"Yes, but chiefly to pacify Rosamond, about whom he was the most uneasy."
"She is quite herself now; but you look overdone, Raymond. Have you had any sleep?"
"I have not lain down. When we came home at four o'clock, Cecil was quite knocked up, excited and hysterical. Her maid advised me to leave her to her; so I took a bath, and came down to wait for you."
Julius would have liked to see the maid who could have soothed his Rosamond last night without him! He only said, however, "Is Frank come down? My mother rather expected him."
"Yes, he came to the race-ground."
"Indeed! He was not with you when you came back, or were we not sufficiently rational to see him?"
"Duncombe gave a dinner at the hotel, and carried him off to it. I'm mortally afraid there's something amiss in that quarter. What, didn't you know that Duncombe's filly failed?"
"No, indeed, I did not."
"The town was ringing with it. Beaten out-and-out by Fair Phyllida! a beast that took them all by surprise-nothing to look at-but causing, I fancy, a good deal of distress. They say the Duncombes will be done for. I only wish Frank was clear; but that unhappy engagement has thrown him in with Sir Harry's set, and he was with them all day-hardly spoke to me. To a fellow like him, a veteran scamp like old Vivian, with his benignant looks, is ten times more dangerous than men of his own age. However, having done the damage, they seem to have thrown him off. Miss Vivian would not speak to him at the ball."
"Eleonora! I don't know how to think it!"
"What you cannot think, a Vivian can do and does!" said Raymond, bitterly. "My belief is that he was decoyed into being fleeced by the father, and now they have done their worst, he is cast off. He came home with us, but sat outside, and I could not get a word out of him."
"I hope my mother may."
"If he be not too far gone for her. I always did expect some such termination, but not with this addition."
"I don't understand it now-Lena!"
"I only wonder at your surprise. The girl has been estranged from us all for a long time. If it is at an end, so much the better. I only wish we were none of us ever to see the face of one of them again."
Julius knew from his wife that there were hopes for Raymond, but of course he might not speak, and he was revolving these words, which had a vehemence unlike the wont of the speaker, when he was startled by Raymond's saying, "Julius, you were right. I have come to the conclusion that no consideration shall ever make me sanction races again."
"I am glad," began Julius.
"You would not be glad if you had seen all I saw yesterday. You must have lent me your eyes, for when you spoke before of the evils, I thought you had picked up a Utopian notion, and were running a- muck with it, like an enthusiastic young clergyman. For my own part I can't say I ever came across anything offensive. Of course I know where to find it, as one does wherever one goes, but there was no call to run after it; and as we were used to the affair, it was a mere matter of society-"
"No, it could never be any temptation to you," said Julius.
"No, nor to any other reasonable man; and I should add, though perhaps you might not allow it, that so long as a man keeps within his means, he has a right to enhance his excitement and amusement by bets."
"Umph! He has a right then to tempt others to their ruin, and create a class of speculators who live by gambling."
"You need not go on trying to demolish me. I was going to say that I had only thought of the demoralization, from the betting side; but yesterday it was as if you had fascinated my eyes to look behind the scenes. I could not move a step without falling on something abominable. Roughs, with every passion up to fever-pitch, ferocity barely kept down by fear of the police, gambling everywhere, innocent young things looking on at coarseness as part of the humour of the day, foul language, swarms of vagabond creatures, whose trade is to minister to the license of such occasions. I declare that your wife was the only being I saw display a spark of any sentiment human nature need not blush for!"
"Nay, Raymond, I begin to wonder whose is the exaggerated feeling now."
"You were not there," was the answer; and they were here interrupted by crossing the path of the policeman, evidently full of an official communication.
"I did not expect to see you so early, sir," he said. "I was coming to the Hall to report to you after I had been in to the superintendent."
"What is it?"
"There has been a burglary at Mrs. Hornblower's, sir. If you please, sir," to Julius, "when is the Reverend Mr. Bowater expected home?"
"Not before Monday. Is anything of his taken?"
"Yes, sir. A glass case has been broken open, and a silver cup and oar, prizes for sports at college, I believe, have been abstracted. Also the money from the till below; and I am sorry to say, young Hornblower is absconded, and suspicion lies heavy on him. They do say the young man staked heavily on that mare of Captain Duncombe's."
"You had better go on to the superintendent now," said Raymond. "You can come to me for a summons if you can find any traces."
Poor Mrs. Hornblower, what horror for her! and poor Herbert too who would acutely feel this ingratitude. The blackness of it was beyond what Julius thought probable in the lad, and the discussion of it occupied the brothers till they reached the Reynolds colony, where they were received by the daughter-in-law, a much more civilized person than old Betty.
After Fanny's dislocated arm had been set, the surgeon had sent her home in the Rectory carriage, saying there was so much fever in Wil'sbro', that she would be likely to recover better at home; but she had been suffering and feverish all night, and Dan Reynolds was now gone in quest of 'Drake,' for whom she had been calling all night.
"Is he her husband?" asked Julius.
"Well, I don't know, sir; leastways, Granny says he ought to be answerable for what's required."
Mrs. Reynolds further betrayed that the family had not been ignorant of Fanny's career since she had run away from home, leaving her child on her grandmother's hands. She had made her home in one of the yellow vans which circulate between fairs and races, driving an ostensible trade in cheap toys, but really existing by setting up games which were, in fact, forms of gambling, according to the taste of the people and the toleration of the police. From time to time, she had appeared at home, late in the evening, with small sums of money and presents for her boy; and Mrs. Dan believed that she thought herself as good as married to 'that there Drake.' She was reported to be asleep, and the place 'all of a caddle,' and Julius promised to call later in the day.
"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Reynolds; "it would be a right good thing, poor girl. She've a kind heart, they all do say; not as I know, not coming here till she was gone, nor wanting to know much on her, for 'twas a right bad way she was in, and 'twere well if them nasty races were put down by Act of Parliament, for they be the very ruin of the girls in these parts."
"There's a new suggestion, Raymond," said Julius as he shut the garden gate.
Raymond was long in answering, and when he spoke, it was to say, "I shall withdraw from the subscription to the Wil'sbro' Cup."
"So much the better."
Then Raymond began discussing the terms of the letter in which he would state his reasons, but with an amount of excitement that made Julius say, "I should think it better not to write in this first heat. It will take more effect if it is not so visibly done on the spur of the moment."
But the usually deliberate Raymond exclaimed, "I cannot rest till it is done. I feel as if I must be like Lady Macbeth, continually washing my hands of all this wreck and ruin."
"No wonder; but I should think there was great need of caution-to use your own words."
"My seat must go, if this is to be the price," said Raymond. "I felt through all the speeches at that gilt-gingerbread place, that it was a monument of my truckling to expediency. We began the whole thing at the wrong end, and I fear we are beginning to see the effects."