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Advanced Structured Materials

Konstantin Naumenko
Manja Krüger Editors

Advances in
Mechanics
of High-
Temperature
Materials
Advanced Structured Materials

Volume 117

Series Editors
Andreas Öchsner, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Esslingen University of
Applied Sciences, Esslingen, Germany
Lucas F. M. da Silva, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of
Engineering, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
Holm Altenbach, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering,
Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany
Common engineering materials reach in many applications their limits and new
developments are required to fulfil increasing demands on engineering materials.
The performance of materials can be increased by combining different materials to
achieve better properties than a single constituent or by shaping the material or
constituents in a specific structure. The interaction between material and structure
may arise on different length scales, such as micro-, meso- or macroscale, and offers
possible applications in quite diverse fields.
This book series addresses the fundamental relationship between materials and their
structure on the overall properties (e.g. mechanical, thermal, chemical or magnetic
etc) and applications.
The topics of Advanced Structured Materials include but are not limited to
• classical fibre-reinforced composites (e.g. glass, carbon or Aramid reinforced
plastics)
• metal matrix composites (MMCs)
• micro porous composites
• micro channel materials
• multilayered materials
• cellular materials (e.g., metallic or polymer foams, sponges, hollow sphere
structures)
• porous materials
• truss structures
• nanocomposite materials
• biomaterials
• nanoporous metals
• concrete
• coated materials
• smart materials
Advanced Structured Materials is indexed in Google Scholar and Scopus.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8611


Konstantin Naumenko Manja Krüger

Editors

Advances in Mechanics
of High-Temperature
Materials

123
Editors
Konstantin Naumenko Manja Krüger
Institut für Mechanik Institut für Energie- und Klimaforschung
Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany Jülich, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

ISSN 1869-8433 ISSN 1869-8441 (electronic)


Advanced Structured Materials
ISBN 978-3-030-23868-1 ISBN 978-3-030-23869-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23869-8
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard
to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface

Many structures operate in high-temperature environment and must be able to with-


stand complex mechanical loadings over a long period of time. Examples include
components of power plants, chemical refineries, heat engines and microelectronics.
Design procedures and residual life assessments for pipework systems, rotors, turbine
blades, etc., are required to take inelastic deformation, creep and fatigue damage
processes into account. The aim of “Mechanics of High-Temperature Materials” is the
development of theoretical and experimental methods to analyze time-dependent
changes of stress and strain states in engineering structures up to the critical stage of
rupture.
During the last decades, many advances and new results in the field of high-
temperature materials behavior were presented in conference proceedings and sci-
entific papers. Examples include: the development and analysis of new alloys for
(ultra)high-temperature applications; interlinks of mechanics with materials science
in multi-scale analysis of deformation and damage mechanisms over a wide range of
stresses and temperature; the development and calibration of advanced constitutive
models for the analysis of inelastic behavior under transient loading conditions; the
development of procedures for a stable identification of material parameters in
advanced constitutive equations; the introduction of gradient-enhanced state variables
to account localized deformation and damage processes; the development and veri-
fication of material subroutines for the use in general-purpose finite element codes; the
application of the finite element method to the inelastic analysis of engineering
structures under complex thermo-mechanical loading profiles; and application of new
experimental methods, such as digital image correlation, for analysis of inelastic
deformation under multi-axial stress state.
This volume of the Advanced Structured Materials Series contains a collection of
contributions on advanced approaches of mechanics of high-temperature materials.
Most of them were presented in the Session on High-Temperature Materials and
Structures at the 28th International Workshop on Computational Mechanics of
Materials (IWCMM) in Glasgow, UK, September 10–12, 2018. We thank Conference
Chairs Dr. Selda Oterkus, Dr. Erkan Oterkus and Prof. Siegfried Schmauder for
inviting us to organize this session and for a big support during the workshop.

v
vi Preface

We would like to acknowledge Series Editors Profs. Holm Altenbach and


Andreas Öchsner for giving us the opportunity to publish this volume. We would
like to acknowledge Dr. Christoph Baumann from Springer Publisher for the
assistance and support during the preparation of this book.

Magdeburg, Germany Konstantin Naumenko


Jülich, Germany Manja Krüger
May 2019
Contents

Analysis of a Power Plant Rotor Made of Tempered Martensitic Steel


Based on a Composite Model of Inelastic Deformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Johanna Eisenträger, Konstantin Naumenko, Yevgen Kostenko
and Holm Altenbach
Computational Assessment of the Microstructure-Dependent
Thermomechanical Behaviour of AlSi12CuNiMg-T7—Methods
and Microstructure-Based Finite Element Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Carl Fischer, Axel Reichenbacher, Mario Metzger
and Christoph Schweizer
Problems of Thick Functionally Graded Material Structures
Under Thermomechanical Loadings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Artur Ganczarski and Damian Szubartowski
Structural Analysis of Gas Turbine Blades Made of Mo-Si-B
Under Stationary Thermo-Mechanical Loads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Olha Kauss, Konstantin Naumenko, Georg Hasemann and Manja Krüger
Effects of Second Phases in Mo-Zr Alloys-A Study on Phase Evolution
and Mechanical Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Julia Becker, Heiko F. Siems and Manja Krüger
Investigating the Effect of Creep Properties Mismatch in Very
Thin Pipes Within High-Temperature Facilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Martin Packham and Daniele Barbera
Cohesive Zone Models—Theory, Numerics and Usage
in High-Temperature Applications to Describe Cracking
and Delamination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Joachim Nordmann, Konstantin Naumenko and Holm Altenbach

vii
viii Contents

Stability of Parameter Identification Using Experiments


with a Heterogeneous Stress State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Alexey V. Shutov and Anastasiya A. Kaygorodtseva
Short Term Transversally Isotropic Creep of Plates Under Static
and Periodic Loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Holm Altenbach, Dmitry Breslavsky, Volodymyr Mietielov
and Oksana Tatarinova
Analysis of a Power Plant Rotor Made
of Tempered Martensitic Steel Based
on a Composite Model of Inelastic
Deformation

Johanna Eisenträger, Konstantin Naumenko, Yevgen Kostenko


and Holm Altenbach

Abstract Power plant components are subjected to high temperatures up to 903 K,


which induce creep deformations. Furthermore, power plants are frequently started
and shut-down, thus resulting in cyclic loads on the components. Since they pro-
vide adequate mechanical and thermal properties, tempered martensitic steels are
ideal candidates to withstand these conditions. The contribution at hand presents a
phase mixture model for simulating the mechanical behavior of tempered martensitic
steels at high temperatures. To provide a unified description of the rate-dependent
deformation including hardening and softening, the model makes use of an iso-strain
approach including a hard and a soft constituent. The model is implemented into the
finite element method, using the implicit Euler method for time integration of the
evolution equations. In addition, the consistent tangent operator is derived. As a final
step, the behavior of an idealized steam turbine rotor during a cold start and a subse-
quent hot start is simulated by means of a thermo-mechanical finite element analysis.
First, the heat transfer analysis is conducted, while prescribing the instationary steam
temperature and the heat transfer coefficients. The resulting temperature fields serve
as input for the subsequent structural analysis, which yields the stress and strain
fields in the rotor.

J. Eisenträger (B) · K. Naumenko · H. Altenbach


Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Universitätsplatz 2,
39106 Magdeburg, Germany
e-mail: johanna.eisentraeger@ovgu.de
K. Naumenko
e-mail: konstantin.naumenko@ovgu.de
H. Altenbach ·
e-mail: holm.altenbach@ovgu.de
Y. Kostenko
Siemens AG, Power and Gas Division, Rheinstr. 100,
45478 Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany
e-mail: yevgen.kostenko@siemens.com

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1


K. Naumenko and M. Krüger (eds.), Advances in Mechanics
of High-Temperature Materials, Advanced Structured Materials 117,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23869-8_1
2 J. Eisenträger et al.

1 Introduction

In service, power plant components are subjected to challenging conditions, such as


high temperatures and intermittent loads. Steam temperatures should be as high as
possible to increase the efficiency of power plants, such that temperatures up to 903 K
are common [1–4]. In addition, frequent start-ups and shut-downs induce cyclic loads,
which is due to the increasing popularity of renewable energy sources such as solar
and wind energies. Since this type of energy production strongly depends on the
ambient conditions, conventional power plants are started and shut-down in order
to compensate gaps or surpluses in energy production. These cyclic loads feature
long holding times (typically several hours up to one month) [3, 5–8], as depicted
schematically in Fig. 1.
Tempered martensitic steels with high chromium content (9–12%) are commonly
used materials for power plant components [9–13], cf. Fig. 1. Due to their outstanding
thermo-mechanical properties, such as high tensile and creep strength, a low coeffi-
cient of thermal expansion, and high corrosion resistance [5, 11, 13–17], tempered
martensitic steels are ideal candidates for operations in power plants. The contribu-
tion at hand presents a constitutive model, which is calibrated with material tests on
the alloy X20CrMoV12-1, a typical representative of tempered martensitic steels.
From the 1950s, this steel has been utilized for forged components of turbine shafts
for high-pressure applications as well as tubes and pressure vessels [18].

