PHANTOM FORTUNE

A Novel

BY THE AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET, " "VIXEN, " ETC. ETC. ETC. 

CONTENTS

I. PENELOPEII. ULYSSESIII. ON THE WRONG ROADIV. THE LAST STAGEV. FORTY YEARS AFTERVI. MAULEVRIER'S HUMBLE FRIENDVII. IN THE SUMMER MORNINGVIII. THERE IS ALWAYS A SKELETONIX. A CRY IN THE DARKNESSX. 'O BITTERNESS OF THINGS TOO SWEET'XI. 'IF I WERE TO DO AS ISEULT DID'XII. 'THE GREATER CANTLE OF THE WORLD IS LOST'XIII. 'SINCE PAINTED OR NOT PAINTED ALL SHALL FADE'XIV. 'NOT YET'XV. 'OF ALL MEN ELSE I HAVE AVOIDED THEE'XVI. 'HER FACE RESIGNED TO BLISS OR BALE'XVII. 'AND THE SPRING COMES SLOWLY UP THIS WAY'XVIII. 'AND COME AGEN, BE IT BY NIGHT OR DAY'XIX. THE OLD MAN ON THE FELLXX. LADY MAULEVRIER'S LETTER-BAGXXI. ON THE DARK BROW OF HELVELLYNXXII. WISER THAN LESBIAXXIII. 'A YOUNG LAMB'S HEART AMONG THE FULL-GROWN FLOCKS'XXIV. 'NOW NOTHING LEFT TO LOVE OR HATE'XXV. CARTE BLANCHEXXVI. 'PROUD CAN I NEVER BE OF WHAT I HATE'XXVII. LESBIA CROSSES PICCADILLYXXVIII. 'CLUBS, DIAMONDS, HEARTS, IN WILD DISORDER SEEN'XXIX. 'SWIFT, SUBTLE POST, CARRIER OF GRISLY CARE'XXX. 'ROSES CHOKED AMONG THORNS AND THISTLES'XXXI. 'KIND IS MY LOVE TO-DAY, TO-MORROW KIND'XXXII. WAYS AND MEANSXXXIII. BY SPECIAL LICENCEXXXIV. 'OUR LOVE WAS NEW, AND THEN BUT IN THE SPRING'XXXV. 'ALL FANCY, PRIDE, AND FICKLE MAIDENHOOD'XXXVI. A RASTAQUOUÈREXXXVII. LORD HARTFIELD REFUSES A FORTUNEXXXVIII. ON BOARD THE 'CAYMAN'XXXIX. IN STORM AND DARKNESSXL. A NOTE OF ALARMXLI. PRIVILEGED INFORMATIONXLII. 'SHALL IT BE?'XLIII. 'ALAS, FOR SORROW IS ALL THE END OF THIS'XLIV. 'OH, SAD KISSED MOUTH, HOW SORROWFUL IT IS!'XLV. 'THAT FELL ARREST WITHOUT ALL BAIL'XLVI. THE DAY OF RECKONING

[Illustration: H. French, del. ) (T. Symmons, sc. "The old man sat lookingat Mary in silence for some moments. "--Page 171. ]

CHAPTER I. 

PENELOPE. 

People dined earlier forty years ago than they do now. Even that salt ofthe earth, the elect of society, represented by that little great worldwhich lies between the narrow circle bounded by Bryanstone Square on thenorth and by Birdcage Walk on the south, did not consider seven o'clocktoo early an hour for a dinner party which was to be followed by routs, drums, concerts, conversazione, as the case might be. It was seveno'clock on a lovely June evening, and the Park was already deserted, andcarriages were rolling swiftly along all the Westend squares, carryingrank, fashion, wealth, and beauty, political influence, and intellectualpower, to the particular circle in which each was destined to illumineupon that particular evening. 

Stateliest among London squares, Grosvenor--in some wise a wonder to theuniverse as newly lighted with gas--grave Grosvenor, with its heavy oldGeorgian houses and pompous porticoes, sparkled and shone, not alonewith the novel splendour of gas, but with the light of many wax candles, clustering flower-like in silver branches and girandoles, multiplyingtheir flame in numerous mirrors; and of all the houses in that statelysquare none had a more imposing aspect than Lord Denyer's dark red brickmansion, with stone dressings, and the massive grandeur of an Egyptianmausoleum. 

Lord Denyer was an important personage in the political and diplomaticworld. He had been ambassador at Constantinople and at Paris, and hadnow retired on his laurels, an influence still, but no longer an activepower in the machine of government. At his house gathered all that wasmost brilliant in London society. To be seen at Lady Denyer's, eveningparties was the guinea stamp of social distinction; to dine with LordDenyer was an opening in life, almost as valuable as University honours, and more difficult of attainment. 

