" (addressing Mr. Plowden) "in which I can appeal to your feelings, to induce you to free this wretched girl you have entrapped?"
"I only ask my own," said Mr. Plowden, sulkily.
"For shame, for shame! And you a minister of God's Word! And you too, Florence! Oh, now I can read your heart, and see the bad thoughts looking from your eyes!"
Florence for a moment was abashed, and turned her face aside.
"And you, Eva--how can you become a party to such a shameful thing? You, a good girl, to sell yourself away from dear Ernest to such a man as that"; and again she pointed contemptuously at Mr. Plowden.
"Oh, don't, Dorothy, don't; it is my duty. You don't understand."
"Yes, Eva, I do understand. I understand that it is your duty to drown yourself before you do such a thing. I am a woman as well as you, and though I am not beautiful, I have a heart and a conscience, and I understand only too well."
"You will be lost if you drown yourself--I mean it is very wicked," said Mr. Plowden to Eva, suddenly assuming his clerical character as most likely to be effective. The suggestion alarmed him. He had bargained for a live Eva.
"Yes, Mr. Plowden," went on Dorothy, "you are right: it would be wicked, but not so wicked as to marry you. God gave us women our lives, but He put a spirit in our hearts which tells us that we should rather throw them away than suffer ourselves to be degraded. Oh, Eva, tell me that you will not do this shameful thing. No, do not whisper to her, Florence."
"Dorothy, Dorothy," said Eva, rising and wringing her hands, "it is all useless. Do not break my heart with your cruel words. I must marry him. I have fallen into the power of people who do not know what mercy is."
"Thank you," said Florence.
Mr. Plowden scowled darkly.
"Then I have done"; and Dorothy walked towards the door. Before she reached it she paused and turned. "One word, and I will trouble you no more. What do you all expect will come of this wicked marriage?"
There was no answer. Then Dorothy went.
But her efforts did not stop there. She made her way straight to Mr. Cardus's office.
"O Reginald," she said, "I have such dreadful news for you. There, let me cry a little first, and I will tell you."
And she did, telling him the whole story from beginning to end. It was entirely new to him, and he listened with some astonishment, and with a feeling of something like indignation against Ernest. He had intended that young gentleman to fall in love with Dorothy, and behold, he had fallen in love with Eva. Alas for the perversity of youth!
"Well," he said, when she had done, "and what do you wish me to do? It seems that you have to do with a heartless scheming woman, a clerical cad, and a beautiful fool. One might deal with the schemer and the fool, but no power on earth can soften the cad. At least, that is my experience. Besides, I think the whole thing is much better left alone. I should be very sorry to see Ernest married to a woman so worthless as this Eva must be. She is handsome, it is true, and that is about all she is, as far as I can see. Don't distress yourself, my dear; he will get over it, and after he has had his fling out there, and lived down that duel business, he will come home, and if he is wise, I know where he will look for consolation."
Dorothy tossed her head and coloured.
"It is not a question of consolation," she said; "it is a question of Ernest's happiness in life."
"Don't alarm yourself, Dorothy; people's happiness is not so easily affected. He will forget all about her in a year."
"I think that men always talk of each other like that, Reginald," said Dorothy, resting her head upon her hands, and looking straight at the old gentleman. "Each of you likes to think that he has a monopoly of feeling, and that the rest of his kind are as shallow as a milk-pan. And yet it was only last night that you were talking to me about my mother. You told me, you remember, that life had been a worthless thing to you since she was torn from you, which no success had been able to render pleasant. You said more: you said that you hoped that the end was not far off; that you had suffered enough and waited enough; and that, though you had not seen her face for five-and-twenty years, you loved her as wildly as you did the day when she first promised to become your wife."
Mr. Cardus had risen, and was looking through the glass door at the blooming orchids. Dorothy got up, and following him, laid her hand upon his shoulder.
"Reginald," she said, "think! Ernest is about to be robbed of his wife under circumstances curiously like those by which you were robbed of yours. Unless it is prevented, what you have suffered all your life he will suffer also. Remember you are of the same blood, and, allowing for the difference between your ages, of very much the same temperament too. Think how different life would have been to you if any one had staved off your disaster, and then I am sure you will do all you can to stave off his."
"Life would have been non-existent for you," he answered, "for you would never have been born."
"Ah, well," she said, with a little sigh, "I am sure I should have got on every well without. I could have spared myself."
Mr. Cardus was a keen man, and could see as far into the human heart as most.
"Girl,"