Siemens steam turbine SST-3000 Turbine wheel

Siemens
c AG

Typical temperature profile


900
800
T [K]

600
500
400
0 20 t [h] 60 80

Fig. 1 Power plant components and a typical temperature profile with day–night cycles, cf. [19].
Picture of turbine wheel according to [20]
Analysis of a Power Plant Rotor Made of Tempered Martensitic … 3

400
+ε̂ fatigue tests fatigue tests
(input) 350 (output)
ε̇ = ε̂/Δt

σ̂ [MPa]
ε̇ = − ε̂/Δt
ε [−]

250 ε̂ = 2.0×10−3 ε̂ = 2.5×10−3


−ε̂ f = 5 Hz ε̇ = ε̂/Δt ε̂ = 3.0×10−3 ε̂ = 4.0×10−3
200 0
0 Δt t [s] 3Δt 4Δt 10 101 NC[−] 102 103

400
10−5
compression creep tests HT tensile tests
300


σ [MPa]
|ε̇in | s−1

−196 MPa


−185 MPa ε̇ ≈ 1.0×10−3 s−1


−175 MPa 100 ε̇ ≈ 1.0×10−4 s−1
−230 MPa −150 MPa ε̇ ≈ 5.0×10−5 s−1
10−8 0
0 0.1 |εin | [−] 0.3 0.4 0 0.1 0.2 ε [−] 0.4

Fig. 2 Material tests on X20CrMoV12-1 at 873 K. Strain ε versus time t for one cycle during
fatigue tests with prescribed strain amplitudes ε̂ (top left), stress amplitude σ̂ versus number of
cycles NC as result of fatigue tests [8] (top right), absolute inelastic strain rate |ε̇in | versus absolute
inelastic strain |εin | for creep tests under constant compressive stress σ [9] (bottom left), stress σ
versus strain ε for high temperature (HT) tensile tests at constant strain rates ε̇ (bottom right), cf.
[19, 21]

Nevertheless, tempered martensitic steels suffer from softening under creep and
fatigue loads [3, 6–10, 22–25]. Under creep conditions, the softening effect results
in an increase of the strain rate with time and deformation [26], as it can be observed
in the bottom left diagram of Fig. 2, where the results of creep tests under constant
compressive stress levels are presented. It has been found that softening is based
on the coarsening of microstructural elements, such as subgrains and carbides [9,
22–24]. This softening effect occurs also under cyclic loads [8], as it is shown in
the top diagrams of Fig. 2. Here, the input and the results of strain-controlled fatigue
tests at 873 K are presented. Note that the total strain ε is prescribed as a triangular
function of time with a frequency of f = 5 Hz. The top right diagram depicts the
stress amplitude σ̂ with respect to the number of cycles NC for different prescribed
amplitudes of total strain ε̂. It becomes obvious that the stress amplitude reduces
over time, which is due to cyclic softening [8]. Several papers confirm the cyclic
softening effect for tempered martensitic steels, and this phenomenon is attributed
to the coarsening of subgrains [3, 6, 7, 10, 25, 27]. In addition, softening can also
be observed during high temperature (HT) tensile tests [14–16, 28]. At elevated
temperatures and low strain rates, the stress decreases steadily as the strain increases,
as it is also shown in the bottom right diagram of Fig. 2, where stress-strain curves
4 J. Eisenträger et al.

are shown for HT tensile tests under constant strain rates and temperature. According
to [14], this effect is based on the annihilation of subgrain boundaries and mobile
dislocations.
During the last years, several models have been developed to simulate the mechan-
ical behavior of tempered martensitic steels and to account for the softening effect. In
general, these approaches can be divided into two categories: macromechanical and
micromechanical approaches. The first category provides a macroscopic description
of the mechanical behavior. Usually, the results of classical tests, such as HT tensile,
creep, or fatigue tests, are required for the calibration. Based on the definition of
strains, these models are classified into unified and nonunified approaches. Unified
models introduce only one time-dependent inelastic strain [29], whereas nonunified
models define separate variables for instantaneous plastic strains and time-dependent
inelastic deformation. Typical examples of nonunified viscoplastic models for tem-
pered martensitic steels are presented in [30–33]. Often, as for example in [30], the
Chaboche model with several backstresses is used to model nonlinear kinematic
hardening. One of the first attempts to account for this phenomenon goes back to
the backstress concept introduced by Armstrong and Frederick [34]. Afterwards,
Chaboche suggested to superpose several Armstrong–Frederick-type backstresses
to obtain a more accurate description of the cyclic behavior [35].
However, nonunified models exhibit several drawbacks, such as a vague def-
inition of “instantaneous” strains, numerical difficulties while implementing dif-
ferent flow rules for instantaneous plastic strains and time-dependent inelastic
strains, and the disregard of interactions between instantaneous plasticity and time-
dependent creep [29]. As an alternative, unified models have been suggested to
model rate-dependent inelasticity in combination with nonlinear kinematic harden-
ing of Chaboche type, e.g. [36–42]. These contributions often employ the Chaboche
model in conjunction with several backstresses, which results in a large number of
parameters, i.e. usually more than 10 temperature-dependent material parameters.
One should bear in mind that during the calibration, additional parameters need to be
determined in order to account for the temperature dependence of the primary param-
eters such that the actual number of required material parameters is at least twice as
much. Consequently, making use of the Chaboche model with several backstresses
increases the number of parameters, especially if wide temperature ranges should be
taken into account. Additionally, physical interpretations should be provided for all
quantities, which is a difficult task, if several backstresses have been introduced.
Contrarily to the macromechanical approaches, micromechanical models make
use of parameters which are explicitly related to microstructural properties, e.g. grain
sizes or dislocation densities [31]. Several models for tempered martensitic steels
incorporating microstructural quantities like subgrain widths or dislocation densities
are available in literature [10, 28, 43–47]. Note that the calibration of these models
is usually a complex procedure because it is based on microscopic observations.
Furthermore, material scientists have established so-called phase mixture models
[9, 18, 48]. In their original formulations, these models are related to the microstruc-
ture since hardening and softening effects are incorporated based on an iso-strain
composite [49] with soft and hard constituents [9, 18]. The alloy under considera-
Analysis of a Power Plant Rotor Made of Tempered Martensitic … 5

Subgrain structure (TEM) Subgrain (TEM)

0.25 µm

Subgrain (scheme)
A

0.5 µm C

Fig. 3 Microstructure of martensitic steels (A carbides, B dislocations, C boundary), cf. [9, 18]

tion is assumed to consist of soft subgrains separated from each other by relatively
hard boundaries [26]. Note that the volume fraction of the hard constituent is related
to microstructural quantities such as the mean subgrain size. In order to account
for softening based on the coarsening of subgrains, the volume fraction of the hard
constituent is assumed to decrease towards a saturation value [50]. Usually, results
from microstructural observations are required to calibrate this class of constitutive
models [9, 18, 48], cf. Fig. 3.
Nevertheless, using microscopy such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
or scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to calibrate micromechanical models often
demands for significant effort, time, and financial resources. On the other hand, mate-
rial tests like creep or HT tensile tests are straightforward and less time-consuming
to conduct. Because of this, Naumenko et al. transform a micromechanical phase
mixture model into a macroscopic mixture model and introduce a softening variable
and a backstress of Armstrong–Frederick-type as internal variables [50, 51]. Further-
more, the model is calibrated with respect to a relatively narrow temperature range
(773 K ≤ T ≤ 873 K). The simulation of a creep test with intermittent loads reveals
the good performance of the model although only 11 material parameters (of which
only 2 are temperature-dependent) are required.
To sum up, the introduced phase mixture model exhibits two principal benefits
compared to other approaches. Firstly, a small number of material parameters is
involved since only two internal variables—a backstress and a softening variable—
are introduced. Secondly, macroscopic tests are used for the calibration of the model
such that time-consuming microscopy is not required for parameter identification.
6 J. Eisenträger et al.

Therefore, the contribution at hand uses the phase mixture model to describe the
mechanical behavior of the tempered martensitic steel X20CrMoV12-1, which pro-
vides the basis for the analysis of power plant components. Based on the well-known
alloy X20CrMoV12-1, which has been examined in detail such that an elaborated
experimental database is available, the applicability and performance of the phase
mixture model are demonstrated. The extension of the presented approach to newly
developed alloys is straightforward.
In the following, let us outline the structure of the contribution at hand. Section 2
presents the governing equations of the phase mixture model. In a first step, this
is done in close connection to the microstructure of the material, and in a second
step, the model is referred to the macroscale by introduction of internal variables.
Since the overall aim of this contribution is the analysis of power plant components
with complex geometries under realistic boundary conditions, the constitutive model
is implemented into the finite element method, which is based on implicit time
integration. Therefore, Sect. 3 provides a description of the stress update algorithm
as well as the derivation of the consistent tangent operator. Finally, the thermo-
mechanical finite element analysis of a steam turbine rotor is presented in Sect. 4.
The first part of the section discusses the heat transfer analysis, where the steam
temperature and heat transfer coefficients serve as input. Afterwards, the second
part presents the results of the structural analysis with the phase mixture model,
whereas the instationary temperature field is provided as input. Note that the analysis
accounts for the influence of the different starting procedures. The final section of
this contribution gives a brief summary, and areas for further research are identified,
cf. Sect. 5.

2 Phase Mixture Model

This section presents the governing equations for the phase mixture model, which
serves as basis for simulating the mechanical behavior of the tempered marten-
sitic steel X20CrMoV12-1. In a first step, the microscopic model is introduced, cf.
Sect. 2.1. Next, the microscopic approach is transformed into a macroscopic model
by introduction of internal variables, cf. Sect. 2.2.