It was during the quarter of an hour before dinner that a group ofpersons, mostly personages, congregated round Lord Denyer'schimney-piece, naturally trending towards the social hearth, albeit itwas the season for roses and lilies rather than of fires, and the hum ofthe city was floating in upon the breath of the warm June eveningthrough the five tall windows which opened upon Lord Denyer's balcony. 

The ten or twelve persons assembled seemed only a sprinkling in the largelofty room, furnished sparsely with amber satin sofas, a pair of Florentinemarble tables, and half an acre or so of looking glass. Voluminous amberdraperies shrouded the windows, and deadened the sound of rolling wheels, and the voices and footfalls of western London. The drawing rooms of thosedays were neither artistic nor picturesque--neither Early English nor LowDutch, nor Renaissance, nor Anglo-Japanese. A stately commonplacedistinguished the reception rooms of the great world. Upholstery stagnatedat a dead level of fluted legs, gilding, plate glass, and amber satin. 

Lady Denyer stood a little way in advance of the group on the hearthrug, fanning herself, with her eye on the door, while she listened languidlyto the remarks of a youthful diplomatist, a sprig of a lordly tree, uponthe last _début_ at Her Majesty's Theatre. 

'My own idea was that she screamed, ' said her ladyship. 'But the newRosinas generally do scream. Why do we have a new Rosina every year, whom nobody ever hears of afterwards? What becomes of them? Do they die, or do they set up as singing mistresses in second-rate watering-places?'hazarded her ladyship, with her eye always on the door. 

She was a large woman in amethyst satin, and a gauze turban with adiamond aigrette, a splendid jewel, which would not have misbeseemed thehead-gear of an Indian prince. Lady Denyer was one of the last women whowore a turban, and that Oriental head-dress became her bold and massivefeatures. 

Infinitely bored by the whiskerless attaché, who had entered upon adisquisition on the genius of Rossini as compared with this new manMeyerbeer, her ladyship made believe to hear, while she listenedintently to the confidential murmurs of the group on the hearthrug, thelittle knot of personages clustered round Lord Denyer. Hi 'Indian mailin this morning, ' said one--'nothing else talked of at the club. Veryflagrant case! A good deal worse than Warren Hastings. Quite clear theremust be a public inquiry--House of Lords--criminal prosecution. '

'I was told on very good authority, that he has been recalled, and isnow on his passage home, ' said another man. 

Lord Denyer shrugged his shoulders, pursed up his lips, and lookedineffably wise, a way he had when he knew very little about the subjectunder discussion. 

'How will _she_ take it, do you think?' inquired Colonel Madison, of theLife Guards, a man about town, and an inveterate gossip, who kneweverybody, and everybody's family history, down to the peccadilloes ofpeople's great grandmothers. 

'You will have an opportunity of judging, ' replied his lordship, coolly. 'She's to be here this evening. '

'But do you think she'll show?' asked the Colonel. 'The mail must havebrought the news to her, as well as to other people--supposing she knewnothing about it beforehand. She must know that the storm has burst. Doyou think she'll----'

'Come out in the thunder and lightning?' interrupted Lord Denver; 'I'msure she will. She has the pride of Lucifer and the courage of a lion. Five to one in ponies that she is here before the clock strikes seven!'

'I think you are right. I knew her mother, Constance Talmash. Pluck wasa family characteristic of the Talmashes. Wicked as devils, and brave aslions. Old Talmash, the grandfather, shot his valet in a paroxysm of_delirium tremens_, ' said Colonel Madison. 'She's a splendid woman, andshe won't flinch. I'd rather back her than bet against her. '

'Lady Maulevrier!' announced the groom of the chambers; and Lady Denyermoved at least three paces forward to meet her guest. 

The lady who entered, with slow and stately movements and proudlybalanced head, might have served for a model as Juno or the EmpressLivia. She was still in the bloom of youth, at most seven-and-twenty, but she had all the calm assurance of middle-age. No dowager, hardenedby the varied experiences of a quarter of a century in the great world, could have faced society with more perfect coolness and self-possession. She was beautiful, and she let the world see that she was conscious ofher beauty, and the power that went along with it. She was clever, andshe used her cleverness with unfailing tact and unscrupulous audacity. She had won her place in the world as an acknowledged beauty, and one ofthe leaders of fashion. Two years ago she had been the glory and delightof Anglo-Indian society in the city of Madras, ruling that remote andlimited kingdom with a despotic power. Then all of a sudden she wasordered, or she ordered her physician to order her, an immediatedeparture from that perilous climate, and she came back to England withher three-year-old son, two Ayahs, and four European servants, leavingher husband, Lord Maulevrier, Governor of the Madras Presidency, tofinish the term of his service in an enforced widowhood. 

