The Bishop of Ripley had dined well; but he was tired. He had traveled from town after breakfasting there with Mr. Panoli, and later attending a meeting at the Sunday School Institute. On his arrival he learned that his sister Caroline had come down by the previous train to consult him and stay the night. She always came thus without invitation. She had done it in the time of his first wife, and Lady Hester had been powerless to alter her ways. Her room was always ready for her, and she used the place rather freely.

Perish the thought that the Bishop was not pleased to see her! Nevertheless, he would have been just as comfortable if she had not arrived. Dinner _tête-à-tête_ with his charming wife would have been pleasanter than with Caroline sitting like a death's head at the feast. He knew why she had come. It was about Jack. He was weary of her letters on the subject, the last of which he had not answered; and it was awkward that she should arrive on this day, of all days, when he had practically withdrawn all opposition to Jack's marriage.

The quiet satisfaction in Lady Hester's face, and the relish with which she imparted to Aunt Caroline, before dinner, the joyful news that all friction between Jack and his father was at an end, and the engagement a settled fact, was particularly galling. Aunt Caroline never did, and never would, approve of her brother's choice of a wife; and now he had chosen one for Jack, of the same worldly, sensuous, ornamental type, Caroline felt it her duty to bring her heaviest guns into action.

The Bishop wanted to talk to his wife at dinner about Mr. Bannister, who had made a remarkable impression, and Lady Hester would have revelled, woman-like, in every little detail of the business of Jack's engagement. It was an event in their colorless, domestic life. But Caroline's grim, uncompromising stare all through dinner had compelled the conversation to turn upon other matters. The Bishop pleaded fatigue, and betook himself to the library, leaving his wife to face the music and give Caroline what details she thought wise.

Jack's aunt had not been consulted at any point. Everything had been rushed through, apparently, in a deceitful, shame-faced fashion. That the engagement should have been sanctioned by her brother, without his introducing Mabel to his sister--to whom he owed so much--was, from her point of view, little less than an insult. Having had views of her own concerning her nephew's welfare, this upsetting of plans was very provoking, and merited the most uncompromising opposition.

Lady Hester led the way after dinner to the gaunt, white drawing room, where a particular chair was always reserved for Aunt Caroline to doze in for an hour after meals. But the good lady was not dozing any more, and she was not going to be carried off by Lady Hester. She followed her brother into the library, where he had subsided into a spacious lounge with a coffee and a liqueur by his side.

"Ah! Caroline," he murmured drowsily as she entered. "The evening papers are on the table"--yawn--"I don't think you'll find them interesting."

"I was looking for you, John, not the papers. You are avoiding me, and I can guess the reason why. No, don't get up. This chair by the table will do."

It was a sombre, old, brown room, completely lined with books in gilt-edged bookcases reaching to the ceiling, and in the centre was a large, oval table with the heavy, high-backed, carved oak arm chairs upholstered in red leather set at equal intervals round it. The ample floor space was broken by spreading lounge chairs of greater comfort, and large writing desks occupied the spaces in front of the two wide windows. Aunt Caroline dropped into one of the high-backed seats, which harmonized appropriately with her gaunt, uncompromising figure.

The Bishop settled himself doggedly, and stared straight ahead, with his hands folded on his waistcoat, compelled to listen when he would rather be deaf.

"John, this preposterous engagement of Jack to the Bannister girl is a mistake."

"It is late, my dear, don't you think, to take up that attitude. The matter was settled to-day. Perhaps Hester hasn't told you what a good match it will be for Jack. The girl will have a thousand a year, and a reversion in Dingle Hall estate, or some other place equally good--which Mr. Bannister is negotiating for, I believe. Jack is not brilliant, Caroline, and we have always been agreed that marriage is the very best thing for a young man, provided that he incurs no burdensome obligations likely to handicap him in his career. My son, I'm happy to say, has not altogether disappointed me. He is not, as I said just now, brilliant, but he is busy with his fourth large brief, and he has won all the other three."