2.1 Microscopic Model

Within the microscopic phase mixture model, the material is represented by a mixture,
composed of two distinct constituents. We presume that the constituents exhibit
an identical elastic behavior, whereas their inelastic behavior differs. Note that the
identical elastic behavior of the constituents is a significant, but realistic assumption,
which substantially simplifies the governing equations [52]. In order to distinguish
both constituents with respect to their inelastic behavior, one should actually make
Analysis of a Power Plant Rotor Made of Tempered Martensitic … 7

tensile specimen

N N

TEM micrograph, schematic micro- binary mixture


Straub (1995) structure

soft phase
0.5 µm hard phase

Fig. 4 Representation of the microstructure by means of the binary phase mixture model, cf. [19]

use of the terms “inelastic-soft” and “inelastic-hard”. Nevertheless, in the following,


we only utilize the terms “soft” and “hard” to refer to both constituents; usually we
will indicate this by employing the index k ∀ k ∈ {s, h}. The following derivation of
the governing equations is based on [19, 50, 53], where further information can be
found. Note that the hard phase refers to the subgrain or grain boundaries, i.e. regions
with a high dislocation density and a large number of carbides, while the soft phase
is related to the subgrain interior, i.e. regions with a low dislocation density and a
small number of carbides. Figure 4 illustrates this division of the real microstructure
into the two phases.
Since the model will be used to simulate the mechanical behavior of real power
plant components, we only consider geometrically linear processes. This restriction
reduces the computational effort significantly compared to geometrically nonlinear
models. Nevertheless, if the model is used for large-strain applications, alternative
approaches to model rate-dependent inelasticity with kinematic hardening and soft-
ening are available in literature, e.g. [54, 55].
Because of the limitation to geometrically linear processes, the linear strain ten-
sor ε is used in the remainder of the current treatise. Applying the iso-strain assump-
tion, we assume equal strain states in both constituents:

ε = εh = εs (1)

with the strain tensor ε . Within the framework of the applied unified description of the
material behavior, the inelastic strain tensor ε in
k comprises both instantaneous plastic
8 J. Eisenträger et al.

strains and time-dependent creep strains [29]. The strains are splitted additively
into elastic and inelastic parts, which are marked with the superscripts el and in ,
respectively:
k + εk .
ε = ε el in
(2)

Hooke’s law is applied to describe the identical linear elastic behavior of both con-
stituents:
σmk σ k
ε el
k = I + (3)
3K 2G
or:

σ k = K εVelk I + 2Gε
ε el
k (4)

with the stress tensor σ , the bulk modulus K , and the shear modulus G. Note that
the volumetric strain εV = tr (ε ε ) is determined as the trace of the strain tensor, and
σ ) is the mean stress. The prime  =  − 13 tr () I represents the devi-
σm = 13 tr (σ
atoric part of a second-order tensor, and I = ei ⊗ ei is the second-order identity
tensor.
A mixture rule is applied to compute the overall stress σ based on the stress tensors
of the individual constituents:

σ = ηs σ s + ηh σ h , (5)

while the following restriction holds for the volume fractions ηk of the constituents:

ηs + ηh = 1 ∀ 0 ≤ ηk ≤ 1. (6)

After applying the trace operator to Eqs. (1), (2), and (3), one obtains:

εV = εVh = εVs , (7)


εV = εVelk + εVink , (8)
σm
εVelk = k. (9)
K
Within the framework of classical plasticity, one presumes that the inelastic strains
in
are not influenced by the spherical part of the stress tensor, i.e. εVink = 0 ⇒ ε in
k = εk .
Taking this assumption into account and inserting Eqs. (8) and (9) into Eq. (7) yield:

σm = σmh = σms = K εV . (10)

Because of identical elastic properties of both constituents, the mean stresses do not
differ in the whole mixture such that Eqs. (1) and (5) can be applied to the deviatoric
parts of the tensors only:

ε  = ε h = ε s , (11)
Analysis of a Power Plant Rotor Made of Tempered Martensitic … 9

σ  = ηs σ s + ηh σ h . (12)

In order to formulate constitutive equations for the entire mixture, we transform


Eq. (3) such that the deviatoric stresses σ k for the constituents can be determined.
The resulting expressions are inserted into Eq. (12), which yields the constitutive law
for the mixture after some transformations:

σm σ
ε= I+ + ε in , (13)
3K 2G

where ε in denotes the inelastic strain of the mixture:

ε in = (1 − ηh ) ε in
s + ηh ε h .
in
(14)

In the following, we specify evolution equations for the inelastic strain rates εε̇ in
k based
on the suggestions in [50, 56]:

3 in σ s
εε̇ in
s = ε̇ , (15)
2 vMs σvMs

3 in σ h − σ 
εε̇ in
h = ε̇ (16)
2 vM σvM

with the von Mises equivalent inelastic strain rate in the soft constituent ε̇vM
in
s
and in
the mixture ε̇vM as well as the von Mises equivalent stress in the soft constituent σvMs
in

and the von Mises equivalent saturation stress σvM :



2 in
ε̇vM
in
= εε̇ : εε̇in
s , (17)
s
3 s


2 in
ε̇vM
in
= εε̇ : εε̇ in , (18)
3


3 
σvMs = σ : σ s , (19)
2 s


3    
σvM = σ h − σ  : σ h − σ  . (20)
2
10 J. Eisenträger et al.

one-dimensional iso-strain concept for binary mixture

εin
s
Es
σ σ

εin
h
Eh
elastic element inelastic soft element inelastic hard element
Hooke’s law: constitutive law w.r.t. constitutive law w.r.t.
σk = Eεel
k inelastic strain rate: inelastic strain rate:
with ε̇in
s = fεs (σs , T ) ε̇in
h = fεh (σh , T )
E = Eh = Es = E (T )

Fig. 5 Iso-strain concept for binary mixture with constant volume fractions of constituents, cf. [21]

The tensor σ h represents the saturation stress deviator of the hard constituent. We
make use of the following evolution equation for the equivalent inelastic strain rate
in the soft constituent ε̇vM
in
s
:
 
ε̇vM
in
s
= f σ σvMs f T (T ) . (21)

Additionally, an evolution equation for the volume fraction of one constituent should
be formulated, cf. Eq. (6):  
η̇h = f η σ h , εε̇ in
h ,T . (22)

The one-dimensional phase mixture model is illustrated in Fig. 5, whereas the volume
fractions of the constituents are assumed as constant.

2.2 Macroscopic Model

The model presented in the previous section is closely connected to microstructural


processes such that results from microscopic observations would be required for the
calibration. But since in this case only results from macroscopic tests, such as HT
tensile tests or creep tests, are available, the model is referred to the macroscale by
introducing two internal variables: the backstress β and the softening variable .
Analysis of a Power Plant Rotor Made of Tempered Martensitic … 11

The following definitions hold for the backstress tensor β and the corresponding
equivalent von Mises variable βvM :
ηh0   
β= σh − σ ∀ 0 < ηh0 < 1, (23)
1 − ηh0


3
βvM = β : β ∀ 0 ≤ βvM ≤ βvM (24)
2

with the saturation values:


ηh0   
β = σ h − σ  , (25)
1 − ηh0


3
βvM = β : β . (26)
2 

The variable ηh0 = ηh (t = 0) denotes the volume fraction of the hard constituent in
initial state. Furthermore, the tensor β can be interpreted as a backstress similar to
the backstress introduced by Armstrong and Frederick [34], which is shown in [50].
In addition, we define the softening variable  and the corresponding saturation
value  based on the volume fractions of the hard constituent:

ηh 1 − ηh0
= ∀  ≤  ≤ 1, (27)
1 − ηh ηh0
ηh 1 − ηh0
 = ∀ 0 < ηh < 1. (28)
1 − ηh ηh0

Note that the parameter ηh represents the saturation value for the volume fraction
of the hard constituent. In order to obtain expressions for the stresses and inelastic
strain rates of the constituents based on the new internal variables, we make use of
the definitions (23)–(28), Eqs. (12), (15), (16), and (21):

1 − ηh0
σ h = σ  + β, (29)
ηh0

σ̃  ,
σ s = σ (30)

3 in β
εε̇ in
h = ε̇ , (31)
2 vM βvM
12 J. Eisenträger et al.

3 σ̃ 
σ
εε̇in
s = f σ (σ̃vM ) f T (T ) , (32)
2 σ̃vM

σ̃  as well as the corresponding von Mises stress σ̃vM are


whereas the effective stress σ
introduced:

σ̃  = σ  − β
σ β, (33)


3 
σ̃vM = σ σ̃  .
σ̃ : σ (34)
2

Next, Eq. (13) is differentiated with respect to the time t:


 
∂ σm σ
εε̇in = εε̇ − I+ . (35)
∂t 3K 2G

Equation (2) with respect to the individual constituents is processed similarly, while
Eq. (3) is taken into account:
 
∂ σm σ
εε̇ = I+ k + εε̇in
k . (36)
∂t 3K 2G

We evaluate above equation with respect to the soft constituent and insert it into
Eq. (35). Additionally, the stress deviator σ s and the inelastic strain rate εε̇in
s are
substituted based on Eqs. (30) and (32). Further transformations yield an evolution
equation for the inelastic strain ε in :
 
3 σ̃ 
σ ∂ β
β
εε̇ = f σ (σ̃vM ) f T (T )
in
− . (37)
2 σ̃vM ∂t 2G

Since it is discussed in [50, 57] that the last term affects the inelastic strain rate only
at the very beginning of inelastic deformation, this term is neglected in the remainder
such that the evolution equation for the inelastic strain is simplified as follows:

3 σ̃ 
σ
εε̇in = f σ (σ̃vM ) f T (T ) . (38)
2 σ̃vM

In the following, a similar procedure is applied to the hard constituent: Equation (36)
is formulated with respect to the hard constituent and inserted into Eq. (35). We
replace the stress deviator σ h and the inelastic strain rate εε̇ in
h using Eqs. (29) and
(31), such that one obtains an evolution equation for the backstress β :
 
1 dG ηh0 3 in β
β̇ =
β Ṫ β + 2G εε̇ in − ε̇vM . (39)
G dT 1 − ηh0 2 βvM
Analysis of a Power Plant Rotor Made of Tempered Martensitic … 13

Furthermore, we make use of the following evolution equation for the softening
variable, since it is suggested in [50]:

˙ = C [ (σvM ) − ] ε̇vM


in
. (40)

The softening variable  replaces the volume fraction of the hard constituent, cf.
Eq. (27), such that Eq. (40) describes the decrease of the softening variable towards
its saturation value  with increasing inelastic deformation. Thus, softening based on
the coarsening of subgrains can be accounted for. Note that the evolution equation is
restricted to proportional loading. For highly nonproportional loading, one can resort
to refined approaches, e.g. [58].
The calibration of the phase mixture model with respect to the alloy X20CrMoV12-
1 is discussed extensively in [19, 57]. Based on this, the following stress and tem-
perature response functions have been determined:

E (T ) = C1 + C2 T 3 , (41)
G (T ) = C3 + C4 T ,3
(42)
 
Q
f T (T ) = exp − , (43)
RT
    
σ̃vM σ̃vM m σ
f σ (σ̃vM ) = aσ sinh 1+ , (44)
bσ cσ
2aβ
βvM (σvM ) =   − aβ , (45)
1 + exp −bβ σvM
a
 (σvM ) = (46)
1 + exp [−b (σvM − c )]

with the Young’s modulus E of the mixture. Note that the bulk modulus K can be
easily determined based on the Young’s modulus and the shear modulus:

GE
K = . (47)
3 (3G − E)

All constants and identified parameters are listed in Table 1. The applicability and
precision of the calibrated phase mixture model have been carefully examined
based on experimental results for HT tensile and creep tests, cf. [19, 57]. It was
found that the model adequately described rate-dependent inelasticity, hardening,
and softening over large temperature and stress ranges, i.e. 673 K ≤ T ≤ 923 K and
100 MPa ≤ σvM ≤ 700 MPa, whereas the calibration is restricted to relatively high
strain rates ε̇vM ≥ 10−7 s−1 . To sum up, the presented approach is based on five gov-
erning equations:
• Hooke’s law for linear isotropic elastic behavior of the mixture

σ = K εVel I + 2Gε
ε el , (48)
14 J. Eisenträger et al.