She returned to be the delight of London society. She threw open thefamily mansion in Curzon Street to the very best people, but to thoseonly. She went out a great deal, but she was never seen at a second-rateparty. She had not a single doubtful acquaintance upon her visitinglist. She spent half of every year at the family seat in Scotland, was amiracle of goodness to the poor of her parish, and taught her boy hisalphabet. 

Lord Denyer came forward while his wife and Lady Maulevrier were shakinghands, and greeted her with more than his usual cordiality. ColonelMadison watched for the privilege of a recognising nod from thedivinity. Sir Jasper Paulet, a legal luminary of the first brilliancy, likely to be employed for the Crown if there should be an inquiry intoLord Maulevrier's conduct out yonder, came to press Lady Maulevrier'shand and murmur a tender welcome. 

She accepted their friendliness as a matter of course, and not by thefaintest extra quiver of the tremulous stars which glittered in acirclet above her raven hair did she betray her consciousness of thecloud that darkened her husband's reputation. Never had she appearedgayer, or more completely satisfied with herself and the world in whichshe lived. She was ready to talk about anything and everything--thenewly-wedded queen, and the fortunate Prince, whose existence among ushad all the charm of novelty--of Lord Melbourne's declining health--andSir Robert Peel's sliding scale--mesmerism--the Oxford Tracts--thelatest balloon ascent--the opera--Macready's last production at Drurylane--Bulwer's new novel--that clever little comic paper, juststruggling into popularity--what do you call the thing--_Punch?_--yes, _Punch, or the London Charivari_--a much more respectable paper than itsParisian prototype. 

Seated next Lord Denyer, who was an excellent listener, LadyMaulevrier's vivacity never flagged throughout the dinner, happily notso long as a modern banquet, albeit more ponderous and not lessexpensive. From the turtle to the pines and strawberries, LadyMaulevrier held her host or her right-hand neighbour in interestedconversation. She always knew the particular subjects likely to interestparticular people, and was a good listener as well as a good talker. Herright-hand neighbour was Sir Jasper Paulet, who had been allotted to thepompous wife of a court physician, a lady who had begun her married lifein the outer darkness of Guildford Street, Bloomsbury, with a householdconsisting of a maid-of-all-work and a boy in buttons, with anoccasional interregnum of charwoman; and for whom all the length andbreadth of Harley Street was now much too small. 

Sir Jasper was only decently civil to this haughty matron, who on thestrength of a card for a ball or a concert at the palace once in aseason affected to be on the most intimate terms with Royalty, and kneweverything that happened, and every fluctuation of opinion in thatcharmed circle. The great lawyer's left ear was listening greedily forany word of meaning that might fall from the lips of Lady Maulevrier;but no such word fell. She talked delightfully, with a touch-and-govivacity which is the highest form of dinner-table talk, not dwellingwith a heavy hand upon any one subject, but glancing from theme to themewith airy lightness. But not one word did she say about the governor ofMadras; and at this juncture of affairs it would have been the worstpossible taste to inquire too closely after his lordship's welfare. 

So the dinner wore on to its stately close, and just as the solemnprocession of flunkeys, long as the shadowy line of the kings in'Macbeth, ' filed off with the empty ice-dishes, Lady Maulevrier saidsomething which was as if a shell had exploded in the middle of thetable. 

'Perhaps you are surprised to see me in such good spirits, ' she said, beaming upon her host, and speaking in those clear, perfectly finishedsyllables which are heard further than the louder accents of lesspolished speakers, 'but you will not wonder when I let you into thesecret. Maulevrier is on his way home. '

'Indeed!' said Lord Denyer, with the most benignant smile he couldcommand at such short notice. He felt that the muscles round his eyesand the corners of his mouth were betraying too much of his realsentiments. 'You must be very glad. '

'I am gladder than I can say, ' answered Lady Maulevrier, gaily. 'Thathorried climate--a sky like molten copper--an atmosphere that tastes ofred-hot sand--that flat barren coast never suited him. His term ofoffice would expire in little more than a year, but I hardly think hecould have lived out the year. However, I am happy to say the mail thatcame in to-day--I suppose you know the mail is in?' (Lord Denyerbowed)--'brought me a letter from his Lordship, telling me that he hassent in his resignation, and taken his passage by the next big ship thatleaves Madras. I imagine he will be home in October. '

