The People of the Mist | Page 8

back into the snow and darkness, passing out of
Leonard's sight and out of his life, though from his mind she could
never pass.

"A farewell present. Keep it in memory of me." The words yet echoed
in his ears, and to Leonard they seemed fateful--a prophecy of utter loss.
Sighing heavily, he opened the packet and examined its contents by the
feeble moonlight. They were not large: a prayer-book bound in
morocco, her own, with her name on the fly-leaf and a short inscription
beneath, and in the pocket of its cover a lock of auburn hair tied round
with silk.
"An unlucky gift," said Leonard to himself; then putting on his coat,
which was yet warm from Jane's shoulders, he also turned and vanished
into the snow and the night, shaping his path towards the village inn.
He reached it in due course, and passed into the little parlour that
adjoined the bar. It was a comfortable room enough, notwithstanding
its adornments of badly stuffed birds and fishes, and chiefly remarkable
for its wide old-fashioned fireplace with wrought-iron dogs. There was
no lamp in the room when Leonard entered, but the light of the burning
wood was bright, and by it he could see his brother seated in a
high-backed chair gazing into the fire, his hand resting on his knee.
Thomas Outram was Leonard's elder by two years and cast in a more
fragile mould. His face was the face of a dreamer, the brown eyes were
large and reflective, and the mouth sensitive as a child's. He was a
scholar and a philosopher, a man of much desultory reading, with
refined tastes and a really intimate knowledge of Greek gems.
"Is that you, Leonard?" he said, looking up absently; "where have you
been?"
"To the Rectory," answered his brother.
"What have you been doing there?"
"Do you want to know?"
"Yes, of course. Did you see Jane?"
Then Leonard told him all the story.

"What do you think she will do?" asked Tom when his brother had
finished. "Given the situation and the woman, it is rather a curious
problem."
"It may be," answered Leonard; "but as I am not an equation in algebra
yearning to be worked out, I don't quite see the fun of it. But if you ask
me what I think she will do, I should say that she will follow the
example of everybody else and desert me."
"You seem to have a poor idea of women, old fellow. I know little of
them myself and don't want to know more. But I have always
understood that it is the peculiar glory of their sex to come out strong
on these exceptional occasions. 'Woman in our hours of ease,' etc."
"Well, we shall see. But it is my opinion that women think a great deal
more of their own hours of ease than of those of anybody else. Thank
heaven, here comes our dinner!"
Thus spoke Leonard, somewhat cynically and perhaps not in the best of
taste. But, his rejoicing over its appearance notwithstanding, he did not
do much justice to the dinner when it arrived. Indeed, it would be
charitable to make allowances for this young man at that period of his
life. He had sustained a most terrible reverse, and do what he might he
could never quite escape from the shadow of his father's disgrace, or
put out of his mind the stain with which his father had dimmed the
honour of his family. And now a new misfortune hung over him. He
had just been driven with contumely from a house where hitherto he
was the most welcome of guests; he had parted, moreover, from the
woman whom he loved dearly, and under circumstances which made it
doubtful if their separation would not be final.
Leonard possessed the gift of insight into character, and more common
sense than can often be expected from a young man in love. He knew
well that the chief characteristic of Jane's nature was a tendency to
yield to the circumstances of the hour, and though he hoped against
hope, he could find no reason to suppose that she would exhibit greater
determination in the matter of their engagement than her general lack of
strength might lead him to anticipate. Besides, and here his common

sense came in, would it be wise that she should do so? After all, what
had he to offer her, and were not his hopes of future advancement
nothing better than a dream? Roughly as he had put it, perhaps Mr.
Beach was right when he told him that he, Leonard, was both selfish
and impertinent, since was it not a selfish impertinence in him to ask
any woman to link her fortune with his in the present state of