"He is reckless and inclined to pleasure----"

"And so were we, Caroline, at his age." Caroline sniffed and shuddered. "Miss Bannister is a very charming girl."

"I'm glad you think so."

"Don't you, Caroline?"

"I've never seen her," snorted the irate lady, sitting more erect and growing stiffer. Her nostrils dilated, and her grey eyes flashed.

"Dear me--dear me, is that so?" murmured the Bishop, with assumed surprise.

"When I say I have not seen her, I mean under proper conditions. I admit I saw her in the park the other morning, unattended--except by Jack--and behaving atrociously."

"Well, lovers, Caroline, lovers. When the cat's away, you know----"

"There is no cat in this case. The girl has no mother, and her father is a profligate and a gambler."

The Bishop shifted uneasily, and showed signs of growing irritation.

"In his youth Mr. Bannister may not have been all that one would have desired; but you cannot deny that he has brought his daughter up as a man should, giving her every opportunity, every accomplishment, every care, spending money lavishly----"

"Have I not done the same for Jack?"

"That is beside the mark, Caroline. What is your objection to the girl? If you have any, say it outright."

"Who is she? I mean, who was her mother; and who was her mother's mother? Who, if it comes to that, is Mr. Bannister?"

"Well, really--er--I didn't acquaint myself with the whole genealogical tree of the Bannisters. The man is a gentleman, and a widower. He is going to settle down in the country, and that is why he is buying Dingle Hall."

"Buying Dingle Hall doesn't give the girl a mother," Aunt Caroline snorted.

"Hester and I both like the girl. Jack is in love with her. What would you have me do?"

The old lady tapped irritably on the newspapers lying on the table at her side, and her fingers worked faster and faster as her anger warmed. She struggled with herself for a few moments, then blurted out her next remark with all the intensity of long pent-up irritation.

"Hester likes her!--of course, always Hester. John, I have never said anything to you about your own foolish marriage--your second marriage, I mean--or your wisdom in the selection of a wife; but you know you've made a mistake, and I've helped you to recover. I've kept things straight for you, and guided your frivolous wife through the quicksands for more than fifteen years now; and I thought you had learned a lesson. I even imagined you had bought sufficient experience to withstand the wiles of a cooing, simpering, sensuous woman, and had mastered and outgrown worldly lust and admiration."

"Caroline!" he cried, passionately thumping the table.

"Oh! yes; we've got one over-dressed, powdered, perfumed, social fly-about in the family. We don't want any more. The world has forgiven you, John, and they made you a Bishop in spite of your second wife. But you surely are not going to let your son follow in your footsteps----"

"Silence, Caroline!" thundered the Bishop, starting up. "How dare you talk to me like this--you, who have known nothing but kindness and consideration from Hester ever since we were married. Your jealousy is ludicrous after all these years. There is a limit to your interference in our affairs, my good sister."

"I've never interfered."

"Thanks to the good sense and tact of my wife you have not been able to. Caroline, I've known for years that you have hated my wife, and I chose to ignore it, out of consideration for your sincere love for Jack. Keep the wicked thing in check. It is an ugly sin."

The irate lady tried to speak, but rage choked her utterance. The Bishop rarely put his foot down, but when he was roused he was not always judicious in his choice of words, outside the pulpit.

"If you had been at home, Caroline, you might have seen Mabel Bannister, and have judged for yourself. The boy is hopelessly in love, and the girl too. They rushed into things. I couldn't send the girl to Switzerland to receive the seal of your approval; but I called a halt. I never really intended to refuse my consent; but I did think it right and proper that Jack should not be engaged till he was in a position to support a wife. At that time I believed the girl to be the daughter of an impecunious idler."

"A profligate and a gambler, a man who lives by playing cards," cried Caroline.

"Really, Caroline, your freedom of assertion is appalling. Where do you get these notions?"

"Never mind how I get them. I have them."

"That is very feminine."

"And you are a very masculine fool, John."

"Really, Caroline! Confound you!"

"Really, John!"

She rose and faced him, white and glaring.

"Tut, tut, tut, tut!" cried the Bishop, waving her impatiently back to her seat, and turning his back upon her to pace the long room. "Don't let us quarrel, for goodness' sake. You set your heart upon Jack marrying Beatrice Carew, and he has chosen some one else. My wife and I approve of his choice. The matter is settled. I admire the boy's determination and singleness of purpose! And, if you must be told everything, he would have married her without my consent. I am letting you into the secrets now, for Hester has confided to me that she was only just in time to stop them marrying on the quiet. What do you think of that?"

"Stuff and nonsense!" cried his sister shrilly, and tearing holes in the _Times_ with her fingers to relieve her feelings. "The boy is fooling away his time in London with loose women."

"Caroline!" cried the Bishop in horror. It was his turn to go white, and distend his nostrils, and frown fiercely.

"I tell you it is true. I've come down here straight from his chambers this afternoon. I paid him a surprise visit, and found a woman hidden in his rooms. I took them by surprise, and there was no time for her to get out. Oh, yes, it's true. But I wasn't as surprised as you are. He ought to have married Beatrice before he took up his residence in London alone. I was prepared to resign part of my income in his favor, and give him a fair chance. But you and your wife, with your quixotic notions of liberty and independence and romance, and seeing the world, allowed the boy to go out into temptation----"

"Caroline, Jack is not a child," shouted the Bishop angrily. "And I won't have you traducing him by infamous assertions that you can't prove."

"I tell you there was a woman in his chambers this afternoon."

"You saw her there?"

"No, I didn't. But I heard her; and Jack lied to me, as he was bound to do."

"Caroline, your imagination has run riot," gasped the Bishop, who was more staggered than he cared to admit. "You have no proof."

His sister tugged at her skirt to find a pocket, and took out something which she flung upon the table, where it fell noiselessly.

"Is that a thing a man wears?" she asked, pointing to Mabel's veil. "I found that in his rooms. The boy has got into the mire, and doesn't know where he is. The disposition to petticoat influence is hereditary. You were wild once, John--before you were ordained. You remember how you broke out----"

"Silence!" thundered the Bishop, stamping his foot, and clenching his fist, ashen with passion.

"Oh, you don't frighten me, John, for I know I'm in the right. A young man in love who can entertain that class of woman to tea in his rooms----"

"Was there no man there?"

Aunt Caroline smiled pityingly and superciliously.

"But you didn't see any woman, Caroline?"

"No, but I made her cry out by striking the inner door and frightening her."

"There might have been two women there," suggested the Bishop helplessly.

"There were only cups for two, John. One for the person, the other for poor Jack, who can't live without Mabel Bannister."

"Stop, Caroline, stop! Don't talk to me any more! Leave me alone," groaned the Bishop, waving towards the door. "Send Hester to me. I must talk with her. This is awful."

"Hester--always Hester," sneered the jealous sister. "Can't you discuss a simple matter like this with me frankly, and decide what is to be done?"

"Frankly, Caroline? Your speech is much too frank, and your suspicions too vile. Ah! I see it all. The whole thing is plain as a pikestaff. Jack and Mabel have been meeting in London. I forbade it. It was an absurd condition to make. Yes, they've been meeting."

"Well, that is no news."

"Can't you understand, Caroline? They couldn't meet where they would be seen, and--and--the girl has gone to tea at his chambers. It is very simple."

"Good heavens!" gasped Aunt Caroline, who with all her perspicacity never dreamed of this. "John, you make it worse and worse. You're now insinuating that Jack is a cad, and the girl--well--I'll send Hester to you. This is not a fit matter for me to discuss. She probably understands that sort of thing."

Left alone, the Bishop gave way to a sudden outburst. He stamped his foot and ground his teeth, and his lips seemed to be shaping words of unchristianlike violence. His fingers clawed the air, and he looked as though it would have eased him considerably if he could have seized somebody's throat.

His eye caught the veil on the table, and he picked it up. Its soft, filmy texture on his fingers must have had a soothing influence, for he stopped, and smoothed it out, and examined it. It was undoubtedly a woman's veil, and a very pretty one. It seemed a familiar veil, too.

When the door opened quietly and Lady Hester entered, reposeful and slow of movement, a slight smile upon her lips, she almost laughed to see her husband standing in comic dismay with a gauzy veil spread out on his fingers.

"What have you got there, John---my veil?" she asked, coming up and putting a gentle hand upon his arm.

"Hester, this is a woman's veil, isn't it?"

"Of course it is."

"A young woman's veil?"

"Well--it's mine," with a laugh.

"Yours?"

"Well, it isn't Caroline's, is it, with those gold threads? By the bye, Caroline seems excited. Have you been having words about Jack?"

"This veil, Hester, are you sure it is yours?"

She took the gossamer thing into her hands, and examined it more closely. "Well, it looks like mine, though it seems large. But it must be mine, because it is a piece from the length I brought from Geneva. I shared it with Mabel. We halved it. But as she is not here it can't be hers. What's the matter, dear? You look worried."

"Hester," groaned the Bishop in sepulchral tones, "Caroline has been to Jack's chambers and surprised a woman there--with this veil. The woman dropped this veil."

"Oh!"

This evidence concerning the ownership of the veil was all that was needed to endorse Caroline's spiteful assertions. She fingered the veil for a few moments, then she spoke her mind.

"The old cat!" she exclaimed passionately. But, seeing that she had shocked her husband, she laughed. Then with that dreadful inconsequence which was one of her charming traits, she whispered confidentially, "John, they must be married at once."

"And are you not shocked, Hester?"

"Good heavens, no! Jack is always having tea parties at his chambers. Why, Beatrice and I went there the first week he got the place to himself. Jack is a gentleman, and Mabel the sweetest and proudest of girls. But for me they would have been married now. I really wish I hadn't interfered. Caroline must be suppressed. She has come down here with the deliberate intention of wrecking Jack's engagement and preventing his marriage. If she intends to stay over to-morrow, when the Bannisters come down, I shall ask her to go."

"Hester, you can't do that. I quite agree with you that they should be married as soon as possible, or there will be a scandal. Jack ought to know better."

The Bishop paced up and down in his favorite way; with his hands behind his back. "I'm surprised at him. I'm shocked. It was ridiculously weak and foolish. It has given Caroline a stick to beat the girl with, and she won't scruple to use it. Not that I think Caroline will continue her opposition when things are settled, once and for all, by a wedding. Yes, Hester, you are right--the wedding as soon as possible--that is, if Mr. Bannister is agreeable. He rather hinted at a long engagement, and spoke of the folly of hasty marriages, but I've no doubt that when he understands Jack's peculiar, impetuous temperament, and sees that there is nothing to be gained by waiting, he will raise no objections."

Aunt Caroline did not give them long alone together. The door opened and she appeared once more. Hester's lips were hard set, and her eyes flashed dangerously.

"Well?" asked the old lady, with the air of one who has come for the decision of a judge. "Well?"

"What is it you want, Caroline?" asked Lady Hester sharply. "You told me that John wished to speak to me alone. I have hardly had five words with him."

"Well, and have you decided?" asked the eager old lady, quite unabashed. "Have you settled the fate of the gambler's daughter?"

Hester paled with anger, and the Bishop, who hated scenes, turned away, sniffing and coughing, as though he were clearing his throat for a sermon. His wife spoke first, and to the point courageously.

"John and I have decided that the sooner Jack and Mabel are married the better. The less delay, the fewer secret meetings there will be between them."

"Then you approve!" cried Caroline, aghast, displaying the palms of her hands in astonishment.

"Certainly not, neither of their actions nor yours. No one with proper feeling would approve of a young man's maiden aunt going uninvited to his chambers to pry into his private affairs, and collect evidence of nothing like--like a detective."

"Hester, Hester," protested the Bishop reproachfully, "remember my sister's views are strictly orthodox in these matters."

"They're just horrid, and spiteful, and unkind," cried Lady Hester, losing all patience.

The Bishop prepared for an explosion; but Aunt Caroline only snorted contemptuously, and turned to her brother. "John, your wife surely does not voice your sentiments when she says that you would hasten this preposterous marriage----"

"Caroline, you must leave this matter to me and my wife. Jack is not a child. He will probably settle the matter for himself. The Bannisters are coming to-morrow, and it will be time enough then to reconsider things--if any reconsideration is necessary--after you have seen the girl herself."

"I don't want to see her, or her father either. This house is no place for him. He's a rascal. I don't believe his name is Bannister at all. He is strongly suspected of being a card sharper, and in one London club there has been talk of asking him to retire. Besides, he hasn't been Mr. Bannister all his life. There was a time when he posed as a 'Mr. Gordon' in Vienna."

"Hester, Hester, what's the matter?" cried the Bishop, running to his wife's assistance. She had turned angrily upon the elder woman; but the torrent of her words was stemmed at the outset by the name of Gordon. She went white to the lips, and faltered. Aunt Caroline supposed that wicked passion was choking her brother's wife; but the Bishop knew better. She seemed really ill.

"Don't bother about me," she murmured, sinking into a chair, and recovering very quickly. "Arguments of this kind always upset me."

"But you are quite white, my darling. Caroline, how dare you upset Hester in this fashion? I forbid you and everybody else to say anything more about Jack's engagement. There seems to be need of a little more Christian charity and forbearance. Mr. Bannister's daughter is not responsible for her father's weaknesses."

"No, she only inherits them."

"Silence, Caroline!--or you will exasperate me beyond endurance. If you don't like the Bannisters you'd better not be here when they come. Hester, my dear, sit in a lower chair; you will feel better."

"Oh, it is nothing--nothing," cried the startled wife, with a forced laugh; but all the while that name was ringing in her brain--Gordon!--Gordon! Her own name. The name taken on her first marriage. Aunt Caroline had rapped it out with such strange, marked emphasis, accompanied by a withering, triumphant look, that, for a moment, the veil seemed to have been ripped from the past. Of course the coincidence could have nothing to do with Mabel and her father; but her nerves were raw from much anxiety. That dreadful time, which had been swallowed up in the mists of forgetfulness, seemed to be coming back daily, hourly--nearer, nearer. She could almost hear Richard Gordon's voice suggesting that she should accompany him to Vienna and prey upon the traveling Americans, who at that time were beginning to overrun Europe and flood Continental towns with their dollars.

Aunt Caroline subsided obstinately when the Bishop shouted and dictated in his pulpit voice, as she always did. She swept from the room, muttering that she intended to see both Mr. and Miss Bannister, and would on no account lose the opportunity.

Lady Hester was powerless to put any pressure upon the lady in matters concerning Jack's welfare; for Jack had always been considered Aunt Caroline's property since his mother's death; and her position in the household was that of Jack's wealthy guardian. Whenever the son of the house was coming home, Caroline was informed as a matter of duty, and she put in an appearance as though she were his natural mother. The sincerity of her love was her excuse; and of late years she had interfered very little with Lady Hester, or even intruded upon her social gatherings. She held aloof, keeping largely to her own room in the west wing, and only appearing at intervals. Unfortunately for Lady Hester, Jack's affairs were to the front just now, and so was Aunt Caroline.

Next morning found the old lady pottering about Jack's rooms, straightening up with her own hands, and running over his spare linen and dress ties to see that all was ready. She laid out and brushed his extra dress suit, and even dusted his patents upon the boot-trees. These things were outside Lady Hester's jurisdiction altogether; but, if the door had not been locked, the mistress of the house might have seen the old lady drop a tear or two as she grappled with the demon of jealousy which was at the root of a good deal of her opposition to Jack's marriage. She was losing her boy, the boy for whom she had economized, and scraped, and saved for twenty years, in order to leave him a fortune and start him handsomely in life. He was in the toils of a strange woman, of an adventurer's daughter, and she had not been consulted at any stage. She alternated between tears and bursts of irritability, opening and shutting drawers with a bang, and doing small violences to the furniture like a man.

There was little or nothing for her to do there, but she could not do enough.