'If he have a favourable passage, ' said Lord Denyer. 'Favoured by yourgood wishes the winds and the waves ought to deal gently with him. '

'Ah, we have done with the old days of Greek story, when Neptune wasopen to feminine influence, ' sighed her ladyship. 'My poor Ulysses hasno goddess of wisdom to look after him. '

'Perhaps not, but he has the most charming of Penelopes waiting for himat home. '

'A Penelope who goes to dinners, and takes life pleasantly in hisabsence. That is a new order of things, is it not?' said her ladyship, laughingly. 'I hope my poor Ulysses will not come home thoroughly brokenin health, but that our Sutherlandshire breezes will set him up again. '

'Rather an ordeal after India, I should think, ' said Lord Denyer. 

'It is his native air. He will revel in it. '

'Delicious country, no doubt, ' assented, his lordship, who was nosportsman, and who detested Scotland, grouse moors, deer forests, salmonrivers included. 

His only idea of a winter residence was Florence or Capri, and of thetwo he preferred Capri. The island was at that time little frequented byEnglishmen. It had hardly been fashionable since the time of Tiberius, but Lord Denyer went there, accompanied by his French chef, and a dozenother servants, and roughed it in a native hotel; while Lady Denyerwintered at the family seat among the hills near Bath, and gave herselfover to Low Church devotion, and works of benevolence. She made herselfa terror to the neighbourhood by the strictness of her ideas all throughthe autumn and winter; and in the spring she went up to London, put onher turban and her diamonds, and plunged into the vortex of West-Endsociety, where she revolved among other jewelled matrons for the season, telling herself and her intimates that this sacrifice of inclination wasdue to his lordship's position. Lady Denyer was not the lessserious-minded because she was seen at every aristocratic resort, andwore low gowns with very short sleeves, and a great display of mottledarm and dimpled elbow. 

Now came her ladyship's smiling signal for the withdrawal of that fairerhalf of the assembly which was supposed to be indifferent to LordDenyer's famous port and Madeira. She had been throwing out her gracioussignals unperceived for at least five minutes before Lady Maulevrierresponded, so entirely was that lady absorbed in her conversation withLord Denyer; but she caught the look at last, and rose, as if moved bythe same machinery which impelled her hostess, and then, graceful as aswan sailing with the current, she drifted down the room to the distantdoor, and headed the stately procession of matronly velvet and diamonds, herself at once the most regal and the most graceful figure in that bevyof fair woman. 

In the drawing-room nobody could be gayer than Lady Maulevrier, as shemarked the time of Signor Paponizzi's saltarello, exquisitely performedon the Signor's famed Amati violin--or talked of the latestscandal--always excepting that latest scandal of all which involved herown husband--in subdued murmurs with one of her intimates. In thedining-room the men drew closer together over their wine, and tore LordMaulevrier's character to rags. Yea, they rent him with their teeth andgnawed the flesh from his bones, until there was not so much left of himas the dogs left of Jezebel. 

He had been a scamp from his cradle, a spendthrift at Eton and Oxford, ablackleg in his manhood. False to men, false to women. Clever? Yes, undoubtedly, just as Satan is clever, and as unscrupulous as that verySatan. This was what his friends said of him over their wine. And now hewas rumoured to have sold the British forces in the Carnatic provincesto one of the native Princes. Yes, to have taken gold, gold to an amountwhich Clive in his most rapacious moments never dreamt of, for hiscountrymen's blood. Tidings of dark transactions between the Governorand the native Princes had reached the ears of the Government, tidingsso vague, so incredible, that the Government might naturally be slow tobelieve, still slower to act. There were whispers of a woman'sinfluence, a beautiful Ranee, a creature as fascinating and asunscrupulous as Cleopatra. The scandal had been growing for months past, but it was only in the letters received to-day that the rumour had takena tangible shape, and now it was currently reported that Lord Maulevrierhad been recalled, and would have to answer at the bar of the House ofLords for his misdemeanours, which were of a much darker colour thanthose acts for which Warren Hastings had been called to account fiftyyears before. 

Yet in the face of all this, Lady Maulevrier bore herself as proudly asif her husband's name were spotless, and talked of his return with allthe ardour of a fond and trusting wife. 

'One of the finest bits of acting I ever saw in my life, ' said the courtphysician. 'Mademoiselle Mars never did anything better. '

'Do you really think it was acting?' inquired Lord Denyer, affecting ayouthful candour and trustfulness which at his age, and with hisexperience, he could hardly be supposed to possess. 

'I know it, ' replied the doctor. 'I watched her while she was talking ofMaulevrier, and I saw just one bead of perspiration break out on herupper lip--an unmistakable sign of the mental struggle. '

CHAPTER II. 