Table 1 Used constants and identified material parameters for the phase mixture model, cf. [57]
Variable Value Unit Meaning Equation
C1 2.23×105 MPa Parameters in the temperature response (41)
C2 −1.64×10−4 MPa K −3 function for the Young’s modulus
C3 82.6×103 MPa Parameters in the temperature response (42)
C4 −2.87×10−5 MPa K −3 function for the shear modulus
Q 540.6×103 J mol−1 Activation energy in the temperature (43)
response functions for the inelastic
strain rate
R 8.317 J (mol K)−1 Universal gas constant in the (43)
temperature response functions for the
inelastic strain rate
aσ 1.54×1024 s−1 Parameters in the stress response (44)
bσ 25.8 MPa function for the inelastic strain rate
cσ 483.6 MPa
mσ 35.7 −
ηh0 0.17 − Reference value for the volume fraction (39)
of the hard constituent
aβ 80.0 MPa Maximum value for the saturation (45)
backstress
bβ 2.70×10−2 MPa−1 Parameter in the evolution function for (45)
the saturation backstress
C 5.0 − Parameter in the evolution equation for (40)
the softening variable
a 1.0 − Parameters in the stress response (46)
b 1.30×10−2 MPa−1 function for the saturation softening
c 520.0 MPa variable

• the additive split of strains


ε = ε el + ε in , (49)

• the evolution equation for the inelastic strain, cf. Eq. (38),
• the evolution equation for the backstress, cf. Eq. (39),
• the evolution equation for the softening variable, cf. Eq. (40).
In addition, initial conditions (ICs) must be taken into account. For the simulation
of the mechanical behavior of a virgin material, the following ICs hold:

σ (t = 0) = 0, β (t = 0) = 0,  (t = 0) = 1. (50)
Analysis of a Power Plant Rotor Made of Tempered Martensitic … 15

3 Implementation into the Finite Element Method

Since this contribution aims at analyzing the mechanical behavior of real power
plant components, the current section focuses on the implementation of the calibrated
phase mixture model into the finite element method (FEM). For this purpose, Sect. 3.1
presents the stress update algorithm, in analogy to the derivations presented in [53].
Additionally, the derivation of the consistent tangent operator (CTO) is discussed in
Sect. 3.2.

3.1 Stress Update Algorithm

As has been shown in Sect. 2.2, the phase mixture model requires the solution of
three evolution equations with respect to the inelastic strain ε in , the backstress β ,
and the softening variable , cf. Eqs. (38)–(40). Usually, displacement increments
are prescribed in finite element analyses, such that the strains are easily obtained
based on the first derivatives of the displacements, whereas the stress and internal
variables are determined based on the employed constitutive model. This process
is often referred to as the stress update algorithm, cf. [59]. Thus, we formulate an
evolution equation with respect to the stress σ by differentiating Eq. (13) once with
respect to time and rearranging the resulting expression with respect to the time
derivative of the stress tensor:
 
  dK 2 dG σm 1 dG
σ̇ = K ε̇V I + 2G εε̇ − εε̇ +
σ in
+ Ṫ I+ Ṫ σ  . (51)
dT 3 dT K G dT

Note that the inelastic strain rate εε̇ in is determined based on Eq. (38). The resulting
system of evolution equations, i.e. Eqs. (39), (40), and (51) must be integrated with
respect to time for prescribed displacement or strain increments, respectively. For
this purpose, two general classes of numerical methods are available: explicit and
implicit methods. Explicit methods determine an unknown equilibrium state at the
time step tn+1 only by using quantities with respect to the previous time step tn [60],
such that these methods are straightforward to implement. Though explicit methods
are only conditionally stable, i.e. their stability depends on the selected time step
size [61]. Deploying the Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy condition, one can compute a
critical time step size for an explicit time integration method [62].
As a remedy, one can make use of implicit methods. In this case, quantities with
respect to a new equilibrium state tn+1 are computed not only based on the previous
time steps, but also taking the current and future time steps into account. Therefore,
a nonlinear system of equations must be solved at every time step [60]. Implicit
methods feature unconditional stability, i.e. their stability is independent from the
increment size. For these reasons, the backward Euler method as an implicit method
is used in the contribution at hand for the numerical integration. Because of its
16 J. Eisenträger et al.

straightforward formulation, this implicit method is commonly employed for the


implementation of nonlinear material models, cf. for example [42, 63–65]. Suppose
that one searches a solution for the ordinary differential equation Ż = F(Z, t) with
respect to the unknown variable Z. We prescribe the time increment t and assume
that the variable Z n at the time step tn is known. Then, the backward Euler method
approximates the solution at the time step tn+1 = tn + t in the following way [60]:

Z n+1 = Z n + t F(Z n+1 , tn+1 ) . (52)

Let us apply the approximation according to Eq. (52) to the governing equations of
the phase mixture model. Assume that all quantities, i.e. the stress, the backstress,
the softening variable, and the strains, are known with respect to an equilibrium state
at the time step tn . Next, temperature, strain, and time increments Tn+1 , ε n+1 , and
tn+1 are prescribed and all other quantities with respect to the unknown equilibrium
state at the time step tn+1 must be computed. With the backward Euler method, the
strains, the temperature, the stress, and the internal variables can be updated as
follows [59]:

n+1 = n + n+1 ∀  = ε , ε in , T, σ , β ,  . (53)

In the following, all variables refer to the time step tn+1 , if not indicated otherwise.
We apply the backward Euler method to the evolution Eqs. (38)–(40):

3 σ̃ 
σ
n+1 =
ε in t f σ (σ̃vM ) f T (T ) , (54)
2 σ̃vM

 
1 dG ηh0 3 in β
β n+1 = T β +2G ε −
in
ε , (55)
G dT 1 − ηh0 2 vM βvM

n+1 = C [ (σvM ) − ] εvM


in
. (56)

In order to update the stress based on the strains and internal variables, we exploit
Hooke’s law and reformulate Eq. (48):

σ n+1 = Cn+1 : ε el
n+1 (57)

with the elastic stiffness tensor C and the fourth-order identity tensor:

1
C = (3K − 2G) I ⊗ I + 2G I , (58)
3
Analysis of a Power Plant Rotor Made of Tempered Martensitic … 17

1 
I= ei ⊗ e j ⊗ e j ⊗ ei + ei ⊗ e j ⊗ ei ⊗ e j . (59)
2
Furthermore, one can replace the elastic strain in Eq. (57) based on the additive split
of strains, cf. Eq. (49), considering Eq. (53):
 
σ n+1 = Cn+1 : ε n + ε n+1 − ε in
n − n+1 .
ε in (60)

To conclude, Eqs. (60) and (53)–(56) constitute a nonlinear system of equations


which has to be solved. In order to implement the solution of this system of equations
into a finite element code, we utilize matrix notation according to Voigt. Based on
the introduced symmetric second-order tensors σ = σi j ei ⊗ e j , σ σ̃ = σ̃i j ei ⊗ e j , β =
βi j ei ⊗ e j , and ε = εi j ei ⊗ e j , the corresponding vectors s, s̃, b, and e are defined
as follows:

s = σ11 σ22 σ33 σ12 σ13 σ23 , (61)


s̃ = σ̃11 σ̃22 σ̃33 σ̃12 σ̃13 σ̃23 , (62)
b = β11 β22 β33 β12 β13 β23 , (63)
e = ε11 ε22 ε33 2ε12 2ε13 2ε23 . (64)

Note that the vectors of the deviatoric stresses, inelastic or elastic strains, and other
incremental entities are formulated and labeled analogously. For the solution of the
nonlinear system of equations using the Newton–Raphson method, we reformulate
the system:

riσ = 0, (65)
riβ = 0, (66)
ri =0 (67)

with the residual quantities riσ , riβ , and ri

−1 i i
riσ = −en+1 + ein
n + Cn+1 sn+1 + n+1 ,
ein (68)
riβ = −bn + bin+1 − bin+1 , (69)
ri = −n + n+1
i
− n+1
i
(70)

as well as the iteration index i . Based on Eq. (58), the stiffness matrix C and its
inverse C−1 are determined:
18 J. Eisenträger et al.
⎡ ⎤
3K +4G 3K −2G 3K −2G 0 0 0
⎢3K −2G 3K +4G 3K −2G 0 0 0 ⎥
⎢ ⎥
1 ⎢3K −2G 3K −2G 3K +4G 0 0 0 ⎥
C= ⎢ ⎥, (71)
3⎢⎢ 0 0 0 3G 0 0 ⎥

⎣ 0 0 0 0 3G 0 ⎦
0 0 0 0 0 3G
⎡ ⎤
2 (3K +G) 2G −3K 2G −3K 0 0 0
⎢ 2G −3K 2 (3K +G) 2G −3K 0 0 0 ⎥
⎢ ⎥
1 ⎢ ⎢ 2G −3K 2G −3K 2 (3K +G) 0 0 0 ⎥⎥.
C−1 = (72)
18K G ⎢
⎢ 0 0 0 18K 0 0 ⎥⎥
⎣ 0 0 0 0 18K 0 ⎦
0 0 0 0 0 18K

