BLACK SHEEP!

BY THE AUTHOR OF "LAND AT LAST," "KISSING THE ROD,"
&C. &C.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER X.    PAUL WARD.

THE autumn tints were rich and beautiful
upon the Kent woods, and nowhere more rich
or more beautiful than in Sir Thomas Boldero's
domain. The soft grass beneath the noble
beeches was strewn with the russet leaves a
little earlier than usual that year, and somewhat
more plentifully, for the storm had shaken them
down, and had even rent away a branch here
and there from some of the less sturdy trees.
And then the forester made his inspection, and
the fallen branches were removed, and duly cut
and housed for winter firewood, and it chanced
that the hitherto forgotten log on which George
Dallas had sat one spring morning was carried
away with them.

Clare Carruthers missed it from its accustomed
place as she rode down the glade which
she still loved, though it had a painful
association for her now. Every day her eyes had
rested on the rugged log, and every day she had
turned them away with a sigh. To-day it was
there no longer, and its absence was a relief.
She reined Sir Lancelot up for a moment, and
looked at the vacant space. The earth lay bare
and brown where the log had been; there was
no grass there.

"It won't be hidden until the spring," she
thought, impatiently. "I wish—I wish I could
forget the place in which I saw him first! I
wish I could forget that I ever had seen
him!"

Then she turned her head away with an effort
and a sigh, and rode on.

Clare was going over from the Sycamores to
Poynings. She had occasion to see the
housekeeper, started early, and, as usual,
unattended, save by Caesar, who bounded along
now by the side of Sir Lancelot, anon a
considerable way in advance, doing the distance
twice over, after the fashion of dogs, and
evidently compassionating the leisurely pace to
which his equine friend and comrade was
condemned.

The months which had elapsed since her
inauspicious meeting among the beeches with
Paul Ward had had much inquietude and
mysterious trouble in them for the girl whose
graces they had but ripened and perfected,
on whose fair face they had impressed a
premature but very beautiful thoughtfulness.
To one so young, so innocent, so carefully
shielded from evil, living in so pure and calm an
atmosphere of home, and yet around whom the
inevitable solitude of orphanhood dwelt, the
presence of a secret cause of sorrow, doubt,
perplexity, was in itself a burden grievous to
be borne. Clare could not help dwelling
perpetually on the only mystery which had ever
come into her tranquil conventional life, and
the more she shrank from the contemplation,
the more it pressed itself upon her.
Sometimes, for days and weeks together, the
remembrance of it would be vague and formless, then
it would take shape again and substance, and
thrill her with fresh horror, distract her with
new perplexity. Sometimes she would address
herself with all the force of her intelligence to
this mysterious remembrance, she would arrange
the circumstances in order and question them,
and then she would turn away from the
investigation cold and trembling, with all the terrible
conviction of the first moment of revelation
forcibly restored.

The dreadful truth haunted her. When Sir
Thomas Boldero asked her ladyship if there was
any news in the Times each morning (for the
Sycamores was governed by other laws than
those which ruled Poynings, and Lady Boldero,
who was interested in politics after her
preserves and her linen-presses, always read the
papers first), Clare had listened with horrid
sickening fear for many and many a day. But
suspense of this sort cannot last in its first
vitality, and it had lessened, but it was not
wholly dead even yet. One subject of speculation
frequently occupied her. Had he seen the
warning she had ventured to send him?  No,
she would sometimes say to herself, decisively,
no, he had not seen it. His safety must have
been otherwise secured; if he had seen it, he
would know that the terrible truth was known
to her, and he would never have dared to recal
himself to her memory. For he did so recal
himself, and this was the most terrible part of
it all for Clare. On the first day of each month
she received the current number of The Piccadilly,
and there was always written on the
fly-leaf, "From Paul Ward." No, her attempt
had failed; such madness, such audacity, could