ULYSSES. 

October was ending drearily with north-east winds, dust, drifting deadleaves, and a steel-grey sky; and the Dolphin Hotel at Southampton wasglorified by the presence of Lady Maulevrier and suite. Her ladyship'ssuite was on this occasion limited to three servants--her French maid, afootman, and a kind of factotum, a man of no distinct and arbitrarysignification in her ladyship's household, neither butler nor steward, but that privileged being, an old and trusted servant, and a person whowas supposed to enjoy more of Lady Maulevrier's confidence than anyother member of her establishment. 

This James Steadman had been valet to her ladyship's father, LordPeverill, during the declining years of that nobleman. The narrow limitsof a sick room had brought the master and servant into a closercompanionship than is common to that relation. Lady Diana Angersthorpewas a devoted daughter, and in her attendance upon the Earl during thelast three years of his life--a life which closed more than a yearbefore her own marriage--she saw a great deal of James Steadman, andlearned to trust him as servants are not often trusted. He was not morethan twenty years of age at the beginning of his service, but he was aman of extraordinary gravity, much in advance of his years; a man ofshrewd common-sense and clear, sharp intellect. Not a reading man, or aman in any way superior to his station and belongings, but a man whocould think quickly, and understand quickly, and who always seemed tothink rightly. Prompt in action, yet steady as a rock, and to allappearance recognising no earthly interest, no human tie, beyond orabove the interests of his master. As a nurse Steadman showed himselfinvaluable. Lord Peverill left him a hundred pounds in acknowledgment ofhis services, which was something for Lord Peverill, who had very littleready cash wherewith to endow his only daughter. After his death thetitle and the estates went to a distant cousin; Lady Diana Angersthorpewas taken in hand by her aunt, the Dowager Marchioness of Carrisbrook;and James Steadman would have had to find employment among strangers, ifLady Diana had not pleaded so urgently with her aunt as to secure him asomewhat insignificant post in her ladyship's establishment. 

'If ever I have a house, of my own, you shall have a better place in it, Steadman, ' said Lady Diana. 

She kept her word, and on her marriage with Lord Maulevrier, whichhappened about eighteen months afterwards, Steadman passed into thatnobleman's service. He was a member of her ladyship's bodyguard, and hisemployment seemed to consist chiefly in poking fires, cutting the leavesof books and newspapers, superintending the footman's attendance uponher ladyship's household pets, and conveying her sentiments to the otherservants. He was in a manner Lady Maulevrier's mouthpiece, and althoughtreated with a respect that verged upon awe, he was not a favourite withthe household. 

And now the house in Mayfair was given over to the charge of caretakers. All the other servants had been despatched by coach to her ladyship'sfavourite retreat in Westmoreland, within a few miles of the Laureate'shome at Rydal Mount, and James Steadman was charged with the wholeresponsibility of her ladyship's travelling arrangements. 

Penelope had come to Southampton to wait for Ulysses, whose ship hadbeen due for more than a week, and whose white sails might be expectedabove the horizon at any moment. James Steadman spent a good deal of histime waiting about at the docks for the earliest news of Greene's ship, the _Hypermnestra_; while Lady Maulevrier waited patiently in hersitting-room at the Dolphin, whose three long French windows commanded afull view of the High Street, with all those various distractionsafforded by the chief thoroughfare of a provincial town. Her ladyshipwas provided with a large box of books, from Ebers' in Bond Street, abasket of fancy work, and her favourite Blenheim spaniel, Lalla Rookh;but even these sources of amusement did not prevent the involuntaryexpression of weariness in occasional yawns, and frequent pacings up anddown the room, where the formal hotel furniture had a comfortless andchilly look. 

Fellside, her ladyship's place in Westmoreland, was the pleasure housewhich, among all her possessions, she most valued; but it had hithertobeen reserved for summer occupation, or for perhaps two or three weeksat Easter, when the spring was exceptionally fine. The suddendetermination to spend the coming winter in the house near Grasmere wasconsidered a curious freak of Lady Maulevrier's, and she was constrainedto explain her motives to her friends. 

'His lordship is out of health, ' she said, 'and wants perfect rest andretirement. Now, Fellside is the only place we have in which he islikely to get perfect rest. Anywhere else we should have to entertain. Fellside is out of the world. There is no one to be entertained. '

'Except your neighbour, Wordsworth. I suppose you see him sometimes?'

'Dear simple-minded old soul, he gives nobody any trouble, ' said herladyship. 

'But is not Westmoreland very cold in winter?' asked her friend. 