Since we make use of the Newton–Raphson method, Eqs. (65)–(67) are linearized,
cf. [60]:
n+1 = −rn+1
Ain+1 pi+1 i
(73)

with the vector pi+1 i


n+1 and the residual vector rn+1 :

n+1 = sn+1 bn+1 n+1


pi+1 ,
i+1 i+1 i+1
(74)
rin+1 = riσ riβ ri . (75)

By solving Eq. (73), one obtains the vector of increments pi+1


n+1 , such that the stress,
the backstress, and softening variable are updated:

n+1 = pn+1 +
pi+1 n+1 .
pi+1
i
(76)

The derivatives of the residuals are summarized in the matrix Ain+1 :


⎡ ⎤
⎢ ∂rσ ∂riσ ∂riσ
i

⎢ ∂s ∂b ∂ ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢ i ⎥
⎢ ∂riβ ∂riβ ⎥ .
Ain+1 = ⎢ ∂rβ ⎥ (77)
⎢ ∂s ∂b ∂ ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢ i ⎥
⎣ ∂r ∂r ∂r
i i ⎦

∂s ∂b ∂

We introduce the following abbreviations to shorten the expressions for the deriva-
tives of the residuals:

3 f σ (σ̃vM ) ∂ f σ (σ̃vM )
c1 = t f T (T ) , c2 = , c3 = , (78)
2 σ̃vM ∂ σ̃vM
Analysis of a Power Plant Rotor Made of Tempered Martensitic … 19

ηh0
σ̃  : β = σ̃ij β ji , c5 =
c4 = σ . (79)
1 − ηh0

In addition, the auxiliary matrices A1 and A2 are defined:


⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
⎢1 0 0 0 0 0⎥ ⎢1 1 1 0 0 0⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢0 ⎥ ⎢1 1 1 0 0 0⎥
⎢ 1 0 0 0 0⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢ 0 1 0 0 0⎥ ⎢ 0 0 0⎥
A1 = ⎢ 0 ⎥ , A2 = ⎢ 1 1 1 ⎥. (80)
⎢0 ⎥ ⎢0 0 0 0 0 0⎥
⎢ 0 0 1 0 0⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢0 0 0 0 1 0⎥ ⎢0 0 0 0 0 0⎥
⎣ ⎦ ⎣ ⎦
0 00001 000 000

Based on above abbreviations, one obtains the following expressions for the deriva-
tives of the residuals:
  
∂riσ −1 3 c2 − c3   1
= C + c1 − s̃ s̃ + c2 A1 − A2 , (81)
∂s 2 σ̃vM 2 3
 
∂riσ 3   
= c1 (c2 − c3 ) 2 s̃ s̃ − c2 A1 , (82)
∂b 2 σ̃vM
 
∂riσ 3 (c2 − c3 ) c4 
= c1 s̃ − c2 b , (83)
∂ 2 σ̃vM
2
  
∂riβ c2 − c3   2 1 c3 
= 3Gc1 c5 s̃ s̃ − c 2 A 1 − A 2 + s̃ b
∂s σ̃vM
2 3 3 σ̃vM βvM (σvM )

f σ (σ̃vM ) ∂βvM (σvM ) 
− s b , (84)
σvM βvM 2

(σvM ) ∂σvM
  
∂riβ 1 dG f σ (σ̃vM )
= 1− T + 2Gc1 c5 + c2  A1
∂b G dT βvM (σvM )
 
3    3 c3  
− 2Gc1 c5 (c2 − c3 ) 2 s̃ s̃ + s̃ b , (85)
2 σ̃vM 2 σ̃vM βvM (σvM )
   
∂riβ (c2 − c3 ) c4  c3 c4 2
= −3Gc1 c5 s̃ + − c 2 b , (86)
∂ σ̃vM
2 σ̃vM βvM (σvM ) 3
 
∂ri c3 [ −  (σvM )]  ∂ (σvM ) 
= c1 C s̃ −c2 s , (87)
∂s σ̃vM ∂σvM
∂ri c3  
= c1 C [ (σvM ) − ] s̃ , (88)
∂b σ̃vM
 
∂ri 2 c3 c4 [ (σvM ) − ]
= 1 + c1 C f σ (σ̃vM ) + . (89)
∂ 3 σ̃vM
20 J. Eisenträger et al.

Based on Eqs. (81)–(89), the matrix Ain+1 in Eq. (77) can be computed. We solve the
system of equations (73) using the Newton–Raphson method, cf. [60], within the
following iteration loop, cf. [53]:
1. set initial values (i = 0):

s0n+1 = sn b0n+1 = bn n+1


0
= n (90)

2. iterate i = 0, 1, . . . , i max
a. compute residual vector rin+1 based on Eqs. (75) and (68)–(70)
 −1
b. calculate matrix Ain+1 and its inverse Ain+1 based on Eq. (77)
c. determine the incremental change in the residual vector:
 −1
pi+1
n+1 = − A i
n+1 rin+1 (91)

d. update all variables:

n+1 = n+1 +
i+1 i
i+1
n+1 ∀  = {p, s, b, } (92)

?
2. check for convergence: rin+1 < 10−6
• criterion fulfilled exit loop
• criterion not fulfilled i → i + 1, go to Step 2
where the symbol  stands for the Euclidean norm of a vector. Note that the inver-
sion in Step 2b is performed analytically based on the inversion rules for partitioned
matrices, cf. [66]. If the iteration is converged, the current values of the stress sn+1 ,
the backstress bn+1 , and the softening variable n+1 at time tn+1 are known.

3.2 Consistent Tangent Operator

In addition to the update of the stress and internal variables, the consistent tangent
operator (CTO) needs to be computed [60, 64]. For the derivation of the mathematical
expression, we make use of tensor notation in a first step and switch to matrix notation
afterwards. Applying tensor notation, the CTO is represented by the fourth-order
tensor D: 
σ 
∂σ
D= . (93)
ε n+1
∂ε

In order to compute the derivative of the stress with respect to the strain, we exploit
the implicit function theorem [67]. Thus, Eq. (60) is transformed in the following
way:
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She remained there a long time, so long that Mrs. Rose wondered
what the ladies could have to say to each other. And when at last
Mabin, who was watching at the drawing-room window for her return,
called out that she was coming up the garden, the girl added: “Oh,
mamma, how pale she looks!”
“She is tired, no doubt,” said Mrs. Rose, as she left the room to
meet her friend as the latter came in.
But she also was surprised to see how white Mrs. Haybrow had
grown.
“You should have waited until after dinner. You look quite worn
out,” she said. “Well, and what had your friend got to say to you?”
Mrs. Haybrow paused, as if too much exhausted to answer at
once. Then she said quietly:
“I was mistaken. She was not my friend after all.”
“Not your friend! Dear me! You were so long gone that we were
quite sure she was.”
“No. She is very nice, though, quite a charming woman.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Mrs. Rose suspiciously. “But what do you think
about her having Mabin?”
There was another slight pause before Mrs. Haybrow answered: “I
am sure you may be quite satisfied about that.”
But when dinner was over, Mrs. Haybrow got Mabin to take her to
see the new ducks that Mr. Rose was so proud of; and on the way
back she asked the girl whether she was very anxious for her visit to
“The Towers.” And finding that she was, Mrs. Haybrow added:
“And of course, dear, if anything were to happen while you were
there, which seemed to you rather strange or unusual, you would
write or telegraph to papa and mamma, at once, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course. I see,” went on Mabin, smiling, “that mamma has
managed to infect you already with her own suspicions of poor Mrs.
Dale.”
“No, dear, she seemed to me a very nice woman indeed, and very
anxious to have you. But I am getting old, and I am nervous about
girls away from their homes. That is all.”
And she turned the conversation to another subject.
CHAPTER V.
A STARTLING VISIT.

Mrs. Rose was not a woman of acute perceptions, but even she
was vaguely conscious that there was something not quite
satisfactory about the account Mrs. Haybrow had given of her visit to
“The Towers.”
Surely it was very strange that, after being so sure that Mrs. Dale
was an old friend of hers, she should have discovered that she was
mistaken! And again, if the pretty widow had really proved to be a
stranger, why should Mrs. Haybrow, tired as she was after her
journey, have stayed at “The Towers” so long?
And besides, Mrs. Rose could not help thinking that she had heard
some name like “Dolly Leatham” before, although she had forgotten
that it was from the lips of Mrs. Bonnington, and that it had been part
of the backstairs gossip which Mr. Rose would have been angry with
her for encouraging.
Mrs. Rose was a person in whose mind few facts long remained in
a definite shape. Accustomed to have all mental processes
performed for her by her husband, she lived in a state of intellectual
laziness, in which her faculties had begun to rust. Mr. Rose had
complete confidence in Mrs. Haybrow, who was indeed a staid, solid
sort of person who inspired trust. If, therefore, Mr. Rose trusted to
Mrs. Haybrow’s judgment, and Mrs. Haybrow saw no objection to
Mabin’s visit, surely there was no need to fatigue one’s self by
hunting out obstacles to a very convenient arrangement.
And so it fell out that, when Mrs. Haybrow’s visit was over, and the
Roses started for Switzerland, Mabin saw them all off at the station,
and then returned to “Stone House,” to pack up the few things she
had left out which she would want during her stay at “The Towers.”
She had reached the portico, and was going up the steps of her
home with leisurely steps, rather melancholy at the partings which
had been gone through, and with a few girlish fears about her visit,
when the door of the house was opened suddenly before she could
ring the bell, and the parlormaid, one of the two servants who, at the
request of the new tenant, had been left behind, appeared, with her
finger to her lips.
Mabin stopped on the top step and looked at her with surprise.
Langton came out, and spoke in a whisper:
“Shall I pack up your things, and send them in to Mrs. Dale’s to-
night, Miss Mabin? Mr. Banks has come, and he seems such a
queer sort of gentleman, I don’t quite know how to take him yet. He
came upon us quite sudden, almost as soon as the ’bus with the
luggage had turned the corner, and asked sharp-like, if they were all
gone. And I said ‘Yes,’ and he seemed relieved like, and so I didn’t
dare to mention you were coming back to fetch your things.”
Mabin stared gloomily at Langford, who was evidently anxious to
get rid of her.
“What’s the matter with him? Do you think it is Mr. Banks, and not
some man who’s got into the house by pretending to be he?”
“Lor’, Miss Mabin, I never thought of that!” cried poor Langford,
turning quite white.
She had evidently entertained faint suspicions of her own, for at
this suggestion she was about to fly into the house in search of the
new-comer, and perhaps to brand him as an impostor, when Mabin,
smiling at her alarm, caught hold of her to detain her.
“No, no, you silly girl. Of course it’s all right. It’s sure to be all right.
He’s probably eccentric, that’s all. Doesn’t he look the kind of person
you would expect?”
“Oh, yes, Miss Mabin, he’s every inch a gentleman. But—” She
hesitated, apparently unable to put into appropriate words the
impression the new tenant had made upon her.
“But what?”
“He is rather—rather strange-looking. I—I think he looks as if he
wouldn’t live long. His face has a sort of gray look, as if— Well, Miss
Mabin, it’s a queer thing to say, but he looks to me half-scared.”
“Mad?” suggested Mabin, more with her lips and eyebrows than
with her voice.
Langford nodded emphatically.
“Oh, dear!”
Then Mabin was silent, trying to recollect all that she had heard in
the family circle about the gentleman who was so anxious to take the
house. And she found that it did not amount to much. A rich man, a
bachelor, of quiet habits, who disliked unnecessary fuss and noise,
and whose references Mr. Rose’s lawyer had declared to be
unimpeachable—this was the sum of the family knowledge of Mr.
Banks.
“Did he come quite alone?” asked Mabin, in spite of the mute
entreaties of Langford that she would take herself off.
“Yes, Miss Mabin, quite alone. And he said his luggage would be
sent on.”
After a short pause, during which Mabin made up her mind that
there was nothing to be done but to accept the new-comer as the
genuine article until he proved to be an impostor, she turned
reluctantly to go.
“Good-by, Langford. Bring me my things, and mind you don’t
forget to feed my canary. And you might come and see me
sometimes in the evening, when you can get away. I think I shall be
lonely.”
And indeed there were tears in the eyes of the girl, who was
already homesick now that she found herself thus suddenly denied
admittance at the familiar portal.
It was in a very sober and chastened mood that the young girl
arrived, a few minutes later, at the gate of “The Towers,” but the
welcome she received would have put heart into a misanthrope.
Mrs. Dale was waiting in the garden, her pretty, fair face aglow
with impatience to receive her friend. She drew the arm of Mabin,
who was considerably taller than herself, through hers, and led her
at once into the house, to the room which Mabin had been in before.
The table was laid for luncheon, and Mabin observed with surprise
that there were two places ready, although she had not promised to
come till the afternoon.
“There!” cried Mrs. Dale, triumphantly, pointing to the table, “was I
not inspired? The fact is,” she went on, with a smile which was
almost tearful, “I was so anxious for you to come that I had begun to
tell myself that I should be disappointed after all, so I had your place
laid to ‘make believe,’ like the children. And now you are really here.
Oh, it seems too good to be true!”
Mabin was pleased by this reception, as she could not fail to be,
but she was also a little puzzled. She was conscious of no
attractions in herself which could explain such enthusiasm on her
account.
“I am afraid,” she said shyly, “that I shall turn out a bitter
disappointment. You can’t know much about girls, Mrs. Dale, or you
would feel, as they all do at home, that there is a time, which I am
going through now, when a girl is just as awkward and as stupid and
as generally undesirable as she can possibly be.”
“Hush, hush, child! You don’t know anything about it. Don’t you
know that girls are charming, and that part of their charm lies in that
very belief that they are ‘all wrong,’ when as a matter of fact they are
everything that is right?”
“Ah! You were never gawky and awkward!”
“I wasn’t tall enough to be gawky, as you like to call yourself. But
five years ago, when I was eighteen, I was just as miserable as you
try to make yourself, believing myself to be in everybody’s way. It led
to awful consequences in my case,” added Mrs. Dale, the excitement
going quite suddenly out of her face and voice, and giving place to a
look and tone of dull despair. Mabin, who had been made to take off
her hat, put her hand in that of the little widow.
“Come and see if you like your room,” said Mrs. Dale, springing
quickly toward the door, with a rapid change of manner. “I must tell
you frankly I am afraid you won’t, because this place has been
constructed haphazard, without any regard to the comfort or
convenience of the unfortunate people who have to live in it. Every
fireplace is so placed that the chimney must smoke whichever way
the wind is, and every window is specially adapted to let in the rain,
when there is any, and the wind, when there isn’t.”
Mrs. Dale led the way as she spoke from the dining-room, and
Mabin followed.
Mrs. Dale certainly exaggerated the defects of the house, but that
it was inconvenient could not be denied. The side nearest to the
road, where the dining-room was, had once been the whole house. It
had a basement, and out of the warren of small rooms of which it
had once consisted, a fairly large hall and a few fair-sized rooms had
been made.
The newer but not very new portion of the house had no
basement, and it was by a short flight of steps that you descended
from the hall into the drawing-room, and by another short flight that
you ascended to the bedroom floor. Here the same irregularity was
apparent. A corridor ran through the house from end to end on this
floor, broken where the new part joined the old by half a dozen steep
steps.
It was to a bedroom on the higher level at the old end of the house
that Mrs. Dale conducted Mabin.
“Why, it’s a lovely room!” cried the girl, surprised to find herself in a
big, low-ceilinged corner room lighted by three windows, and looking
out, on one side, to the road, with a view of fields and sea beyond,
and on the other to the garden at the back of the house, where
apple-trees and gooseberry-bushes and the homely potato occupied
the chief space, while the nooks were filled with the fragrant flowers
of cottage gardens, with sweet-william and sweet-pea, mignonette
and wallflower.
“Do you really think so? I’m so glad. I went over to Seagate the
other day and got some cretonne for the curtains and the easy-chair.
The old chintz there was in the room would have given you the
nightmare.”
Mabin had not recovered from her first impression of astonishment
and admiration. The dingy dining-room, with its mahogany and
horsehair, had not prepared her for this. A beautiful rug lay in front of
the fireplace, which was filled with a fresh green fern.
“This will be put in the corridor outside at night,” Mrs. Dale was
careful to explain.
The hangings of the little brass bedstead were of cretonne with a
pattern of gray-green birds and white flowers on a pale pink ground:
these hangings were trimmed with lace of a deep cream tint. The
rest of the furniture was enamelled white, with the exception of a
dainty Japanese writing-table in one window, and a low wicker arm-
chair in another.
But it was not so much in these things as in the care and taste with
which all the accessories had been chosen, the silver candlesticks
and tray on the dressing-table, the little Sèvres suit on the
mantelpiece, that a lavish and luxurious hand was betrayed. Mabin’s
delighted admiration made Mrs. Dale smile, and then suddenly burst
into tears.
“Don’t look at me, don’t trouble your head about me, child,” she
cried, as she turned away her head to wipe her eyes. “It was my
vanity, the vanity I can’t get rid of, that made me want to show you I
know how to make things pretty and nice. I made the excuse to
myself that it was to please you, but really I know it was to please
myself!”
“But why shouldn’t you please yourself and have pretty things
about you?” asked Mabin in surprise. “Is there any harm in having
nice things, if one has the money to buy them and the taste to
choose them? I suppose it helps to keep the people that make
them.”
“That is what I used to say to myself, dear,” said Mrs. Dale with a
sigh. “But now I don’t buy pretty things any more—for—for a reason.”
And again a look of deep pain swept across her face. But at Mabin’s
interested look she shook her head. “No, no,” she added, in a
frightened whisper, “I wouldn’t tell you why for all the world!”
“But you wear pretty clothes! Or is it only that you look so pretty in
them?” suggested Mabin, blushing with the fear that she was
blundering again.
Mrs. Dale shook her head smiling slightly: “I have my frocks made
to fit me, that’s all,” she said simply. “And as for these,” she touched
the flashing rings on her fingers, “I wear them because I’m obliged
to.”
Which was all sufficiently puzzling to the young girl, who, having
washed her hands, was drying them on a towel so fine that this use
seemed to her a sacrilege. She refrained from further remark,
however, upon the luxury in which she found herself installed, and as
the luncheon bell rang at that moment the two ladies went
downstairs together.
But after the beautiful appointments of her room, Mabin was struck
by the contrast afforded by the rest of the house, which was
furnished in the usual manner, with worn carpeting in the corridor
and on the stairs, and with cheap lamps on brackets and tables in
the hall and passages.
At luncheon Mrs. Dale was again in high spirits. She chattered
away brightly for the amusement of her young companion, who,
entirely unaccustomed to so much attention, was happier than she
ever remembered to have been in her life before. Mrs. Dale did not
spare the eccentricities in walk and dress of the ladies in the
neighborhood any more than they had spared hers.
“I don’t know how you can ever be dull when such funny things
come into your head!” cried simple Mabin, wiping her eyes over a
hearty fit of laughing.
Mrs. Dale grew suddenly grave again.
“Ah, nothing is amusing when one is by one’s self, or when one
has—thoughts!” she ended in a low voice, with a different word from
the one which had been in her mind. “And now let me show you my
den. No, it is not a boudoir; it is nothing but a den. Come and see.”
She opened a door which led from the dining-room at once into a
small room, even more bare, more sombre than the other. It had
evidently once served the purpose of a library or study, for there was
a heavy old bookcase in one corner and a row of empty book-
shelves in another. And there was the usual horsehair sofa.
By the one window, however, there was a low and comfortable,
though shabby wicker chair.
“I have had this other door fastened up and the cracks filled in,”
said Mrs. Dale, showing a door opposite to the one by which they
had entered. “It goes down by a flight of break-neck stairs into the
drawing-room, a loathsome dungeon into which I never penetrate.
The draught used to be strong enough to blow me away. So I
thought,” she went on with curious wistfulness, “I might just have that
done.”
Again Mabin wondered at the penitential tone; again she glanced
up. But Mrs. Dale recovered herself more quickly this time, and
putting the girl gently into the wicker chair, while she curled herself
up on the horsehair sofa, she drew Mabin out and encouraged the
girl by sympathetic questions, and by still more sympathetic listening,
to lay bare some of the recesses of her young heart.
The afternoon passed quickly; and when Mrs. Dale, springing
suddenly off the sofa after a silence, ran away into the dining-room
to ask about certain dainties which she had ordered from town for
Mabin’s benefit, but which had failed to arrive that morning, the girl
was left in a state of happy excitement, thinking what a picture the
little golden-haired creature had made as she sat curled up on the
sofa, and wondering how she could have been so ungrateful as to
imagine she could be anything but happy under the same roof with
Mrs. Dale.
Mabin looked idly out of the window, and craned her neck to see if
she could catch a glimpse of the sea. But this was the north side of
the house, and the sea was on the southwest; so she failed. But as
she looked out, she saw a fly drive slowly up the road, and was
surprised to find that the solitary occupant, an elderly lady with gray
hair, and a hard, forbidding face, stared at her fixedly through a pair
of gold eyeglasses as if she felt some personal interest in her. Mabin
felt herself blush, for she was sure she had never seen the lady
before.
Just as she drew her head in she heard the cab stop at the front
gate. Mrs. Dale’s voice, talking brightly to the parlormaid, came to
Mabin’s ears through the door, which had been left ajar. Then she
heard a knock at the front door, and the parlormaid went to answer it.
“Mabin, come here,” cried Mrs. Dale from the next room. “I want to
show you——”
The words died on her lips; and Mabin, who was in the act of
coming into the dining-room in obedience to her call, stopped short,
and, after a moment’s consideration of what she ought to do,
retreated into the smaller room and shut the door behind her.
But she had been in time to witness a strange meeting. For the
elderly lady whom she had seen in the cab had appeared at the
outer door of the dining-room as she had shown herself at the inner
one, and it was at the sight of her that Mrs. Dale had stopped short
in her speech, with a look of abhorrence and terror on her face.
The elder lady spoke at once, in a harsh, commanding voice. She
was very tall, erect, and stately, handsomely dressed in black,
altogether a commanding personality. Her voice rang through the
room, and reached Mabin’s ears, striking the girl with terror too.
“I am afraid I have taken you by surprise.”
“I suppose,” answered Mrs. Dale in a low voice, “that was what
you intended to do.”
“I am sorry to see you meet me in that spirit. I have come with
every wish for your good. I think it is not right that you should be left
here by yourself, as you hold no intercourse, of course, with the
people of the neighborhood.”
There was a pause, which Mrs. Dale would not break.
“I propose, therefore,” went on the elder lady, “to stay with you
myself, at least for a little while.”
Mrs. Dale, who had remained standing, as her visitor did also,
turned upon her quickly:
“That I will not put up with.”
“That is scarcely courteous, surely?”
“There is no question of lip-courtesy between you and me. You,
and no one else, have been the cause of all that has happened, and
I refuse, absolutely refuse, to stay under the same roof with you for a
single day.”
In the mean time poor Mabin, frightened and uncertain what to do,
had in the first place put her hands to her ears so that she might not
play the part of unwilling eavesdropper. But as the voices grew too
loud for her to avoid hearing what the ladies said, she made a frantic
rush for the door, and presented herself, breathless, blushing, in the
doorway.
“Oh, I—I can’t help hearing what you say!” cried she, glancing
from the forbidding face of the visitor to Mrs. Dale, who looked
prettier than ever in her anger.
“My dear, it doesn’t matter,” said Dorothy gently.
But the elder lady broke in:
“It does matter very much. This is not a fit house for a young girl
while you live in it.”
And turning to Mabin, she said with a sudden burst of vindictive
feeling: “Go home at once to your proper guardians. The woman you
are now with is a——”
Before she could utter the word which was ready to her lips, Mrs.
Dale interrupted her. Springing between the other two women with a
low cry, she addressed the elder lady with such a torrent of passion
that both Mabin and the visitor could only listen without an attempt to
stop her.
“You shall not say it! You shall not tell her?! You know that she was
safe with me, as if she had been in her own home. You have spoilt
her happiness with me, because you knew it made me happy. But
you shall not contaminate her with your wicked words. Go, child.”
She seized Mabin by the arm, and ran with her to the outer door of
the dining-room. “Run away. I will find you when this woman is
gone.”
And the next moment Mabin found herself in the hall, with the
dining-room door closed.
CHAPTER VI.
MR. BANKS.

