A DOUBLE CONSECRATION

Bessie Byass and her husband had, as you may suppose, devoted many an hour to intimate gossip on the affairs of their top-floor lodgers.  Having no relations with Clerkenwell Close, they did not even hear the rumours which spread from Mrs. Peckover’s house at the time of Jane’s departure thence; their curiosity, which only grew keener as time went on, found no appeasement save in conjecture.  That Sidney Kirkwood was in the secret from the first they had no doubt; Bessie made a sly attempt now and then to get a hint from him, but without the least result.  The appearance on the scene of Jane’s father revived their speculation, and just after the old man’s illness in the month of August occurred something which gave them still fresh matter for argument.  The rooms on the first floor having become vacant, Michael proposed certain new arrangements.  His own chamber was too much that of an invalid to serve any longer as sitting-room for Jane; he desired to take the front room below for that purpose, to make the other on the same floor Jane’s bed-room, and then to share with the Byasses the expense of keeping a servant, whose lodging would be in the chamber thus set free.  Hitherto Bessie and Jane and an occasional charwoman had done all the work of the house; it was a day of jubilation for Mrs. Byass when she found herself ruling over a capped and aproned maid.  All these things set it beyond doubt that Michael Snowdon had means greater than one would have supposed from his way of living hitherto.  Jane’s removal from work could, of course, be explained by her grandfather’s growing infirmities, but Bessie saw more than this in the new order of things; she began to look upon the girl with a certain awe, as one whose future might reveal marvels.

For Jane, as we know, the marvels had already begun.  She came back from Danbury not alto ether like herself; unsettled a little, as it appeared; and Michael’s illness, befalling so soon, brought her into a nervous state such as she had not known for a long time.  The immediate effect of the disclosure made to her by Michael whilst he was recovering was to overwhelm her with a sense of responsibilities, to throw her mind into painful tumult.  Slow of thought, habituated to the simplest views of her own existence, very ignorant of the world beyond the little circle in which her life had been passed, she could not at once bring into the control of her reflection this wondrous future to which her eyes had been opened.  The way in which she had been made acquainted with the facts was unfortunate.  Michael Snowdon, in spite of his deep affection for her, and of the trust he had come to repose in her character, did not understand Jane well enough to bring about this revelation with the needful prudence.  Between him, a man burdened with the sorrowful memories of a long life, originally of stern temperament, and now, in the feebleness of his age, possessed by an enthusiasm which in several