Lady Maulevrier smiled benignly, as at an inoffensive ignorance. 

'So sheltered, ' she murmured. 'We are at the base of the Fell. Loughriggrises up like a cyclopean wall between us and the wind. '

'But when the wind is in the either direction?'

'We have Nabb Scar. You do not know how we are girdled and defended byhills. '

'Very pleasant, ' agreed the friend; 'but for my own part I would ratherwinter in the south. '

Those terrible rumours which had first come upon the world of Londonlast June, had been growing darker and more defined ever since, butstill Lady Maulevrier made believe to ignore them; and she acted herpart of unconsciousness with such consummate skill that nobody in hercircle could be sure where the acting began and where the ignorance leftoff. The astute Lord Denyer declared that she was a wonderful woman, andknew more about the real state of the case than anybody else. 

Meanwhile it was said by those who were supposed to be well-informedthat a mass of evidence was accumulating against Lord Maulevrier. TheIndia House, it was rumoured, was busy with the secret investigation ofhis case, prior to that public inquiry which was to come on during thenext session. His private fortune would be made answerable for hismisdemeanours--his life, said the alarmists, might pay the penalty ofhis treason. On all sides it was agreed that the case against LordMaulevrier was black as Erebus; and still Lady Maulevrier looked societyin the face with an unshaken courage, and was ready with smiles andgracious words for all comers. 

But now came a harder trial, which was to receive the man who haddisgraced her, lowered her pride to the dust, degraded the name shebore. She had married him, not loving him--nay, plucking another loveout of her heart in order that she might give herself to him. She hadmarried him for position and fortune; and now by his follies, by hisextravagance, and by that greed of gold which is inevitable in thespendthrift and profligate, he had gone near to cheat her out of bothname and fortune. Yet she so commanded herself as to receive him with afriendly air when he arrived at the Dolphin, on a dull grey autumnafternoon, after she had waited for him nearly a fortnight. 

James Steadman ushered in his lordship, a frail attenuated lookingfigure, of middle height, wrapped in a furred cloak, yet shivering, apale sickly face, light auburn whiskers, light blue eyes, full andlarge, but with no intellectual power in them. Lady Maulevrier wassitting by the fire, in a melancholy attitude, with the Blenheim spanielon her lap. Her son was at Hastings with his nurses. She had nothingnearer and dearer than the spaniel. 

She rose and went over to her husband, and let him kiss her. It wouldhave been too much to say that she kissed him; but she submitted herlips unresistingly to his, and then they sat down on opposite sides ofthe hearth. 

'A wretched afternoon, ' said his lordship, shivering, and drawing hischair closer to the fire. Steadman had taken away his fur-lined cloak. 'I had really underrated the disagreeableness of the English climate. Itis abominable!'

'To-day is not a fair sample, ' answered her ladyship, trying to becheerful; 'we have had some pleasant autumn days. '

'I detest autumn!' exclaimed Lord Maulevrier. 'a season of dead leaves, damp, and dreariness. I should like to get away to Montpellier or Niceas soon as we can. '

Her ladyship gave him a scathing look, half-scornful, half-incredulous. 

'You surely would not dream of leaving the country, ' she said, 'underpresent circumstances. So long as you are here to answer all charges noone will interfere with your liberty; but if you were to cross theChannel--'

'My slanderers might insinuate that I was running away, ' interruptedMaulevrier, 'although the very fact of my return ought to prove to everyone that I am able to meet and face this cabal. '

'Is it a cabal?' asked her ladyship, looking at him with a gaze thatsearched his soul. 'Can you meet their charges? Can you live down thishideous accusation, and hold up your head as a man of honour?'

The sensualist's blue eyes nervously shunned that look of earnestinterrogation. His lips answered the wife's spoken question with a lie, a lie made manifest by the expression of his countenance. 

'I am not afraid, ' he said. 

His wife answered not a word. She was assured that the charges weretrue, and that the battered rake who shivered over the fire had neithercourage nor ability to face his accusers. She saw the whole fabric ofher life in ruins, her son the penniless successor to a tarnished name. There was silence for some minutes. Lady Maulevrier sat with loweredeyelids looking at the fire, deep in painful thought. Two perpendicularwrinkles upon her broad white forehead--so calm, so unclouded insociety--told of gnawing cares. Then she stole a look at her husband, as he reclined in his arm-chair, his head lying back against thecushions in listless repose, his eyes looking vacantly at the window, whence he could see only the rain-blurred fronts of opposite houses, blank, dull windows, grey slated roofs, against a leaden sky. 