There was silence in the room for a few minutes after the abrupt
dismissal of Mabin. Mrs. Dale made a perfunctory gesture of
invitation to her unwelcome visitor to be seated, and threw herself
into a hard horsehair-covered armchair by the window, which she
carefully closed.
The visitor, however, remained standing. She was evidently rather
astonished at the high-handed behavior of the culprit whom she had
come to examine, and uncertain how to deal with her. At last she
said in a very cutting tone:
“I suppose I ought not by this time to be surprised at your
behaving in an unbecoming manner to me, or to anybody. But as you
pretended to profess some penitence for your awful sin on the last
occasion of our meeting, I own I was carried away by my indignation
when I found you receiving visitors, and young girl visitors. Surely
you must recognize how improper such conduct is?”
“And which do you suppose is the more likely to do her harm? To
stay with me knowing nothing, or to hear from your lips the awful
thing you were going to tell her? Why, the poor child would never
have got over the shock!”
“It would have been less harmful to her soul than constant
communication with you, impenitent as you are!”
“You have no right to say that to me. How can you see into my
heart?”
“I judge you by your actions. I find you here, talking and laughing,
and enjoying yourself. And I hear that you have already created a
most unfavorable impression in the neighborhood by your rudeness
to people who have wished to be civil to you.”
“Was it not your own wish that I should shut myself up?”
“Yes, but in an humble, not in a defiant, manner. And then you
drive about as if nothing had happened, and excite remarks by your
appearance alone, which is not the appearance of a disconsolate
widow.”
“By whose wish was it that I bought a carriage?”
“By mine, I suppose,” replied the other frigidly, “but I meant a
brougham, so that you could go about quietly, not an open and
fashionable one, for you to show yourself off!”
“Well, I refuse to drive about in a stuffy, shut-up carriage. I am
quite ready to walk, if you wish me to put the carriage down. And I
can quite well do with less money than what you allow me. But I
maintain the right to spend my allowance, whatever it may be,
exactly as I please. Because one has committed one fault——”
“Fault!” almost shrieked the visitor. “One grave and deadly sin.”
“Because I have done wrong, great wrong,” replied Mrs. Dale. And
even to this antagonistic woman her voice shook on the words, “You
have no right to think that I am never to lead an independent life. You
have no right to the control of my actions. All that you can demand is
that I should live decently and quietly. As long as I do so I ought to
be, I will be, as free as ever.”
“But,” persisted the other, “you seem not to understand what
decency requires. In the first place it is imperatively necessary,” and
as she said this there was a look of genuine anxiety in her eyes,
“that you should hold no intercourse whatever with persons of the
opposite sex.”
Mrs. Dale said nothing to this; and the look of questioning
solicitude in the face of the other grew deeper.
“Surely,” she asked at last, “you must see this yourself?”
“That,” answered Mrs. Dale deliberately, “is also a matter which
rests entirely with me. I won’t be dictated to on that subject any more
than on any other.”
“Well, then, I warn you that I shall have to keep you in strict
surveillance, and that if I hear of your encouraging, or even
permitting, the attentions of any man, young or old, I shall feel myself
bound in honor to put him in possession of the facts of your history.”
“And if you do,” retorted Mrs. Dale, rising and speaking in a low
tone full of fire and passionate resentment, “if you interfere with me
in my quiet and harmless life by telling any person whom I choose to
call my friend the horrible thing that you hold over my head, I will
break away from you and your surveillance once and for all. I will
have the whole story published in the papers, with your share in it as
well as mine, and let the world decide which of us is the most to
blame: the young woman who has wrecked and poisoned her whole
life by one rash and wicked act, or the old one who drove her to it,
and then used it forever afterward to goad and madden her!”
She paused, and leaned against the table, white to the lips with
intense excitement, panting with her own emotion. The other lady
had grown white too, and she looked frightened as she answered:
“You are allowing your passion to carry you away again. I should
have thought you had been cured of that.” The younger lady
shuddered, but said nothing; “I was bound to put you on your guard,
that was all.”
Mrs. Dale moved restlessly. Her face was livid and moist, her
hands were shaking:
“Surely you have done that!” she said ironically. “Even the
Inquisitors of Spain used to let their victims have a little rest from the
torture sometimes; just to let the creatures get up their strength
again, to give more sport on a future occasion!”
The visitor affected to be offended by this speech, and drew
herself up in a dignified manner. But it was possible to imagine that
she felt just a little shame, or a little twinge of remorse, for her
persistent cruelty, for she went so far as to offer a cold hand to Mrs.
Dale as she prepared to go.
Mrs. Dale looked as if she would have liked to refuse the hand, but
did not dare. She touched the black glove with white, reluctant
fingers, and let it go at once.
“Good-by, Dorothy,” said the elder lady “I am sure you will believe,
when you come to yourself and think it over, that I have only your
interests at heart in the advice I have given you. No, you need not
come to the door. I shall take just one walk round to look at your
garden before I go. I have a cab waiting.”
She sailed out of the room, the jet fringes on her gown and mantle
making a noise which set Mrs. Dale’s teeth on edge.
As soon as she was alone, Dorothy threw herself face downward
on the hard sofa and burst into a passion of tears and sobs, which
rendered her deaf and blind and unconscious of everything but the
awful weight at her heart, which she must carry with her to her grave,
and of the cruelty which had revived in its first intensity the old,
weary pain.
She was mad, desperate with grief. She felt that it was more than
she could bear; that the remorse gnawing at her heart, the more
bitterly for the pleasure of the morning, had reached a point where it
became intolerable, where the strength of a woman must give way.
And then when she had crawled out of the room, with smarting
eyes and aching head, and found the way up to her own shabby,
gloomy room with staggering feet, there came to her ear from the
garden the sound of a fresh, girlish voice, uttering words which were
balm to the wounded soul.
“I don’t care,” Mabin was saying to some unseen person among
the yew trees on the lawn, “I don’t care what she’s done. She is a
sweet woman, and I love her all the more for having to be preached
to by that old cat!”
No eloquence, no smoothly rounded periods of the most brilliant
speaker in the universe could have conveyed to poor unhappy
Dorothy half the solace of those inelegant words! She began to
smile, all red-eyed as she was, and to feel that there was something
worth living for in the world after all. And when she had bathed her
face, and lain down for a little ease to her aching head, she was able
presently to look out with an impulse of pleasure at the bright green
of the lawn, where the shadows of the tall elms were growing long,
and to listen to the sound of young voices talking and laughing, and
to feel that there was something left in life after all.
The voices, as she knew, were those of Mabin and Rudolph. The
Vicar’s son had called, with a huge bunch of flowering rushes, for
Mrs. Dale, while the mysterious visitor was with her. The parlormaid,
therefore, had informed him that Mrs. Dale was engaged, but that
Miss Rose was in the garden; and he had lost no time in going in
search of the latter.
He was surprised to find her in a state of great distress, shedding
furtive tears, and trying to hide a face eloquent of grief.
“May I ask what’s the matter?” he asked, when she had begun to
talk about the flowers and the trees, in a rather broken and
unmanageable voice.
“Oh, I don’t know whether I ought to tell you!”
“Well, look here. I’ll go as far as the wall that shuts in the kitchen-
garden; that’s on the other side of the house, you know. I’ll walk very
slowly, and if I find any caterpillars on the gooseberries I’ll pick them
off. That will give you a long time. And when I come back I shall
expect you to have made up your mind whether you can tell me or
not. Only,” added he wistfully, “I do hope you will make up your mind
that you can; for I’m ‘dying of curiosity,’ as the ladies say.”
“No, they don’t say that,” said Mabin cantankerously. “Women are
much less curious than the men, really. I wouldn’t have heard what I
did for worlds if I could have helped it. And you are ‘dying’ to know
it!”
“Well, I won’t argue with you,” replied Rudolph philosophically, as
he walked slowly, according to his promise, in the direction of the
kitchen-garden.
Mabin watched him, drying her eyes, and asking herself whether
there would be any harm in confiding in him. She felt the want of
some one of whom she could take counsel in this extremely
embarrassing situation for a young girl to find herself in. If only Mrs.
Haybrow had been at hand! She was a motherly woman, whose
sympathy could be as much relied upon as her advice. Not once did
it occur to the girl to write to her step-mother, who would have
consulted Mr. Rose, with results disastrous to the reputation of poor
little Mrs. Dale. For it was not to be supposed that a father could
allow his daughter to remain in the house of a lady about whom
there was certainly more than a suspicion of irregularity of some sort.
She was pondering these things, in a helpless and bewildered
fashion, anxious to do right, and not quite certain where the right lay,
when she heard a firm step on the gravel path, and, looking round,
saw that the austere-looking lady who had descended so abruptly
upon Mrs. Dale was coming toward her.
Mabin would have liked to run away, and did indeed give one
glance and make one step, in the direction of the little path between
the yews which led round to the kitchen garden.
But the person she had to deal with was not to be put off in that
manner.
“Stop!” she cried, in such an imperious voice that Mabin obeyed at
once. “I want to speak to you.”
Mabin glanced up at the hard, cold face, and her heart rose in
rebellion at the thought that the severe expression was for poor Mrs.
Dale. She drew up her head with a flash of spirit, and waited quietly
for what the elder lady had to say.
“What is your name? And where do you live?” asked the lady.
At first, guessing that this vixenish woman wanted to communicate
with her friends about the desirability of removing her from “The
Towers,” Mabin felt inclined to refuse to answer. But a moment’s
reflection showed her that it would be easy for the lady to get the
information she wanted from the servants; so she said:
“My name is Mabin Rose, and my father is on his way to Geneva.”
“And how did he become acquainted with—” she paused, and
added in a peculiar tone, as if the name stuck in her throat—“with
Mrs. Dale?”
“They were neighbors,” answered Mabin shortly.
“You had better write to him and ask him to take you away,” said
the lady. “There are circumstances——”
But Mabin put her hands up to her ears.
“Not a word!” cried she. “I won’t hear a word. I beg your pardon for
having to be so rude, but I won’t listen to you; I won’t hear a word
against my friend.”
She was prepared in her excitement for some sort of struggle. But
the lady merely glared at her through her long-handled eye-glasses
in disgust, and with a pinched smile and a contemptuous movement
of the shoulders, walked majestically back toward the house.
The parlormaid, trying to look discreetly incurious, was standing by
the gate, to open it for the visitor to go out. But the lady paused to
enter into conversation with her; and Mabin was filled with
indignation, believing, as she did, that the stranger’s motives were
not above suspicion. And she caught the words which the maid
uttered just before the cab drove away with the stranger:
“Very well, my lady.”
And then she heard Rudolph’s voice behind her.
“Well, have you had time to make up your mind?”
She started and turned quickly. He was surprised to see that all
traces of tears had disappeared, and that her face was burning with
excitement.
“Oh, yes, yes. I must tell you now! If I didn’t, I should have to go
and confide in Mrs. Dale’s little dog!”
“Well, I promise to be quite as discreet.”
“That cab that you saw drive away had in it a woman who came
here to see Mrs. Dale, and who told me that I ought to go away and
not stay in the same house with her!”
“Well?”
“Well! Is that all you have to say? Aren’t you disgusted? You who
pretend to like and admire Mrs. Dale so much?”
“There is no pretense in it. I do like and admire her very much. But
how can you be astonished after the warnings you have had?”
Mabin looked at him with wide open eyes.
“I thought,” she said rather coldly, “that you would take her part.”
“Yes, so I will; so I do. But I don’t feel quite sure whether you ought
to.”
“And why not? Why, since I like and pity her too, shouldn’t I take
her part too?”
For a few minutes Rudolph was silent.
“You’re a girl,” said he at last.
“But that’s no reason why I should act meanly!”
“Ah, well, if it’s not a reason, it’s an excuse.”
“I don’t think so. I like to stand by my friends. I haven’t many; I
haven’t any I like better than Mrs. Dale. So, whatever it is that she
has done, I shall stay with her as long as she wants me, and do all I
can to prevent these stories getting to papa’s and mamma’s ears.”
Rudolph looked at her fair face, which was aglow with generous
enthusiasm, and smiled in hearty approval.
“That’s right,” said he warmly. “And if people are too much
shocked by your daring, why you can marry me, you know, and
when once you’re married you can snap your fingers at them all.”
But at this suggestion Mabin had suddenly turned pale. In truth
she liked Rudolph well enough not to be able to bear a jest on the
idea of marriage with him. Naturally he was surprised and even a
little hurt by the abrupt change in her sensitive face.
“Oh, you need not look so frightened,” said he, laughing. “I only
suggested it as a last resource in case of extremity.”
“Oh, I know. But—what extremity?”
“If people think the worse of you for standing by your friend.”
Mabin drew her tall, slim figure to its fullest height.
“I shouldn’t care,” said she. “I should snap my fingers at them in
any case.”
Rudolph considered her for a few silent minutes. It was then that
she uttered the words which reached Mrs. Dale’s ears, and startled
while they comforted the unhappy woman:
“I don’t care—I don’t care what she’s done. She is a sweet
woman, and I love her all the more for having to be preached to by
that old cat.”
And then she noticed that she and her companion were standing
rather near an open window, and she walked quickly back to the
lawn and the elm trees.
“What old cat?”
“Didn’t you see her? A tall woman with a face carved in marble.
She was driving away as you came back.”
“I didn’t see much of her. Do you know who she is?”
“No. She’s a ‘ladyship,’ from what the maid said. And she looks
like one, which ladyships hardly ever do. That’s all I know.”
“A relation of Mrs. Dale’s, I suppose?”
“Ye-e-s, I suppose so, from the things she said. But oh! Mrs. Dale
has never done anything to deserve such a relation as that!”
“Poor thing! No. But one can’t help feeling curious.”
“I can help it,” cried Mabin stoutly. “I know how these spiteful old
women make mountains out of molehills, and I will never believe that
it isn’t a molehill in this case after all.”
Rudolph looked at her curiously.
“Do you know who it is that has taken your father’s house?” he
asked in a dry tone.
“Yes, a Mr. Banks. He came this morning, as soon as papa and
mamma were out of the house.”
“And do you know anything about him? Is he a friend of your
father’s?”
“No. He was looking for a furnished house down here, and heard
that we wanted to let ours. It was all arranged through his solicitor
and papa’s. He is an invalid, I believe, come here for change of air.
Why do you ask?”
“Because I was in the lane between your garden and this just
before I came here, and I saw a man walking along the grass path,
and recognized him as the man I found watching Mrs. Dale a
fortnight ago. There’s a secret for you, in return for yours.”
Mabin looked frightened. She remembered her own suspicions
that the man who had presented himself as Mr. Banks was an
impostor.
“What was he like?” she asked.
“He was very thin and pale, and he looked like a gentleman. I
could hardly tell whether he was old or young.”
“Perhaps,” she faltered, “he isn’t Mr. Banks at all!”
Rudolph did not answer immediately. Then he said slowly:
“I wonder what he has come for?”
Mabin stared at him stupidly. As they stood silent in the quiet
garden, they both heard a slight rustling of the leaves, a cracking of
the branches, near the wall which divided the garden from the lane.

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