aplain question."
"I am sure I will, Mr Manchuri," said Priscilla. "You have been most,most kind to me."
"We shall arrive in London," said Mr Manchuri, "at five o'clock. Now,may I ask where you intend to go for the night?"
"I will send a telegram to my schoolmistress, Mrs Lyttelton, and thentake the next train to Hendon," was Priscilla's remark.
"But is your schoolmistress at home?"
"I do not know; but somebody will be."
"Do you want to go back to school in the holidays?"
"Not very specially; but I must go, so there is no use talking about it.I felt so bewildered yesterday that I did not send a telegram, as Imight have done. But I know the servants can put me up, and it will beall right--and you have been, oh! so kind, Mr Manchuri."
"Not at all, my dear Priscilla; not at all. The fact is, I have neverenjoyed a journey so much; your company has given me real pleasure. Andnow what do you say--"
"Yes?" interrupted Priscilla.
"To coming to me to my house for a few days--even for a night or so--instead of going back to Hendon?"
"To your house, Mr Manchuri?"
"Yes, my dear; you will have a hearty welcome there, and I assure you itis quite large enough. I have got excellent servants, who will lookafter you, and you won't see much of me except in the evening, and thenperhaps you will cheer me up a bit; and--and I want to show you what youknow, my dear--"
Priscilla turned first red and then white.
"I have told you why I cannot see that," she said.
"That is the subject I want to discuss with you more fully. Will youcome back with me to Park Lane, and to-night? I am an old man andlonely, and you, my dear little girl, have stirred something within mewhich has never been stirred for thirty years, and which I thought wasquite dead. You won't refuse me, will you? That, indeed, would be asin. That would be putting a heart back once more into its grave."
Priscilla was startled at the words, and still more at the expression inthe old face; there was such a hungry, pleading look in the eyes.
"Oh no," she said simply, "I am not so bad as that. If you want me likethat--I, who am not wanted by any one else--indeed, I will come."
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
CONFESSIONS.
Mr Manchuri was a person who seldom had his soft moods; but he was verykind to Priscilla. She found the house most luxurious, and was allowedto do exactly what she liked in it. The housekeeper, Mrs Wolf, pettedher a good deal, and the other servants were most respectful to her.She was given a large, luxurious room to sleep in, and was allowed to dowhat she liked with herself while Mr Manchuri was busy all day long overhis business affairs.
So one day lengthened into two, and two into three; and a week passed,and still Priscilla was the guest of old Mr Manchuri. It was a Sundayevening, the first Sunday after her visit, when she and the old man wereseated together, and the old man put out his hand and touched hers andsaid:
"There is a dress of Esther's upstairs; it is all grey and long andstraight, and belongs to no special fashion, and I believe if you put iton it would exactly fit you; and I think, in this sort of half-light, ifyou came down to me in that dress I should almost believe that Estherhad returned."
"But I can't wear the dress," said Priscilla, "because of that which Ihave told you; nor can I see the portrait of your Esther for the samereason."
"Now, my dear," said Mr Manchuri, "I won't ask you to wear the dress andI won't show you the portrait of my child until you yourself ask me todo so. But what I do want to say is this: that whatever happens, I amyour friend; and as to your having done something that you call wicked--why, there--I don't believe it. What can a young girl who is not yetseventeen have done? Why, look at me, my dear. I am as worldly an oldfellow as ever lived, and I have made a capital good bit of businesswhile at Interlaken. It is connected with that secret that I hinted toyou about when we were on our way back from Interlaken."
"Mr Manchuri," said Priscilla, "what you have done in your life cannotaffect what I have done in mine. I have done a very bad thing. Itseems dreadful to me, and"--here she looked at him in a frightenedway--"you attract me very much," she said. "You have been sowonderfully kind to me, and the thought of your Esther seems to give mea sort of fascination towards you, and if you will let me I--I--shouldlike to tell you what I have done."
"Ay?" said the old man, rubbing his hands. "Now we are coming to thepoint."
"You will send me away, of course," said Priscilla; "I know that. Iknow, too, that you will counsel me to do the only right thing left, andthat is to make a clean breast of everything to Mrs Lyttelton."
"She is your schoolmistress?"
"Yes."
"Then it is something you have done at school?"
"That is it."
"Oh, a schoolgirl offence--a scrape of that sort! My dear young lady,my dear Priscilla, when you come to my age you won't think much ofthings of that sort."
"I hope I shall never think lightly of them," said Priscilla; "thatwould be quite the worst of all."
"Well, out with it now. I am ready to listen."
"I want you to do more than listen," said Priscilla. She took one ofhis hands and held it in both of hers. "I want you to be Esther for thetime being. I want you to judge me as Esther would judge me if she werehere."
"My God!" said the old man. "I cannot do that. I cannot look at youwith her eyes."
"Try to, won't you? Try to, very hard."
"You move me, Priscilla. But tell me the story."
"It implicates other people," said Priscilla--she sank back again in herseat--"and in telling you my share in it I must mention no names; butthe facts are simply these. I have a great and very passionate love forlearning. I am also ambitious. I was sent to Mrs Lyttelton's mostexcellent school by an uncle in the country. He could not very wellafford to pay the fees of the school, and his intention was to remove mefrom it at the end of last term. I ought to tell you, perhaps, that Ihave a father in India; but he has married a second time and has a youngfamily, and he is very poor. Uncle Josiah is my mother's brother, andhe has always done what he could for me. But he is a rather rough,uneducated man; in short, he is a farmer in the south-west of England.Towards the end of the last term I received a letter from him sayingthat he could not afford to keep me at school any longer, and that I wasto come back to him and either help my aunt in the house-work--whichmeant giving up my books and all my dreams of life--or that I was to beapprenticed to a dressmaker in the village.
"Now both these prospects were equally odious to me. I struggled andfought against them. The suffering I endured was very keen and mostreal. Then, just when I was most miserable, there came a temptation.By the very post which brought me the dreadful letter from my uncleJosiah, there came a letter to another girl in the school who was mostkeenly desirous to leave it. I cannot mention the girl's name, but shewas told that unless she won the first prize for literature at thebreak-up she was to remain for another year. You see, Mr Manchuri, thiswas the position. One girl wanted to go; another girl wanted to stay.Now I wanted to stay, oh! so tremendously, for another year at schoolwould give me a chance which would almost have been a certainty ofgetting a big scholarship, which would have enabled me to go from MrsLyttelton's school to Girton or Newnham, and from there I could havecontinued my intellectual life and earned my bread honourably as ateacher."
"This is quite interesting," said Mr Manchuri. "And what happened? Youare still at school--at least, so you tell me."
"Yes," said Priscilla, "I am still at school; I am there because I--sinned."
"How, child? Speak, Priscilla; speak."
"There was another girl in the school, and she was wonderfully clever.I must not tell you her name. _She_ managed the thing. She managedthat the girl who wanted to leave the school should get the prize forliterature, and that I should stay for a year longer at MrsLyttelton's."
"But how? How _could_ she do it?"
"S
he was so marvellously clever that she did do it--of course with myconnivance."
"Oh, with your connivance. How?"
"Well, you see, I could write better essays than most girls in theschool, and--and--it was arranged, and--and I consented to give up myessay to the girl who wanted to go, and to allow her to put hersignature to it, and I took her essay and put my signature to hers. Soshe got the first prize for literature and left the school, and I stayedon, my reward being that my fees were to be paid for the ensuing year.That is the wicked thing I have done, and it has sunk into my heart