He had been a handsome man, and he was handsome still, albeit prematuredecay, the result of an evil life, was distinctly marked in his fadedface. The dull, yellow tint of the complexion, the tarnished dimness ofthe large blue eyes, the discontented droop of the lips, the languor ofthe attitude, the pallid transparency of the wasted hands, all told of alife worn threadbare, energies exhausted, chances thrown away, a mindabandoned to despair. 

'You look very ill, ' said his wife, after that long blank interval, which marked so unnatural an apathy between husband and wife meetingafter so long a severance. 

'I am very ill. I have been worried to death--surrounded by rogues andliars--the victim of a most infernal conspiracy. ' He spoke hurriedly, growing whiter and more tremulous as he went on. 

'Don't talk about it. You agitate yourself to no purpose, ' said LadyMaulevrier, with a tranquillity which seemed heartless yet which mightbe the result of suppressed feeling. 'If you are to face this scandalfirmly and boldly next January, you must try to recover physicalstrength in the meanwhile. Mental energy may come with better health. '

'I shall never be any better, ' said Lord Maulevrier, testily; 'thatinfernal climate has shattered my constitution. '

'Two or three months of perfect rest and good nursing will make a newman of you. I have arranged that we shall go straight from here toFellside. No one can plague you there with that disguised impertinencecalled sympathy. You can give all your thoughts to the ordeal beforeyou, and be ready to meet your accusers. Fortunately, you have no Burkeagainst you. '

'Fellside? You think of going to Fellside?'

'Yes. You know how fond I am of that place. I little thought when yousettled it upon me--a cottage in Westmoreland with fifty acres of gardenand meadow--so utterly insignificant--that I should ever like it betterthan any of your places. '

'A charming retreat in summer; but we have never wintered there? Whatput it into your head to go there at such a season as this? Why, Idaresay the snow is on the tops of the hills already. '

'It is the only place I know where you will not be watched and talkedabout, ' replied Lady Maulevrier. 'You will be out of the eye of theworld. I should think that consideration would weigh more with you thantwo or three degrees of the thermometer. '

'I detest cold, ' said the Earl, 'and in my weak health----'

'We will take care of you, ' answered her ladyship; and in the discussionwhich followed she bore herself so firmly that her husband was fain togive way. 

How could a disgraced and ruined man, broken in health and spirits, contest the mere details of life with a high-spirited woman ten yearshis junior?

The Earl wanted to go to London, and remain there at least a week, butthis her ladyship strenuously opposed. He must see his lawyer, he urged;there were steps to be taken which could be taken only under legaladvice--counsel to be retained. If this lying invention of Satan werereally destined to take the form of a public trial, he must be preparedto fight his foes on their own ground. 

'You can make all your preparations at Fellside, ' answered his wife, resolutely. 'I have seen Messrs. Rigby and Rider, and your ownparticular ally, Rigby, will go to you at Fellside whenever you wanthim. '

'That is not like my being on the spot, ' said his lordship, nervously, evidently much disconcerted by her ladyship's firmness, but too feeblein mind and body for a prolonged contest. 

'I ought to be on the spot. I am not without influence; I have friends, men in power. '

'Surely you are not going to appeal to friendship in order to vindicateyour honour. These charges are true or false. If they are false your ownmanhood, your own rectitude, can face them and trample upon them, unaided by back-stairs influence. If they are true, no one can helpyou. '

'I think you, at least, ought to know that they are as false as hell, 'retorted the Earl, with an attempt to maintain his dignity. 

'I have acted as if I so believed, ' replied his wife. 'I have lived asif there were no such slanders in the air. I have steadily ignored everyreport, every insinuation--have held my head as high as if I knew youwere immaculate. '

'I expected as much from you, ' answered the Earl, coolly. 'If I had notknown you were a woman of sense I should not have married you. '

This was his utmost expression of gratitude. His next remarks hadreference solely to his own comfort. Where were his rooms? at what hourwere they to dine? And hereupon he rang for his valet, a German Swiss, and a servant out of a thousand. 

CHAPTER III. 

ON THE WRONG ROAD. 

Lord and Lady Maulevrier left Southampton next morning, posting. Theytook two servants in the rumble, Steadman and the footman. Steadman wasto valet his lordship, the footman to be useful in all emergencies ofthe journey. The maid and the valet were to travel by heavy coach, withthe luggage--her ladyship dispensing with all personal attendance duringthe journey. 

