TO SUNSET.

By 'Alaster Græme.'

IN THREE PARTS.—PART II.

CHAPTER THE NINTH.

The morning after Kingston's arrival and after their early breakfast, Deborah followed her father into his 'den;' he was already equipped for riding, and was drawing on his gloves.

'Late hours suit thee not, Deb; thou'rt looking pale, my Rose.'

'I am well enow. But father, I don't want you to take yourself away to-day; it seems unmannerly to Kingston. He will not care for my dull company alone. Do stay, my father!' She put her arms round his neck.

'Why, this is a new request! Thou'rt safe from all lovers while King is with thee. Pshaw! little one, I must go; I have pressing business. King will be proud to bear thee company. He raves about thee. Take him to the vicarage, or to ride.'

'No. Stay, father.'

'Sweet heart, I cannot. Ye look scared. I will send King away, and have Mistress Dinnage sent to ye. Ye're not well.'

'Indeed I am. Well, go, father; I will ask ye no more. Nay; I am all right; but it grieved me for Kingston.'

Sir Vincent laughed. 'Grieve not for him.'

And so Deborah and Kingston Fleming found themselves alone, for Mistress Dinnage, though urgently pressed by Deborah, was too proud to bear them company.

Deborah put a brave careless face on the matter. 'What will ye do, King?' she asked. 'I am going out for flowers. It is too hot to ride till evening. Will ye go your ways till dinner, or will ye be a carpet-knight, or what?' Truly, there was as much repulsion as invitation in Deborah's question, as she stood looking up, with her hat tied down and her basket on her arm; and though at that moment there was no vestige of coquetry in her manner, that upturned face could not look but lovely.

Kingston, half smiling, half mortified, answered: 'Well, I thought o' no other plan but to bide with you, Deb; but if ye are anxious to be rid o' me, I am off.'

'Nay!' Deborah laid her hand upon his arm, all penitent. 'Come with me. I will not deign to answer your insinuation. I will shew ye all the old haunts; the green paths where we played and romped, King, in the good old days.'

'Ye speak like a grandmother,' said Kingston, as they went down the long gallery together. 'The good old days! And what are these? You are a child as yet. I truly have cares and troubles.'

'You have not!' Deborah gazed up at him with her clear eyes, reproachful, yet laughing. 'Everything comes to your hand,' said she: 'work, travel, honours, a ladye-love. Ye have all that life can offer, and yet are not content.'

'Content? No; I am not.' Kingston stopped, and gazed at the 'Mistress Mary Flemyng' whose picture hung above them. 'Here is our ancestress, Deb, the "beautiful Mary Flemyng." She resembles you. The same eyes, the same trick o' the eyelids, the same mocking, witching smile. Here she is, but seventeen, unwed still, but her fate is hanging over her. At eighteen, she was married to an old rich rake. She went mad in time, and they tell us, "died young;" the best thing she could do. Why, she had better have kept her name of Fleming, for she had a sad life of it. But she had a soft, tame, yielding nature; there was excuse for her. The Fleming fortunes too were at a perilous low ebb; and it is needful ever and anon to sacrifice a bud off the parent stem to mend the fortunes of the house. That was arranged. What is the worth of beauty but to win gold? Thy beauty, poor Mary Fleming, won a fortune; thy sweetness and worth were sold to the highest bidder! It was for thy kindred's sake. Truly, it was a noble act!'

'Who told you this?' asked Deborah, gazing gravely up at her beautiful ancestress with a heightened colour and intense interest. 'I never heard the tale. O yes; surely I heard it long long ago, and thought it was a wicked act of hers. For had she not another lover—one that she really loved, young and noble?'

Kingston laughed cynically. 'O yes, but poor. What was that? A victim more or less never mattered. There were a dozen went to the dogs for her. She looks like it—doesn't she? That invincible spirit of coquetry could never have been quenched: it lurks in her eyes, on her lips. She deserved her fate.'

'Kingston, you are hard and cruel. Success has not sweetened you. I respect poor Mary Fleming!'

'Because you would have done likewise?' he asked, gazing down into her eyes fiercely and sardonically.

Half angered, she turned away, yet with a smile that was full of tender trouble, tenderness sweet and strange. Kingston brooded over that smile, and liked it not. That smile would seem to shew that Deborah had a lover. Who was Deborah's favoured lover? Kingston even remembered the daisy long ago. They had not another word to say till they reached the garden. There lay the quaint flower-borders, smelling of a thousand sweets, where bees and butterflies made up the jewels, and many a darting dragon-fly. And away in the background stretched cool and deep green woods, and a green path of tender shade, where stood a rustic seat. Oh, such a seat for lovers! And the tall bright foxglove reared its dappled bells about the gloom. Kingston's dreaming eyes took all in unconsciously, while Deborah cut and piled up a blooming heap of flowers.

'Now we have done,' she said. 'I must go and arrange them. Mistress Dinnage arranges beautifully.'

'Don't go in, Deb; the sun thaws me. I am cold. Feel my hand. I thought I was to be shewn the "old haunts?"'

Deborah blushed. 'O yes,' she answered hurriedly, avoiding his eyes again. 'The flowers must die, then, King.'

'Let them! A thousand flowers have had their reign at Enderby in these two years, and millions more will bloom and die before I see Enderby again!' He spoke hurriedly, emphatically.

Deborah gazing up at him, turned pale. 'What! are you going to die, King?'

'Nay, Deb, sweet heart; I can come here no more. Ask me not why. I can tell you—nothing.'

'Oh, I like not to hear you talk like this, King. You had a bright gay spirit once. I live in an atmosphere where, it is true, all is bright and beautiful and home-like, and but too dear! Yet I feel it is volcanic land; and beneath our feet, King, I hear the thunder-mutterings; and above our heads, King, it seems to me there often rise clouds black as night; for ye know how it is with us. But to your coming I looked for comfort. In father's and Charlie's faces I often find paleness, apprehension, gloom, through all their looks of love for me; and a foreboding chills my heart. But you were never wont to be like this. Now it seems to me your looks portend just such gloom and mystery. Ye are sad; you are not yourself. What ails you? Is there no lasting sunshine in life?'

'Not in yours, Deb, unless matters take another turn with you. Things are dark with your father, my little one. He has told me much. For one thing, I thank God, Deborah, that you have refused the Lincoln bait they tempt you with. Listen to no one who may lure you to such utter ruin. I know that man now. You were better dead than Mistress Sinclair.'

'No fear of that.—But shall we indeed be ruined, Kingston?'

'Things look dark. Could ye bear to lose Enderby, Deb?'

'Lose Enderby!' Her paling lips shewed that the girl had never contemplated that. 'Nay; I know not how to bear it. Is it sure?'

'No; but I thought it best to prepare you for any emergency. Heaven grant you may have some one to take care of you in this uncertain future!'

'I have a father and brother,' exclaimed Deborah proudly.

Kingston laughed with some bitterness. 'Ay, you have.'

'Have ye aught to say against them?'

Kingston glanced with his old raillery at the flushed cheeks and flashing eyes. 'I dare not say it, if I had. Yet I wish I could get hold of that fellow Charlie; I might