THE CORNHILL MAGAZINE. APRIL, 1879. Within the Precincts. Walk. CHAPTER XLIII. THE END OF THE DREAM. APTAIN TEMPLE was an old soldier, whose habit it was to get up very early in the morning. He said afterwards that he had never got up so early as on that morning, feeling a certain pride in it, as showing the magical power of sympathy and tenderness. He woke before it was light. It had been raining in the night, and the morning was veiled with showers; when the light came at last, it was white and misty. He was ready to go out before anyone was stirring. Not a soul, not even the milkman, was astir in the Dean's The blinds were still down over his neighbours' windows. The only one drawn up, he noticed in passing, was Lottie's. Was she too early, like himself? the question went through his mind as he passed. Poor child! her life was not a happy one. How different, he could YOL. XXXIX.-No. 232. 19. not help feeling, how different his own girl would have been had she but been spared to them! He shook his white head, though he was all alone, wailing, almost remonstrating, with Providence. How strange that the blessing should be with those who did not know how to prize it, while those who did were left desolate! The Captain's step rang through the silent place. There was no one about; the Abbey stood up grey and still with the morning mists softly breaking from about it, and here and there, behind and around, smoke rose from some homely roof, betraying the first signs of waking life. Captain Temple walked briskly to the Slopes; it was his favourite walk. He made one or two turns up and down all the length of the level promenade, thinking about her how often she had come with him here: but lately she had avoided him. He paused when he had made two or three turns, and leaned over the low parapet wall, looking down upon the misty landscape. The river ran swiftly at the foot of the hill, showing in a pale gleam here and there. The bare branches of the trees were all jewelled coldly with drops of rain. It began to drizzle again as he stood gazing over the misty wet champaign in the stillness of the early morning. He was the only conscious tenant of this wide world of earth and sky. Smoke was rising from the houses in the town, and a faint stir was beginning, but here on the hill there was no stir or waking movement, save only his own. What was that? a sound-he turned round quickly he could not tell what it was; was there someone about after all, someone else as early as himself? But he could see nobody. There was not a step nor a visible movement, but there was a sense of a human presence, a feeling of somebody near him. He turned round with an anxiety which he could not explain to himself. Why should he be anxious? but it pleased him afterwards to remember that all his sensations this morning were strange, uncalled for, beyond his own control. He peered anxiously about among the bushes and bare stems of the trees. At last it seemed to him that he saw something in the corner of the bench under the elm tree. He turned that way, now with his old heart beating, but altogether unprepared for the piteous sight that met his eyes. She was so slim, so slight, her dress so heavy and clinging with the rain, that a careless passer-by might never have seen her. He hurried to the place with a little cry. Her head drooped upon the rough wooden back of the seat, her hands were wrapped in her cloak, nothing visible of her but a face as white as death, and wet-was it with rain or with tears? Her eyes were closed, her long dark eyelashes drooping over her cheek. But for her frightful paleness she would have looked like a child who had lost its way, and cried itself to sleep. "Lottie," cried the old man ; But she made no response. She did not even open her eyes. Was she sleeping, or, good God! He put his hand on her shoulder. "Lottie, Lottie, my dear child!" he cried into her ear. When after a while a deep sigh came from her breast, the old man could have wept for joy. "Lottie!" She was living then. He thought for a moment what was to be done; some help seemed indispensable to him; then rushed away down through the cloisters to the house of Mr. Ashford, which was one of the nearest. The Minor Canon was coming downstairs; he had something to do which called him out early. He paused in some surprise at the sight of his visitor, but Captain Temple stopped the question on his lips. "Will you come with me?" he cried; come with me-I want you," and caught him by the sleeve in his eagerness. Mr. Ashford felt that there was that in the old man's haggard face which would not bear questioning. He followed him, scarcely able in the fulness of his strength to keep up with the nervous steps of his guide. "God knows if she has been there all night," the Captain said. "I cannot get her to move. And now the whole place will be astir. If I could get her home before anybody knows! They have driven her out of her sweet senses," he said, gasping for breath as he hurried along. "I came for you because you are her friend, and I could trust you. Oh, why is a jewel like that given to those