The first day took them to Rugby, whither they travelled across countryby Wallingford and Oxford. The second day took them to Lichfield. LordMaulevrier was out of health and feeble, and grumbled a good deal aboutthe fatigue of the journey, the badness of the weather, which was dulland cold, east winds all day, and a light frost morning and night. Asthey progressed northward the sky looked grayer, the air became morebiting. His lordship insisted upon the stages being shortened. He lay inbed at his hotel till noon, and was seldom ready to start till twoo'clock. He could see no reason for haste; the winter would be longenough in all conscience at Fellside. He complained of mysterious achesand pains, described himself in the presence of hotel-keepers andheadwaiters as a mass of maladies. He was nervous, irritable, intenselydisagreeable. Lady Maulevrier bore his humours with unwavering patience, and won golden opinions from all sorts of people by her devotion to ahusband whose blighted name was the common talk of England. Everybody, even in distant provincial towns, had heard of the scandal against theGovernor of Madras; and everybody looked at the sallow, fadedAnglo-Indian with morbid curiosity. His lordship, sensitive on allpoints touching his own ease and comfort, was keenly conscious of thisunflattering inquisitiveness. 

The journey, protracted by Lord Maulevrier's languor and ill-health, dragged its slow length along for nearly a fortnight; until it seemed toLady Maulevrier as if they had been travelling upon those dismal, flat, unpicturesque roads for months. Each day was so horribly like yesterday. The same hedgerows and flat fields, and passing glimpse of river orcanal. The same absence of all beauty in the landscape--the same formalhotel rooms, and smirking landladies--and so on till they came toLancaster, after which the country became more interesting--hills arosein the background. Even the smoky manufacturing towns through whichthey passed without stopping, were less abominable than the levelmonotony of the Midland counties. 

But now as they drew nearer the hills the weather grew colder, snow wasspoken of, and when they got into Westmoreland the mountain-peaksgleamed whitely against a lead-coloured sky. 

'You ought not to have brought me here in such weather, ' complained theEarl, shivering in his sables, as he sat in his corner of the travellingchariot, looking discontentedly at the gloomy landscape. 'What is tobecome of us if we are caught in a snowstorm?'

'We shall have no snow worth talking about before we are safely housedat Fellside, and then we can defy the elements, ' said Lady Maulevrier, coolly. 

They slept that night at Oxenholme, and started next morning, under aclean, bright sky, intending to take luncheon at Windermere, and to beat home by nightfall. 

But by the time they got to Windermere the sky had changed to a darkgrey, and the people at the hotel prophesied a heavy fall before night, and urged the Earl and Countess to go no further that day. The latterpart of the road to Fellside was rough and hilly. If there should be asnowstorm the horses would never be able to drag the carriage up thesteepest bit of the way. Here, however, Lord Maulevrier's obstinacy cameinto play. He would not endure another night at an hotel so near his ownhouse. He was sick to death of travelling, and wanted to be at restamong comfortable surroundings. 

'It was murder to bring me here, ' he said to his wife. 'If I had gone toHastings I should have been a new man by this time. As it is I am agreat deal worse than when I landed. '

Everyone at the hotel noticed his lordship's white and haggard looks. Hehad been known there as a young man in the bloom of health and strength, and his decay was particularly obvious to these people. 

'I saw death in his face, ' the landlord said, afterwards. 

Every one, even her ladyship's firmness and good sense, gave way beforethe invalid's impatience. At three in the afternoon they left the hotel, with four horses, to make the remaining nineteen miles of the way in onestage. They had not been on the road half an hour before the snow beganto fall thickly, whitening everything around them, except the lake, which showed a dark leaden surface at the bottom of the slope along theedge of which they were travelling. Too sullen for speech, LordMaulevrier sat back in his corner, with his sable cloak drawn up to hischin, his travelling cap covering head and ears, his eyes contemplatingthe whitening world with a weary anger. His wife watched the landscapeas long as she could, but the snow soon began to darken all the air, and she could see nothing save that blank blinding fall. 

Half-way to Fellside there was a point where two roads met, one leadingtowards Grasmere, the other towards the village of Great Langdale, acluster of humble habitations in the heart of the hills. When the horseshad struggled as far as this point, the snow was six inches deep on theroad, and made a thick curtain around them as it fell. By this time theEarl had dozed off to sleep. 

He woke an hour after, let down the window, which let in a snow-ladengust, and tried to pierce the gloom without. 

'As black as Erebus!' he exclaimed, 'but we ought to be close at home bythis time. Yes, thank God, there are the lights. '

The carriage drew up a minute afterwards, and Steadman came to the door. 

'Very sorry, my lord. The horses must have taken a wrong turn after wecrossed the bridge. And now the men say they can't go back to Fellsideunless we can get fresh horses; and I'm afraid there's no chance of thathere. '

'Here!' exclaimed the Earl, 'what do you mean by here? