Managerial Accounting 12th Edition

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CHAPTER 20 (FIN MAN); CHAPTER 5 (MAN)

VARIABLE COSTING FOR MANAGEMENT
ANALYSIS

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. a. Under absorption costing, both variable and fixed manufacturing costs are included
as a part of the cost of the product manufactured.
b. Under variable costing, only the variable manufacturing costs are included as a part
of the cost of the product manufactured. The fixed manufacturing costs are treated
as an expense of the period in which they are incurred.
2. Fixed factory overhead.
3. Included as part of the cost of product manufactured: (b), (d), (g).
4. In the variable costing income statement, the fixed manufacturing costs and the fixed
selling and administrative expenses are reported in a special section for fixed costs and
are deducted from the contribution margin.
5. All costs are controllable by someone within the business but not necessarily by the
same level of management. For a specific level of management, noncontrollable costs
are costs for which another level of management is responsible.
6. In the short run, income from operations is maximized if the revenue from the sale of the
product exceeds the variable cost of making and selling the product. Under variable
costing, these relevant costs are readily available.
7. Product profitability analysis can be used by management to set product prices, to
emphasize promotional activity toward more profitable products or away from less

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 profitable products, and to make decisions about keeping products or eliminating
products from the product line.
8. Rewarding sales personnel on the basis of total sales will normally motivate the sales staff
to expend their efforts promoting high-volume products, which will produce a large total
amount of sales dollars. In some cases, more profit may be earned by promoting specialty
products with lower sales volume but which have higher profit margins on each product
sold. For example, grocery stores must generate a large volume of sales to earn the same
profit as
a jewelry store, because the profit margin for the grocery industry is low, while the profit
margin for the jewelry industry is high. A better measure of sales performance is the
total dollar contribution margin of each salesperson (total sales less variable cost of
goods sold and variable selling expenses) to overall company profit.
9. A change in contribution margin can be attributed to a change in the following factors
as they affect sales and/or variable costs: (1) quantity factor—the effect of a difference
in the number of units sold, assuming no change in unit sales price or unit cost, and (2)
unit price
or unit cost factor—the effect of a difference in unit sales price or unit cost on the
number of units sold.
10. The quantity factor for sales is computed as the difference between the actual quantity
sold and the planned quantity sold, multiplied by the planned unit sales price.
11. The unit cost factor for variable cost of goods sold is computed as the difference between
the planned unit cost and the actual unit cost, multiplied by the actual quantity sold.

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 CHAPTER Variable Costing for Management
20 Analysis
PRACTICE EXERCISES
PE 20–1A (FIN MAN); PE 5–1A (MAN)
a. $345,600 = $540,000 –
$194,400 b. $302,400 = $345,600
– $43,200
c. $140,400 = $302,400 – $129,600 – $32,400

PE 20–1B (FIN MAN); PE 5–1B (MAN)

a. $364,800 = $760,000 –
$395,200 b. $167,200 = $364,800
– $197,600
c. $53,200 = $167,200 – $68,400 – $45,600

PE 20–2A (FIN MAN); PE 5–2A (MAN)

a. Variable costing income from operations is less than absorption
costing income from operations because the units manufactured are
greater than the units sold.
b. $2,688,000 ($70 per unit × 38,400 units)

PE 20–2B (FIN MAN); PE 5–2B (MAN)

a. Variable costing income from operations is less than absorption
costing income from operations because the units manufactured are
greater than the units sold.
b. $739,200 ($44 per unit × 16,800 units)

PE 20–3A (FIN MAN); PE 5–3A (MAN)

a. Variable costing income from operations is greater than absorption
costing income from operations because the units manufactured are
less than the units sold.
b. $201,600 ($21.00 per unit × 9,600 units)

PE 20–3B (FIN MAN); PE 5–3B (MAN)

a. Variable costing income from operations is greater than absorption
costing income from operations because the units manufactured are
less than the units sold.
b. $776,160 ($14.70 per unit × 52,800 units)

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 CHAPTER Variable Costing for Management
20 Analysis
PE 20–4A (FIN MAN); PE 5–4A (MAN)
a. $15,000 greater in producing 15,000 units. 12,000 units × (6.25* –
5.00**), or [3,000 units × ($75,000 ÷ 15,000 units)].
b. There would be no difference in variable costing income from operations.
* $75,000 ÷ 12,000 units
** $75,000 ÷ 15,000 units

PE 20–4B (FIN MAN); PE 5–4B (MAN)

a. $52,500 greater in producing 15,000 units. 10,000 units × (15.75* –
10.50**), or [5,000 units × ($157,500 ÷ 15,000 units)].
b. There would be no difference in variable costing income from operations.
* $157,500 ÷ 10,000 units
** $157,500 ÷ 15,000 units

PE 20–5A (FIN MAN); PE 5–5A (MAN)

a. $28,232,000 = [50,000 units × ($480 – $248)] + [(66,000 units × ($500 – $248)]
b. $45,200,000 = [50,000 units × ($480 – $248)] + [(112,000 units × ($560 – $260)]

PE 20–5B (FIN MAN); PE 5–5B (MAN)

a. $40,080,000 = [60,000 units × ($728 – $360)] + [(50,000 units × ($720 – $360)]
b. $30,312,000 = [38,000 units × ($660 – $336)] + [(50,000 units × ($720 – $360)]

PE 20–6A (FIN MAN); PE 5–6A (MAN)

a. $500,000 decrease in sales = 20,000 units × $25 per
unit b. $1,230,000 increase in sales = ($28 – $25) ×
410,000 units

PE 20–6B (FIN MAN); PE 5–6B (MAN)

a. $326,400 increase in variable cost of goods sold = (2,400 units × $136 per unit)
b. $56,000 decrease in contribution margin = ($136 – $140) × 14,000 units

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 CHAPTER Variable Costing for Management
20 Analysis
EXERCISES
Ex. 20–1 (FIN MAN); Ex. 5–1 (MAN)
a. The inventory valuation under the absorption costing concept would
include the fixed factory overhead cost, as follows:
11,250 units × $139.00 = $1,563,750
Direct materials………………………………………………………………………… $
78.00
Direct labor…………………………………………………………………………… 38.00
Fixed factory 12.00
overhead………………………………………………………………
Variable factory 11.00
overhead……………………………………………………………
Total…………………………………………………………………………………… $139.00
…
b. The inventory valuation under the variable costing concept would not
include the fixed factory overhead cost, as follows:
11,250 units × $127.00 = $1,428,750
Direct materials………………………………………………………………………… $
78.00
Direct 38.00
labor………………………………………………………………………………
Variable factory 11.00
overhead……………………………………………………………
Total…………………………………………………………………………………… $127.00
…
All of the fixed factory overhead cost would be expensed in the variable costing
income statement as a period cost. Thus, the absorption costing income
statement would have a higher net income than would the variable costing
income statement.

20-4
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have to work for your living!” he broke out, passionately. “He deserves
to be kicked!”
“Come, be reasonable, William; that is not Harry’s fault. Women
must expect to ‘go off’ in looks, you know, as they grow older.”
“But you are not old. That is nonsense.”
“I am two-and-twenty. When you last saw me, I was not nineteen.”
“Well, you ought not to have changed so much in less than three
years. Never mind,” added he affectionately, seeing that his words
seemed to depress his sister-in-law—“I love you just as much as ever;
and you will soon get back your color when you get out of London and
forget all about Harry again.”
And he kissed her and bade her good-bye most unwillingly; for the
following morning he had to go back to the Elms, to see George about
the expenses of a “coach” to cram him for the examination he would
have to go through.
Annie went up-stairs to her rooms—she could afford to have a
sitting-room now—feeling ashamed of the pain his remarks upon her
looks had given her. It was a fact she had known for a long time now,
that her beauty had fallen off, so that there were barely traces of it left. A
thin, brown face, without a tinge of pink in the cheeks, and with scarcely
more than a tinge in the lips, eyes from which the brightness of hope and
joy had gone, and a weary, worn expression, were what less than three
years of lonely work and disappointment had left of her youthful
prettiness. No woman, and especially an actress, can suffer the sense of
lost beauty to be suddenly brought home to her without a pang, and
Annie’s vanity was strong enough to make her cry at William’s evident
regret.
“Perhaps Harry himself would not know me,” she thought to herself,
“and would be disgusted if I were pointed out to him as his wife.”
So she cried herself to sleep.
When William arrived at the Elms next day, he was even less
inclined than usual to meet his brother Harry on friendly terms. For he
looked upon the latter as being the cause of Annie’s exile—so he chose
to consider her voluntary flight—and therefore as the cause also of all
her struggles and the terrible alteration in her looks. So the lad avoided
his brother as much as he could until dinnertime, when there was no help
for their coming in contact with each other, as their places were set side
by side. An unlucky accident brought the name of the half-forgotten wife
into the conversation. Wilfred rallied his youngest brother, who had not
been at the Elms for some time, upon being “so confoundedly
abstemious.”
“One would think little Annie were still here reading you sermons
across the table with her pretty eyes,” said he.
The blood rushed to the lad’s face, for Harry uttered an oath at the
mention of his wife.
“I wish we had never frightened the dear little thing away,” Wilfred
went on, in a maudlin manner. “She was our little bit of righteousness. It
made me take to bad courses, her going away did.”
This was not a happy speech, and it was followed by a minute’s
silence on the part of all three of his brothers; Stephen was not there.
“Why don’t you hunt her up, Harry?” went on Wilfred, who either
wished to irritate his brother or had less tact than usual. “I wouldn’t let
my wife leave me in the lurch, if I had one, and go tramping about all
over the world, amusing herself without me.”
“She may go to the deuce for what I care, if she isn’t gone already!”
burst out Harry.
William clinched his fists and tried to keep still. The injured husband
went on:
“A little, sly, vagabond governess, glad enough to entrap a gentleman
into marrying her, and then cutting away and bringing disgrace upon his
name!”
“Disgrace!” cried William, turning with flashing eyes upon his
brother. “As if any wife could disgrace you! As if Annie, who was a
thousand times too good for you to black her shoes, could have any
worse disgrace than to be your wife!”
“You hold your tongue, you young cub!” said his brother, doggedly.
“I say she didn’t deserve a decent husband.”
“Well, she didn’t get one”—this from Wilfred.
“She didn’t deserve a decent husband, and she couldn’t be expected
to stay in a respectable house.”
 “What respectable house?”—Wilfred again.
Harry went on without noticing the interruptions.
“It was natural that her vagrant instincts should get the better of her
again, and she should take the first chance of going off on the tramp.”
“You infernal liar!” shouted William, too much excited to be careful.
“She is no more a tramp than you are. And, as for her ‘vagrant instincts,’
you stupid ass, they have led her into much better society than she would
ever have got into with you at her heels!”
All the others were startled, and William checked himself as he was
going to say more. Harry brought a rough hand down on his shoulder.
“So you are in the secret, are you? Come now, out with it; where is
she?”
“Out of your reach, luckily for her.”
“Yes, but you are not, unluckily for you!” said Harry, thickly, rising
to his feet and standing threateningly over his brother, not heeding Sir
George’s voice crying, “Sit down!”
“Now, then, where is she?”
William thrust away his chair and faced his tipsy brother steadily.
“I would not help to put her in your power again by telling you where
to find her, even if I knew, if you were to tear me to pieces!”
He stepped aside quickly to avoid the lunge Harry made at him, and
left the room.
“Bravo, young un!” said Wilfred.
The baronet afterward tried gentler and subtler means to find out
Annie’s hiding-place from the lad; but William kept the secret safely.
Meanwhile, the fugitive wife was preparing for a new experience.
She had, as she had told William, resolved upon leaving London for
awhile, hoping that practice in the country might mature her talent and
enable her at the end of a few months to take a higher position than she
could aspire to at present. She knew very well that, once out of London,
it would be by no means easy to get back; but the feeling that she was
advancing no further, and could not hope to advance further without
more experience, prevailed over every other; and she thought herself
fortunate in getting an engagement, in a traveling company, just about to
start on tour, to play second parts in old comedy. It was not going to what
are considered the best towns in a theatrical sense; but it was a good
company, and Annie had heard that one of the actors of the theater she
had just left would be in it too.
She had heard Gerald Gibson speak of going into the country, and
had come at once to the conclusion that he must be the actor alluded to;
she was very glad of this, for he was one of her favorites.
When, however, she got on to the stage of the theater which had been
engaged for their rehearsals, which was as dark as most stages are in the
day-time, she saw no face she knew among the people assembled there,
except that of the manager who had engaged her.
“I thought you said I should meet one of my late companions,” she
remarked to him when he shook hands with her.
“Yes, Mr. Cooke is here somewhere,” he answered.
“Oh, Mr. Cooke!” she echoed, in a tone of evident disappointment.
Now Aubrey was standing in the shadow only a few feet away from
her. He was always particularly quiet when he was not remarkably noisy,
and, having nobody to talk to at the moment, he had been still as a statue,
and had heard every word of this short colloquy, and noticed the tone of
Miss Langton’s exclamation: and he was nettled by it. For he had made
up his mind that she was decidedly the most attractive of the ladies of the
company, and had resolved to pay her the compliment of devoting his
attention to her during the tour.
But, after this unconsciously administered rebuff, he had to resort to
the other alternative—of basking in the more easily won smiles of the
leading lady, Miss Muriel West. All that Annie could see of this lady in
the dim light on the stage was that she was very handsome, with great,
winning, velvety brown eyes shaded by long, black lashes, and that she
was very badly dressed, apparently in odds and ends from her stage
wardrobe.
They were rehearsing “She Stoops to Conquer,” and Miss West
played Miss Hardcastle, while Annie herself was Miss Neville. Annie
discovered in the course of the morning that Miss West had a sweet, rich
voice and a kindly manner, an unrefined accent, and a rather heavy touch
in comedy. During the succeeding rehearsals she further discovered that
Miss West was good-humored and amusing, and that she already exerted
a strong fascination over most of the men of the company; Aubrey
Cooke, foremost as usual where a charming woman was concerned,
being absent from her side only when he was wanted on the stage for his
part of Tony Lumpkin.
The rest of the women were uninteresting. There was a common but
clever girl of about her own age who played old women; she called
herself “Lola Montrose,” but did not look like it, and was dressed in
clothes which would have been neat and appropriate if she had not tried
to “smarten herself up a bit” with large bunches of cheap but brilliant
artificial flowers. And there was a well-born and well-educated girl who
had gone on the stage against the wishes of her friends, and who stayed
on it against the wishes of the audience; she played chamber-maids; but,
though she could make witty speeches of her own off the stage, she
always failed to extract the wit from any speech she had to make on it.
And there was also a curiously incapable girl who was the manager’s
niece.
On the day of the last rehearsal, before the tour began, Aubrey Cooke
followed Annie to a corner of the stage, where she was standing quietly,
as usual, rather apart from the rest.
“I beg your pardon,” said he shyly—Aubrey was very shy sometimes
—“I hope you won’t think what I am going to say impertinent; but I
couldn’t help overhearing part of your conversation with Miss West this
morning about—about your living together.”
“Oh, yes! She was suggesting that we should lodge together, as it is
so much cheaper than living apart. And she knows all about touring, and
I know nothing at all about it. I thought it was very kind of her.”
“She meant to be kind, I have no doubt,” mumbled Aubrey. “But I
don’t think arrangements of that sort ever answer, unless people know all
about one another; and, if you have not settled anything, I would strongly
advise you to try lodging for a week by yourself first; and then, of
course, after that you would know all about everybody, and be able to
make arrangements with any lady you liked. I hope you will forgive my
interference; I could not help seeing that, as you say, you know nothing
at all about touring yet.”
Annie had scarcely time to thank him for his advice before he had
raised his hat and left her. Aubrey Cooke was a gentleman, and, in spite
of her apparent prejudice against him, he felt sympathy with the forlorn
little lady. When Annie left the theater that morning, Miss West was
coming out at the same time, and for the first time Annie saw her
complexion by daylight; and the force of Aubrey Cooke’s advice struck
Miss Langton at once, for the pink and white and black of the leading
lady’s beauty showed a difference of tastes between them which was
more than skin-deep.
 CHAPTER XIII.
Before the company Annie had joined started on a tour, she had
heard more tidings to distress her about the Braithwaite family. It was
Aubrey Cooke who brought them this time. He was telling her that he
had met their late companion, Gerald Gibson, at Mrs. Falconer’s the day
before.
“Oh! Do you know her too?”
“Yes; I have known her much longer than Gibson has. He and I have
long arguments about her.”
“I can guess which side you take.”
“I always take the part of a beautiful woman. And Gibson really does
her cruel injustice. She might sit for the portrait of the favorite handsome
panther-woman of the lady novelists.”
“I expected something more complimentary than that. I don’t call
that high praise.”
“Don’t you? Well, I don’t know any pretty woman who would not
feel flattered at being called a panther; most of them only get as far as to
be like cats.”
“Now you are absolutely libelous! I know you will go on to say that
panthers are as cruel as they are graceful, that they delight in human
victims, and you might add, if you dared, that the pursuit of them was an
exciting sport. And then you will ask if the parallel does not hold good.”
“Indeed, I shall say nothing so commonplace, Miss Langton. I
always maintain, to begin with, that beautiful women are not cruel. It is
not their fault if we crowd round them in such numbers that they mix us
up a little, and hurt our feelings by forgetting us. I have a great advantage
over most of my rivals in one respect—my appearance. I heard a lady
call me the other day the nice, quiet young man who looks so stupid. She
was asking a man named Colonel Richardson who I was.”
“Colonel Richardson?”
“Yes. He is a gentleman whom I always meet at Mrs. Falconer’s, a
very old friend of the family, I believe.”
 Now Aubrey Cooke had noted well, without appearing to remark it,
the expression of pain and anxiety which passed over Annie’s face as he
mentioned that Colonel Richardson was always at Mrs. Falconer’s. But
not having the least suspicion that she herself knew the popular beauty,
he misunderstood the cause of her distress, and connected it with the fact
of the meeting he and Gibson had seen a little way from the stage-door
some nights before; and he wondered whether she knew that Colonel
Richardson was married, and whether she had heard certain old scandals
connected with his name.
For the first few weeks of the tour Aubrey saw very little of Miss
Langton. She had taken his advice and drawn back, as civilly as she
could, from the proposal of living with Miss West, whom she soon found
out to be a coarse woman of not too reputable life, whose beauty and a
certain rough good-humor made her dangerous to many men. She saw
through the motive of Annie’s shyness at once, and said, with a laugh:
“I suppose I am not good enough for you, little Puritan?”
But she showed neither anger nor bitterness about it, and was
consistently kind, after her fashion, all the time the tour lasted, to the
quiet little girl to whom she had taken a capricious liking. So that Annie
could not help a sneaking liking for her, especially as Miss West showed,
in parts requiring dramatic power, a rough force which in some scenes
kept Annie spell-bound in the wings watching her, and asking herself if
this were not genius. And then Miss West would destroy the illusion by
coming off at the side, scolding the prompter for not being at his post,
and calling for stout or for brandy and water.
Annie, therefore, chose to live alone, the only girl of her own
standing in the company being the amateur chambermaid, who was so
ostentatiously poor and aggressively economical that Miss Langton felt
that life with her would be a sort of voluntary martyrdom.
She had some trials with lazy landladies, extortionate landladies,
maids-of-all-work who did not give her enough attention, and others who
gave her too much. They had been traveling some weeks, when, in a
certain town which is one of the oldest in England, she got into some
lodgings where the landlady was always out, and, being a lone widow
who kept no servant, sometimes left her lodgers to wait upon themselves
more than was meet.
 Aubrey Cooke had rooms above Annie’s in this house, and, on
reaching the door, tired, hot, and hungry after a long rehearsal of a piece
which had just been added to their repertory, Annie found her fellow-
lodger kicking the paint viciously off the inhospitable portal.
“It is of no use, Mr. Cooke,” said Annie, resignedly. “The stupid old
woman has gone to market, and we shall have to wait till she comes
back, unless we go and hunt her up where she is making her bargains in
stale cabbages.”
“But it is abominable to make her lodgers stand kicking their heels in
the blazing sun, while she is haggling over a penn’orth of onions!” said
he, with another lunge at the door.
Annie meanwhile had been prowling about.
“Do you think you could open the kitchen window, Mr. Cooke?” she
asked, dubiously. “We might get in there. It isn’t far from the ground.”
It was a small window, just low enough for him to reach the fastening
easily with his pocket-knife. In a few minutes he had pushed the
fastening aside, scrambled up on to the sill, opened the window, and got
in amid the crash of timber.
“What have you done?” asked Annie, anxiously, as he appeared
again, disguised in flour and paste.
“I’ve fallen into a lot of things, it seems,” said he, “and I believe I’ve
sprained my ankle.”
“Oh, my roly-poly pudding!” cried Annie, not heeding his ailments
in the unhappy discovery.
“I’m afraid it is done for now,” answered Mr. Cooke, as he removed
the body of the uncooked pudding from his sleeve. “It will do for a
poultice for me, however,” he said, cheerfully; “and Mrs. Briggs will put
it down in both our bills, so it won’t be wasted. Wait, I’ll give you a chair
to help you up.”
She got in; and they both began to look about for something to make
dinner of. Annie went to the cupboard, while Mr. Cooke opened a door
and fell down two steps into the back kitchen with a cry of joy. He had
knocked his head against a skinny-looking bird, already plucked, which
was hanging down from the ceiling. But Annie shook her head
contemptuously when she saw it.
 “It is one of Mrs. Briggs’ prehistoric chickens, and it would want a
lot of preparation before we could cook it. Besides, I don’t know how,
and the fire is out.”
So they hunted again, and, not finding anything but bones and Mr.
Cooke’s cheese, Aubrey went out to buy chops, having said doubtfully
that he thought he could cook a chop, but wasn’t sure, while Miss
Langton set to work to make a fire. When she came back, after a rather
long absence, they were both radiant; for Annie, as she let him in, told
him in great delight that she had made a lovely fire, and found where the
plates, and knives, and forks were kept, and he pulled out of his pockets
a number of small parcels and a gridiron, and produced from under his
arm a huge cookery book, which he laid triumphantly down upon a bag
containing cheese-cakes.
“The baker’s wife lent me this; so now we can have fifteen courses if
we like. This will tell us how to make a vol-au-vent à la financière, or a
fricandeau de veau with sauce piquante, or——”
“But it won’t tell us how to cook a chop without burning it to a
cinder, or how to boil a potato when I can’t find where they are kept,”
said Annie, taking up the gridiron and turned it over thoughtfully.
“Why, I can show you what to do with that!” said he, with
superiority.
And at last, after a great deal of unnecessary trouble and excitement,
and after having burned their hands and scorched their faces and gone
through a sort of purgatory on a hot early September afternoon, they did
succeed in cooking the chops; and then Aubrey danced round them in
affectionate pride, while Annie suggested that they should dine in her
sitting-room, which was only on the other side of the passage.
“Oh, no,” said Aubrey; “let us have it in here, and then we can do
some more cooking!”
So they pulled the kitchen-table out of range of the fire, and put bits
of firewood and paper under the rickety legs, and laid the cloth and
arranged the knives and forks with elaborate carefulness, and Aubrey
rushed to the tap and filled a jug which they then discovered to have
contained milk; and, the mania of cooking being still strong upon him, he
insisted on putting the battered cheese-cakes into the oven “to revive
them,” and then made buttered toast “for dessert,” to work off his
culinary energy. And Annie laughed at him, and enjoyed herself very
much. And then she suggested boiling some water for coffee, which she
knew how to make, she said.
“Yes, because it doesn’t require any making. Everything that
demands a little science falls to me,” said Aubrey, decisively, putting the
kettle on the fire so that it immediately fell over on its side with a loud
hiss.
However, the coffee was made at last, and of course Aubrey said it
was the only time he had tasted good coffee out of Paris; and, the
landlady not having yet returned, though the afternoon was drawing to a
close, Annie was rising to put away some of the things, when Aubrey
stopped her.
“Don’t be so wrong-headed as to save that unprincipled old lady
trouble,” said he. “Besides, I dare say she will stay away till about nine
o’clock, and we shall want the things again for tea.”
Annie made a grimace.
“Then we shall have to wash them up.”
“That is very simple. Put them all in the sink and turn the tap on.”
He was suiting the action to the word when Annie stopped him.
“Well, don’t let us go away then, because the fire might go out, and
then poor Mrs. Briggs might find it cold when she comes back,” said he,
with unexpected solicitude.
He did not want to break up this tête-à-tête, in which Annie, for the
first time, had been in her most charming, happiest mood with him.
“Do stay,” he said coaxingly. “Let us tell each other stories by the
firelight. I’ll begin; I’ll tell you a beauty that I made up myself, all about
ogres and a good little girl and a bad little girl.”
He was patting Mrs. Briggs’ rocking-chair persuasively, and at last
Annie allowed herself to fall into it, while Aubrey went on in a chirping
tone:
“There was once a very dreadful ogre as bad as he was ugly—he had
a mouth as big as mine—and he had for his play-fellows and companions
all the bad little boys and girls in the neighborhood; but of course the
good boys and girls ran away as soon as they saw him, especially one
little girl who felt quite sure that he would eat her up if she spoke civilly
to him. So she was always as distant as she could be, and sometimes
made the poor ogre quite uncomfortable, which of course was quite right
and proper; until one day she met the poor ogre when somebody had
stolen his dinner—and hers too, by the way—and instead of eating her
up as she expected, he did his best to make himself as agreeable as
circumstances would permit; and——What are you laughing at, Miss
Langton?”
“I was laughing at something I was thinking about, Mr. Cooke. You
can’t expect me to keep my attention fixed on your idiotic nursery
stories.”
“Oh! And so at last the good little girl got quite saucy; and—I really
must beg you to restrain your mirth at your own private thoughts, Miss
Langton. It is not courteous when a gentleman is doing his best to be
entertaining—and instructive as well. To resume. And so the ogre
wondered to himself whether the good little girl would feel quite sure for
the future that he didn’t want to eat her up, and whether she would think
he was not such a bad fellow after all and not half a bad cook at a pinch.
That is all, Miss Langton, unless you would like the moral.”
“Let us have the moral, by all means, if you can find one in all that
tissue of nonsense.”
“I pass over your impertinent comments in silence. The moral is——
What have I done to make you dislike me so much, Miss Langton?”
“I don’t understand you, Mr. Cooke. If I disliked you, should I have
devoted all my energies, as I have done this afternoon, to preparing your
dinner and being to you all that Mrs. Briggs ever was and more—for she
never gives you coffee after dinner?”
“Your civility to me to-day has been dictated by the purest
selfishness. If it had not been for me you would have had to go out and
buy your own dinner, and you would not have known which side of the
gridiron to hold. I repeat, without me you would have been a forlorn,
dinner-less woman. Look here—there is no making a bargain with a lady,
because she can always cry off when she likes. But if you would only
believe that nothing would give me so much pleasure as to be able to
render you any service at any time, and that your reserve really does hurt
sometimes, I should be so glad of having had this chance of telling you
so.”
He got shy against the end of this speech; and Annie turned toward
him a face which looked very sweet as well as pretty in the fire light.
 “I do believe it,” she said, simply. “And I promise you that for the
future you shall not only not have to complain of my reserve, but you
may think yourself lucky if you do not have to check my forwardness.”
“Madam, my innate dignity will awe you sufficiently,” said Aubrey
haughtily.
But he looked as much pleased as his inexpressive face ever allowed
him to look. And when Mrs. Briggs came in just in time to get tea ready,
affecting great surprise at their being home before her, and protesting
that she had understood both of them to say they would dine out, they
were both still chatting amicably by the kitchen fire. Aubrey was in such
high spirits that he seized the occasion to thunder forth a long harangue
at the frightened and apologetic old woman.
“Is this the way to treat two members of a profession which numbers
in its ranks the fairest of England’s women and the noblest of her men?
Woman, do you take us for amateurs? Your four hours of trifling and
foolish chattering in the market-place—a thing which Bunyan condemns
as most reprehensible—have been gained at the expense of an afternoon
of unspeakable suffering and wretchedness to two of the most
pecuniarily desirable inmates who have ever condescended to take up a
temporary residence under your inhospitable roof!”
Mrs. Briggs was overwhelmed.
“I am sure, sir, I am very sorry. But you looked pretty comfortable
sitting there by the fire together.”
“Comfortable! This woman says we looked comfortable,” said
Aubrey, turning in amazement to Annie, who hastened to say:
“And so we were, Mrs. Briggs—at least, I was. As for Mr. Cooke,
some people are never contented, you know.”
And she ran away laughing to her sitting-room, while Aubrey went
up-stairs to his, singing Siebel’s song in “Faust” in a very loud but very
melancholy voice.
After that afternoon in Mrs. Briggs’ kitchen, Miss Langton and Mr.
Cooke were very good friends. Annie found in him just the same boyish
high spirits which had made William such a delightful companion, while
the fact of his being well-educated and witty gave him a charm in which
the Braithwaites were one and all sadly deficient. So that it gradually
came to be a matter of course that he should find out what was worth
seeing about each town which the company visited, and that he should
then take her to see it, and that, if they were in sentimental mood, they
should unite in conjuring up pictures of the olden time in the ruined
abbeys and crumbling walls they inspected; while, if they felt inclined to
scoff at antiquity, they laughed together. The half-tender tone of
deference which gradually grew up in his manner to her did not cause
Annie the least uneasiness. She looked upon him as a universal lover,
who could not keep sentiment quite out of his intercourse with any
woman, and, if any one had told her that Aubrey Cooke was growing
seriously in love with her, and that her friendly manner was
encouragement, she would have been very much amused at the
suggestion.
But Aubrey had in truth grown quite conscious of the fact that this
capricious little woman, with her alternate fits of cold shyness and madly
high spirits, who could parry his nonsense with nonsense just as wild one
moment, and the next hold her own in a serious discussion, had a charm
for him which made all other women seem insipid in his eyes. She was
lovely to him; even when her little brown face looked colorless and
unattractive to others, it was full of pathetic interest to him; when she
was looking her best, when the wind had brought the bright hue of health
to her cheeks and her eyes were sparkling with fun or easily roused
excitement, he could not take his own vacuous light-blue eyes off her
face. If his face had been more expressive, she could not have failed to
discover that his interest in her was deeper than was safe for his own
peace of mind; but unluckily Aubrey’s features were the most perfect
mask ever worn by a man whose feelings were in reality as keen as his
intellect.
Time after time he had made up his mind that he would propose to
her at such a time, at such a place. For it had come to this, that he felt he
must make her promise to be his wife, if she would, before this tour was
over. But, whenever the moment came which he had looked upon as
propitious for the plunge, his heart failed him, or she would be in the
wrong mood, too friendly or too satirical, and the question had to be put
off. After all, there was no need to hurry matters; there were some weeks
of the tour to run yet, and in the meantime their intercourse was
delightful, and in the awful possibility of her saying “No” there would be
an end of even that.
And there was a burden on his mind which he was anxious to find an
opportunity of removing. It concerned Colonel Richardson and the
interest Miss Langton took in that handsome Lovelace. He made himself
an opportunity rather clumsily. They were reading an epitaph of the usual
order on some man who seemed to have had all the virtues, to have been
beloved and respected by everybody, and to have made a blank in the
universe by his death.
“He was too perfect,” said Aubrey. “I suppose his widow put up this
as a salve to her conscience after worrying her husband to death.”
“Well, perhaps she really thought it.”
“Perhaps. In that case he must have been a handsome scamp, a sort
of Colonel Richardson,” he hazarded, watching her.
“You should not take it for granted that all women like scamps.”
“All women seem to like Colonel Richardson.”
“Well, he is nice! He knows just how to treat them, to be interesting
and amusing without making love to them.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon! I should not have been so rash as to sneer at
him if I had known he was so lucky as to have such a strong advocate in
you,” said Aubrey, out of temper.
“Advocate? What nonsense! He has plenty without me.”
“That is why I am surprised to find you worshiping at such a general
shrine.”
“Worshiping! Really, Mr. Cooke, you are quite rude.”
“I did not mean to be, I assure you. I only envy him his luck.”
And Aubrey stalked off over the old tombstones and began digging
out bits of moss from a wall with the end of his cane, too angry to trust
himself to say any more.
“Good-bye, Mr. Cooke; I am going home!” sung out Annie; and,
before he had made up his mind whether his dignity would allow him to
follow her, she had left the churchyard and disappeared from his sight
behind the wall.
That decided him, and in a few strides he was out of the gate and
crying humbly from behind her.
“Miss Langton, aren’t you coming to have another of those tarts you
liked so much, as we arranged?”
 “Not if you are going to stalk off to the other side of the road if I
happen to say something you don’t agree with.”
“I beg your pardon. I am in a bad temper this morning, I suppose. I
will agree with everything you say. I think Colonel Richardson is the
nicest man I know.”
“Then there we sha’n’t agree,” said Annie, smiling; “for, although I
think his manner is good, I don’t much care about him.”
“Don’t you?” interrogated Aubrey, delightedly! “I’m so glad! Do you
know, I didn’t think he was the kind of man you would like much. Then
you said what you did only to tease me?”
“Did I?” said Annie, surprised that he should make such a fuss about
a trifle. “I don’t think I did. I say, shall we stay here next week, as we are
not going to York?”
“No; we are going out of our route a little. The governor has got us a
week at Beckham.”
“Beckham!” cried Annie, while all the color fled from her face.
“Yes. Why, what is the matter?”
“Nothing,” said she, in her usual voice, but the color did not come
back to her cheeks.
Now, Aubrey knew very well that “nothing” would not affect Miss
Langton as that mere mention of a place had done; but he saw, too, that
she did not intend to give him a truer answer. It was not difficult to come
to the conclusion that there were unpleasant associations connected in
her mind with the place to which they were going; and, after long
deliberation, he made up his mind definitely that Beckham should be the
place where he would at last screw up his courage to the point of asking
her to be his wife.
“If she likes me—and I think—I almost think she does”—he
reflected that night—“why, my proposal will be the very best thing to
drive any unhappy recollections of the place out of her head. If she won’t
have me—well, there is a river at Beckham!”
With which dark suggestion Aubrey blew out his candle and went to
sleep.
 CHAPTER XIV.
Annie felt half inclined at first to request the manager, on the plea of
illness, to let his niece, who was her “understudy,” play her parts for the
week the company were to spend at Beckham, and take her chance of his
allowing her to rejoin them at the next town they visited. The
incompetent little niece was eager, as Annie knew, for such a chance, and
there would probably be little difficulty as far as that part of the matter
was concerned.
But, besides the fact that she could ill afford to lose even one week’s
salary and risk the canceling of the rest of her engagement, she felt sure
that there was one person whom the plea of illness would in no way
deceive. Aubrey Cooke’s attention had already been awakened to her
reluctance to visit Beckham, and he was far too sharp a young man not to
be dangerous if she were to give him involuntarily a clew to a secret she
did not want to trust him with.
And the secret of her marriage she wished to keep from all her
present associates. The miserable tie seemed to be less binding when all
around her were ignorant of it. For a long time she had almost forgotten
it in the unfettered life she had led since she left Garstone; but the
remembrance of it had begun lately to irritate her strangely. There was
now nothing on earth she dreaded so much as the possibility of her
husband’s finding her out, and in a fit of capricious obstinacy or tyranny
insisting on her return to him. The thought of being again at the mercy of
that ignorant, drunken boy filled her with a disgust which was now not
even mingled with pity. And she was to be brought against her will to the
very town which he and his brothers visited almost daily.
But, after long reflection, she decided that the risk of her being
recognized in Beckham was not so great as she had pictured it to be in
her first terror at the thought of going thither. The families living round
about Beckham, as is usually the case with country towns, very seldom
visited the theater—the Braithwaites never. Upon William’s authority,
she was so much altered that, with the help of a veil and other such
simple disguises, she might pass unrecognized even by people among
whom she had lived. When the young men from the Grange came into
Beckham, they were almost always on horseback or driving, so that it
would be easy for any one on foot to avoid them; and, above all, she was
on the alert to escape them, while they had not the least suspicion of her
coming. In the town itself there was very little fear of her being
recognized by the inhabitants. She had not been in it much at any time,
and was very little known there. The mere change of name would be
enough to prevent their identification of “Miss Lane” or “Mrs. Harold
Braithwaite” with “Miss Langton.”
So, when the company arrived at Beckham, Annie was still with
them. No one noticed any difference in her manner from her usual rather
stolid composure, when she stepped with the rest on to the platform at
the station which had more than one moving memory for her, except
Aubrey Cooke, who watched her narrowly, and at once decided that she
had been there before. She was too wise to deny it when he asked her
carelessly whether she knew the place, and then she set herself to the
task of finding lodgings as near as possible to the theater. She succeeded
in engaging suitable rooms in a back street within a few minutes’ walk of
it; and she was growing secure in her incognito when they had played for
two nights and she had seen no signs of the Mainwarings or the
Braithwaites, when an incident happened which brought her into contact
with the one she most dreaded to meet, with quite unforeseen
consequences.
Aubrey had not yet found the golden opportunity he sought, for
Annie declared that there was nothing in the least interesting to be seen
in Beckham or round about it; and, the weather being wet and cold, she
seized upon this excuse to decline walks with him. The third day of their
stay was the fifth of November, and a friend of the manager had invited
some of the members of the company to some simple festivities, which
included a bonfire and fireworks, after the performance. On the same
night, Miss West, the leading lady, had invited Aubrey to supper, and, on
his pleading a previous engagement, she said to him with some pique
and in no very subdued tones that she knew whose charms outweighed
those of any society she could offer him, and warned him emphatically
that the pleasures he preferred were far more dangerous than those he
rejected.
“Your little prude will throw you over some fine morning when you
least expect it. I know what those quiet little women do. And you won’t
be able to console yourself so quickly for her defection as I can myself
for yours.”
 And Miss West marched away to bestow the charms of her racy
speech and artistic complexion where they were better appreciated. For
indeed Aubrey Cooke’s indifference to her rather overpowering
fascinations had become very marked since he had found metal more
attractive in Miss Langton, whose promised presence at the house he was
going to visit that night had more charm for him than fireworks.
The lady and gentleman who gave this entertainment were delighted
with the good nature of Mr. Cooke and the two brother-actors of his who
were present, when they took the rockets and catherine-wheels out of the
clumsy hands of the coachman and superintended the exhibition
themselves, to the great delight of the children, who had been put to bed
and then pulled out again, a few hours later to enjoy these midnight
festivities. But the young men certainly condescended to enjoy
themselves at least as much as the children, and Aubrey in particular
fired squibs and burned his fingers and his clothes with great spirit.
When at last the bonfire was lighted and the whole party jumped and
whooped round it, and even the most timid were excited to stir the
burning twigs with a pitchfork and then run screaming away, Aubrey had
time to sneak round to Miss Langton’s side and pay her the grateful
attention of putting into her hands an old garden-rake which he had
hunted out on purpose for her; and they tossed the blazing boughs
together; and, as the lurid light shone on her face, and she hopped about
over smoldering branches and expiring squibs with the help of his
friendly hand, he felt that the moment was come. In the excitement and
hurly-burly which were going on around them, nobody noticed the
tenderness with which he drew her back a few yards from the bonfire, on
the darker side of it, when her foot turned over on a glowing twig.
“Take care; you are getting tired. You must not play any more now,”
said he gently.
“Let me go back and give it just one more toss,” pleaded she
earnestly but meekly. Annie had the charm of always yielding to any
assumption of authority in small things very submissively.
“No, I cannot allow it. This jumping through the fire is a heathenish
custom highly unbecoming in an enlightened young lady of the
nineteenth century.”
“Oh, yes, it meant something, didn’t it?” cried she, interested. “The
Canaanitish children were passed through the fire to propitiate Moloch.
And I have heard of a lot of Irish and German superstitions about
bonfires.”
“Yes, they are all about luck and love. If you want to see whether
your love will be fortunate, you set a blazing hoop rolling down a hill,
and, if it reaches the bottom still alight and is not caught by any obstacle,
then you know she loves you back.”
“Where did you find out that? Have you ever tried it?” she asked
lightly.
“No,” said he, in a whisper; “I should not dare.”
They were both silent for a moment; the fire had fallen into mere
smoke and blackness on the side near where they stood, and they could
not see each other’s faces. But Annie heard the quick, loud breathing of
the man beside her, she could see him bending down over her with one
hand seeking hers, and a terrible fear leaped up suddenly in her heart, as
she moved quickly away from him with a low sound that was almost a
cry of pain.
Aubrey stood still, without attempting to follow or detain her. She
could not have misunderstood him, and she shrunk away; that was
enough for him. It was a very hard and very unexpected blow; he had by
no means felt over confident of his success with her, but at the worst he
had counted upon her giving him a hearing, and this abrupt repulse stung
him to the quick.
He did not stand there long watching the flickering light and shadow
cast by the burning pile in front of him. He sprung through the fire into
the middle of the group of howling, delighted children; and took his
place as the moving spirit of the throng with greater zeal than ever.
And, when they had all grown weary, and had burned their clothes
and scorched themselves as much as they would, and the dying bonfire
was at last left to the men-servants to rake out, and, the children having
been sent to bed, the rest sat down to supper, Aubrey Cooke was the
wittiest there as he had been the most active outside, and he gave to
Annie’s watching eyes only this one sign that she had wounded him—he
did not look at her.
When they broke up, between two and three o’clock in the morning,
the two other actors and the other actress who had come left Miss
Langton as a matter of course to the care of Aubrey. But she slipped past
him and went on by herself. He did not attempt to overtake her, but
followed at a short distance, in case she should be frightened by a stray
drunken rough in going through the narrow streets which led to her
lodging.
She was just in front of the house where Miss West lodged, when the
door opened and two or three gentlemen came down the steps. The
foremost, who was walking very unsteadily, staggered against her as he
was turning round to speak to his companions. She gave a frightened cry,
and rushed past him in terror. As she heard first a laugh and then a man’s
footsteps behind her, she broke into a run, but stumbled against the
curbstone of the pavement as she went over a crossing, with the man
close upon her. He caught her when her foot slipped; and then, as she
turned round sharply, she suddenly gave a startled cry and clung to his
arms, sobbing out:
“You, Aubrey! Thank Heaven!”
“My dear child, who did you think it was?”
“I thought it was that tipsy man!” she whispered, shuddering.
“The clumsy brute didn’t hurt you, my darling, did he, when he ran
up against you? I would have punched his head——”
“No, no, no!” she cried, clinging to him again, in fear of his
returning. “He didn’t hurt me at all; he scarcely touched me. But I
thought it was he who was running after me, and I was frightened.”
“That is all because you were a silly girl and were too proud to let me
see you home. It is a ‘judgment.’ Why, you are shaking all over still! I
didn’t think you were such a little coward!”
He soothed her tenderly, with a very happy remembrance of her
delight in recognizing him, and of the impulsive closing of the little
hands on his arm. He began to think that repulse of a few hours before
might be differently construed; she could not have smiled up more than
gratefully into his face as she was doing now if he had been repugnant to
her. Other women might, but not Annie Langton.
And Aubrey was right. She had felt just what her face expressed, that
the one person in the world whose presence inspired her with perfect
confidence had suddenly appeared at the very moment when she dreaded
the approach of the person she most feared to meet.
 For, in the half tipsy man who had staggered down from Miss West’s
door and reeled against her, Annie had instantly recognized her husband.
He had not known her, he had scarcely seen her, for the little figure had
flown past almost before he had recovered his balance; but in the first
moment of terror, Annie imagined that he had seen, known, and was
pursuing her.
She walked on with Aubrey very quietly, very silently, her hand on
his arm and his hand on hers, listening to his gentle, playful scolding
with a little laugh now and then, but without speaking much, satisfied
that she was safe with him, and that she need not talk to show him that
she felt so. When they came to her door, she disengaged her hand and
held it out while bidding him “Good-night” with a smile that made
Aubrey bold. He took her hand in his, passed his other arm round her,
saying, in a quick, jerky whisper:
“Annie, you do—you will trust yourself to me, won’t you?”
There was no eloquence in his speech; but for once his light eyes
spoke very plainly, his voice broke into tenderness. Annie trembled. Her
eyes, as they met his, shone with a light he had never seen in them
before. But before he could speak again, before he could draw her into
his arms, the light had faded. She gave him one look so wildly,
unutterably sad that he never forgot it; then, with bent head, she slipped
gently out of the grasp of his arm and turned to the door. She could not
see the lock, for the tears were gathering in her eyes. After a few
moments, Aubrey, who had stood behind her without speaking, took the
key from her shaking hand and opened the door for her.
“Thank you, Aubrey. Good-night,” said she, in a quavering voice,
without looking up.
“Good-night, darling!” he whispered back, managing to give one last
despairing squeeze to the little fingers before she shut the door.
He went home to his lodgings utterly bewildered, but resolved to get
from her the next day some explanation of her extraordinary treatment of
his advances. She had certainly understood him. She had at first repelled,
then encouraged him. He had seen in her eyes the very look he had
wished to call up in them, and the next minute it had changed to an
expression of plaintive misery and regret which had chilled his hopes
even as they rose.
 But the next day, when he called upon her, he was told Miss Langton
was not well, and could not see any one. He knew very well that she was
only putting him off, and he made up his mind that at night she should
not escape him. She took care however not to be caught alone, and her
share in the performance was nearly over before Aubrey, always on the
watch, saw Miss Montrose, who had been standing at the side with her,
go upon the scene at her cue and leave Annie by herself at last. Then she
heard his voice behind her; she could not escape now, for before long she
would hear her own cue, and must be on the watch for it.
“Good-evening, Miss Langton.”
“Oh, good-evening, Mr. Cooke!” She gave him her hand; it was
trembling a little, and she did not look up into his face.
“I have not had an opportunity of speaking to you before. You will
let me see you home?”
“Not to-night; I have promised to go to supper with Miss Norris.”
“You are putting me off, I see. Is it fair, Annie? Is it right? Am I not
worth an answer?”
“An answer to what?”
“To what I said to you last night. You can’t have forgotten so soon. If
I were a stranger, if I were the most contemptible wretch living, if you
had always treated me with open dislike, you could not have
misunderstood or forgotten what I said to you last night.”
Annie turned and looked up at him, pale under her rouge.
“I have not forgotten, nor understood—at least, I think not. I thought
you too would have understood—that I tried to avoid you, because I
feared, I knew my answer, if I must answer, would give you pain.”
“Then you don’t like me?”
A ray of vehement passion flashed from her dark eyes.
“Don’t torture me! You know I like you; but I can’t—I can’t do
more! I don’t know whether I have done wrong—I never meant to lead
you to feel like this. How could I go on avoiding you when I was lonely
and you were kind?”
“Why should you avoid me? Why should you not love me?”
 She did not answer; but there was no mistaking the misery on her
face for coquetry or caprice.
“Are you bound by some other engagement, Annie?”
She shuddered. Before he could speak again, she turned quickly to
him.
“Don’t ask me any more; believe what I say, that I am suffering more
than you can, and it is my own fault. I am bound by an engagement in
which love is out of the question, and always must be. What love is to
most women ambition is to me.”
“Do you mean that you will marry for ambition? You, Annie? Wait,
wait a little for me; I will get on—I can—I’m not a fool——”
“Hush!” said Annie sharply. “It is impossible; I can never marry you!
You are only torturing me, and all to no end. I cannot marry you; I
cannot love you!”
“You could if you would, Annie. I could make you love me; you are
always happy when you are with me.”
His words moved her, and she stopped him abruptly.
“Happy? Yes, for the time. We have been good friends, that is all.
But there is something more in life than you can give me.”
“What is there?”
“Fame, position, the means of getting on.”
“Is that what you care for most?”
“What if it is?”
“It is not; but, if it were, I would get those for you easily enough.”
She laughed, but not merrily.
“I think you overestimate your powers.”
Aubrey’s face looked in that moment as if carved in wood, save for
the steady shining of his light eyes. He said, quietly:
“Oh, I do, do I? Well, you shall see.”
They were both silent for a few moments, and then Annie heard her
cue and went on.
 This conversation took place on a Thursday evening, and during the
next two days Annie avoided Aubrey still, and he did not again seek an
interview with her, but contented himself with simple greetings, and with
watching her quite unobtrusively. She missed his companionship keenly,
far too keenly. She did not dare to leave the house all day, fearing as
much to meet him as to meet any of the Braithwaites, yet holding her
breath when there was a knock at the front door, in the hope that he at
least had come to ask after her. But he did not come. On Saturday night,
as she was leaving the theater, Aubrey came out, followed by a boy
carrying his portmanteau. For the first time for three days, he ran after
her.
“Good-bye, Miss Langton; I am going to town.”
Annie started.
“What! You are going away?”
“Only till Monday. I am going on business. You will wish me good
luck?”
“With all my heart!”
He wrung her hand and ran on without a word. They could not trust
themselves to speak again. The next day Annie left Beckham with the
rest of the company.
On Monday night they met once more at the theater. Aubrey was
looking paler and plainer than usual, and gave as a reason for his altered
appearance that he had not been to bed for the last two nights.
“May I see you home to-night, Miss Langton?” asked he, as soon as
he found a chance of speaking to Annie. “I will not say a word that could
offend you. I will not touch upon the—the forbidden topic,” he
whispered, earnestly.
Annie could not refuse; but it was hard work for her to hide her
agitation—and her pleasure—when she once more found him waiting for
her that night at the stage-door, and slipped her hand falteringly within
his proffered arm. She had no need to be afraid; his manner was as cool
and composed as if she had been his grandmother, and piqued her into
similar calmness.
“I thought you would like to know how I got on in town,” said he at
once, in the most matter-of-fact tone. “I went up about a London
engagement—at the Regent’s Theater—and I’ve got it!”
 “I’m so glad,” said Annie, coolly.
“Well, that is not all. I’ve got an offer of an engagement there for you
too.”
“Not really?”
“I have, though. I knew there was a part in the piece they are going to
play which would suit you down to the ground, so I mentioned that there
was a lady of remarkable promise in the company I was in, and said just
what I knew would attract attention about you; and it happens that the
manager wants some one for the part I have in my eye, and I think you
are pretty sure to get it if you write.”
“Oh, Mr. Cooke, I don’t know how to thank you!” said Annie, in
wild delight, for more than one reason.
“Don’t mention it, Miss Langton,” said Aubrey, in his old, deferential
manner; then he turned the conversation. “I met an old favorite of yours
last night—Gibson—at Mrs. Falconer’s.”
“Oh! How is the beauty?”
“Well, she affects great distress about one of her brothers, who is ill,
and not expected to live. It appears he fell down as he was getting into a
dog-cart, awfully tight, last Wednesday night. But I don’t think she is as
much afflicted as she would be if mourning didn’t suit her complexion.
And, though she mentioned that he was quite alone, she did not suggest
going to nurse him.”
“Did she mention the name of the brother?” asked Annie, quite
quietly.
“Yes; she called him ‘poor Harry.’”
Annie heard without giving one sign that the news moved her. For
the rest of the walk she spoke little, and with an effort. At her door he
was struck by the marked constraint of her manner as she bade him
good-bye. When she had unlocked the door and he had turned away, she
said:
“Whatever you hear of me, remember I am not ungrateful.”
When Aubrey got to the theater on the following evening, he found
that the manager’s niece was to play Miss Langton’s part, and learned
that the latter had thrown up her engagement and had already left town.
 CHAPTER XV.
The news of her husband’s illness had fallen like a knell on Annie’s
ears; for in a moment she saw that the bright vision of pleasure and
satisfied ambition which Aubrey’s words about a London engagement in
the same theater with him had called up could not be indulged in, except
at the sacrifice of an unmistakable duty. It was her husband who lay ill,
neglected and solitary. For one moment she tried to stifle conscience by
saying to herself that she did not know where he was; but then she felt
ashamed of the flimsy excuse, for she could not doubt that he was at
Garstone Grange. Aubrey had said that it was on Wednesday night that
the accident had happened to him, and it was on Wednesday night that
she herself had seen and even touched him in the streets of Beckham.
She must go to him, and at once, before Aubrey could guess her secret,
before she herself, in an unguarded moment, should let him know how
much this separation would cost her. She dared not trust herself to think
what a great part of the fact of his being engaged at the same theater had
had in her joy at the prospect of playing again in London; it was a
dangerous subject, and she shunned it instinctively. She tried to keep her
thoughts fixed on this one simple idea—she must go to Garstone, nurse
her husband through his illness, bear his brutal temper and thankless
snubs as best she might, and then slip back quietly into her free stage life
once more, taking her chance of getting a town engagement.
So, on the morning after her talk with Aubrey, she got the manager to
cancel the rest of her engagement, and, having packed her trunk the night
before, she left for Beckham within an hour of his releasing her. She
looked restlessly and eagerly from the windows of the cab as she drove
to the station “to see if any of the company were about.” At last she
caught sight of Aubrey Cooke going down a street, with his back to the
cab, therefore so that he could not see her; and after that she looked out
no more, but sat with burning cheeks and her eyes fixed on the front seat
of the cab, all curiosity and interest gone out of her.
She got to Beckham at three o’clock in the afternoon, and drove
straight to the Grange, which she reached before the dark November day
had closed. To her surprise, the man-servant who opened the door
recognized her at once.
 To her questions he replied that Mr. Harold was being nursed by the
housekeeper, that Lady Braithwaite and Mr. Stephen were abroad, Sir
George was in town, Mr. Wilfred in Leicestershire, and Mr. William
somewhere—he did not know where—“studying.”
Annie then asked to see the housekeeper, and learned from her that
Harry’s accident was indeed as serious as Aubrey Cooke’s words had
implied. He had slipped as he was getting into the dog-cart, one night
after supping with some friends in Beckham—Annie happened to know
something about those friends—and the wheel had passed over him and
broken his left arm, besides inflicting other less serious injuries; he had
not yet quite recovered from another illness, and had been disregarding
his doctor’s orders. After being taken to a surgeon by the gentleman who
was with him, to have his arm set, he had insisted on being driven back
home to the Grange at five o’clock in the morning. The housekeeper
continued that he had then, contrary to the advice she had ventured to
give him, insisted upon drinking brandy in the billiard-room; that she had
waited about, not daring to go in and speak to him again, until she heard
a fall and a groan, and, running in, had found that he had fallen and again
displaced his broken arm. She had got him to bed with the help of the
men-servants and sent for the doctor; but no skill could prevent
inflammation of the wounded limb, and he was now lying in a high fever
and could recognize no one.
“I would strongly advise you not to see him, ma’am, until he is
quieter. He is very violent, and he uses dreadful language.”
“I don’t suppose he says anything worse than what I have heard him
say when he was in full possession of his senses, Mrs. Stanley,” said
Annie, quietly. “It is not fair that all the care of nursing my husband
should fall upon you; so, if you please, I will go to him now.”
Mrs. Stanley led the way to the room to which they had carried him
—not his own, but a larger and more convenient one. She drew the arm
of the young wife through her own as they entered, for Annie had grown
very white and was shaking from head to foot when her husband’s voice,
speaking disjointedly to an imaginary listener, met her ear. She recovered
her self-command before venturing to look at him; but, however strong
her emotion might have been, it would not have affected him. He took no
notice of her presence; his wide-open eyes did not even see her.
Annie did not give way again; but from that hour she took her place
by his bedside alternately with Mrs. Stanley, listening to idle babblings
of his useless vicious life, to invectives against the carelessness of
grooms, the meanness of his brother George, the “airs Sue gave herself.”
But there was never one word of herself; she had passed out of his life;
been forgotten, as if those few months of their married life had never
been. Only once did he refer to her, and that was not to Annie, his wife,
but to Miss Lane of Garstone Grange.
“Saw the pretty little governess going to church; felt half inclined to
go too, just to look at her,” he murmured once while she sat by his
bedside listening. But then he rambled off into talk which concerned a
dog he had bought, and Susan Green, the blacksmith’s daughter, and let
fall some epithets which, it occurred to Annie, would apply particularly
well to Miss West, at whose house he and his companions had been
supping on the Wednesday night, or rather Thursday morning, when she
had run against him in Beckham Street, and when he had met with his
accident.
It was a hard punishment for the weakness of marrying him and the
fault of leaving him that she was suffering now, as she listened to his
wandering talk about other women, which showed his contempt for a sex
he did not understand, or think worth the trouble of trying to understand.
And all the while she had to try to overcome the disgust with which he
inspired her and the longing to be again in the society of one man, one
brilliant, interesting companion, for whom every word she uttered had a
charm, every action of hers was right.
When Mrs. Stanley took her place in the sickroom, she would fly like
an escaped bird out of doors, and wander through the fields and the now
leafless copses by herself, rejoicing in her temporary freedom, trying to
forget the horrible fact that she was married, and the very existence of
that unconscious, senseless clog upon her life that she had left in the
darkened room up-stairs. These rambles brought almost as much pain as
pleasure to her; they recalled to her so vividly the long marauding
expeditions she had had with William, when they used to return home
laden with birds’ eggs and ducks’ feathers, and moss-covered twigs, all
of which William had to carry as soon as they got near the house, for fear
any of the household should think that Mrs. Harold Braithwaite was so
childish as to care for such rubbish. Harry had been merely an every-day
trial then, to be shirked as much as conscience permitted; now he had
become, and by her own fault, an obstacle to her happiness which there
was no possibility of removing.
 She had returned to the sickroom one afternoon to relieve the
housekeeper, and, finding that Harry was sleeping quietly—a fact which
made her a little nervous, as it proved he was getting better—she opened
a book and settled herself in an arm-chair by the fire, whence she could
see any movement of the invalid’s by merely raising her eyes. The book
was George Sands’ “Consuelo.” Opening it at first carelessly, the earliest
pages fixed her attention, and before long she bent over it, completely
absorbed in the fascinating story.
She did not see the sick man’s eyes open, fall upon her, and remain
fixed, at first vacantly, then intently, upon her bent head. She did not
even notice the slight sound he made as he struggled to raise himself on
his elbow, nor the faint gasp of astonishment he gave when, having
succeeded, he had satisfied himself that it was his long-forgotten wife.
“Annie!” he exclaimed, in a voice hoarse with weakness and with no
warmer emotion than amazement.
She looked up and said “Harry!” with just the same amount of
tenderness.
“Why are you here?” he asked curiously, as he fell weakly back upon
his pillow.
“Why, to nurse you, of course!” said she in a soft voice, rising at
once without any noise or bustle, but in a quietly matter-of-fact manner.
She came to the bed, arranged his pillow more comfortably, raised
his head, and gave him something to drink, while he stared at her silently
and received her attentions without any remark, until she quietly went
back again to her arm-chair and “Consuelo.” Still he gazed at her fixedly,
and, as she opened the book at the right place, which she had been
careful not to lose on hearing her husband address her for the first time
after nearly four years’ separation, he said:
“You’ve gone off shockingly!”
“Yes, I know I have,” said Annie, quite calmly, putting her finger on
the line she had come to as she looked up. “But you had better not talk
now,” she added, coaxingly; “it is very bad when you are still so weak.”
Down went her head again; but, with characteristic tact, he insisted
on continuing:
“I don’t think I ever saw anybody so much altered. I suppose that is
why you have come back. You found nobody else would admire you any