who do not prize it, Mr. Ashford, and taken from those that do? Why is it? why is it? they have broken her heart." The Minor Canon asked no questions; he felt that he too knew by instinct what it was. The rain had come on more heavily, small and soft, without any appearance of storm, but penetrating and continuous. The Captain hurried on to the corner where he had left her. Lottie had moved her head; she had been roused by his first appeal from the stupor into which she had fallen; her eyes were open, her mind slowly coming, if not to itself, at least to some consciousness of the external world and her place in it. The instinct that so seldom abandons a woman, that of concealing her misery, had begun to dawn in her—the first sign of returning life. "Lottie, Lottie, my dear child, you must not sit here in the rain. Come, my pet, come. We have come to fetch you. Come to your mother, or at least to one who will be like a mother. Come, my poor dear, come home with me." The old man was almost sobbing as he took into his her cold hands. Lottie did her best to respond. She attempted to smile, she attempted to speak mechanically. "Yes," she said, under her breath; "I will come directly. It is-raining." Her voice was almost gone; it was all they could do to make out what she said. "And here is a kind friend who will give you his arm, who will help you along," said Captain Temple. He stopped short-frightened by the change that came over her face; an awful look of hope, of wonder woke in her eyes, which looked preternaturally large, luminous, and drowsy. She stirred in her seat, moving with a little moan of pain, and attempted to turn round to look behind her. "Who is it? is it-you?” "Who is it?” she whispered. Whom did she expect it to be? Mr. Ashford, greatly moved, stepped forward quickly and raised her from her seat. It was no time for politeness. He drew her arm within his, not looking at her. "Support her," he said quickly to Captain Temple, " on the other side." The Minor Canon never looked at Lottie as he half carried her along that familiar way. He did not dare to spy into her secret, but he guessed at it. The hand which he drew through his arm held a letter. He knew none of the steps which had led to this, but he thought he knew what had happened. As for Captain Temple, he did not do much of his share of the work; he held her elbow with his trembling hand, and looked pitifully into her face, knowing nothing at all. "My poor dear," he said, "you shall not go back-you shall not be made miserable; you are mine now. I have found you, and I shall keep you, Lottie. It is not like a stepmother that my Mary will be. My love, we will say nothing about it, we will not blame anyone; but now you belong to me.” What he said was as the babbling of a child to Lottie, and to the other who divined her; but they let him talk, and the old man seemed to himself to understand the position entirely. "They have driven her out of her senses," he said to his wife; "so far as I can see she has been out on the Slopes all night, sitting on that bench. She will be ill, she is sure to be ill --she is drenched to the skin. Think if it had been our own girl! But I will never let her go into the hands of those wretches again." No one of the principal actors in this strange incident ever told the story, yet it was known all through the Abbey precincts in a few hours -with additions-that Captain Despard's new wife had driven her stepdaughter out of the house by her ill-usage; turned her to the door, some said; and that the poor girl, distracted and solitary, had spent the night on the Slopes, in the cold, in the rain, and had been found there by Captain Temple. "When we were all in our comfortable beds," the good people cried with angry tears, and an indignation beyond words. Captain Despard came in from matins in a state of alarm indescribable, and besought his wife to keep indoors, not to allow herself to be seen. No one in the house had known of Lottie's absence during the night. She was supposed to be "sulky," as Polly called it, and shut up in her own room. When she did not appear at breakfast, indeed, there had been some surprise, and a slight consternation, but even then no very lively alarm. "She's gone off, as she said she would," Polly said, tossing her head; and the Captain had, though with some remorse and compunction, satisfied himself that it was only an escapade on Lottie's part, which would be explained by the post, or which Law would know about, or Mrs. O'Shaughnessy. Law had gone out early, before breakfast. It was natural to suppose he would know-or still more likely that his sister had gone with him, on some foolish walk, or other expedition. "I don't mean to hurt your feelings," Polly cried, "but I shouldn't break my heart, Harry, if they'd gone for good, and left us the house to ourselves." When Captain Despard came in from matins, however, the case was very different; he came in pale with shame and consternation, and ready to blame his wife for everything. "This is what has come of your nagging and your impudence," he said; and Polly flew to arms, as |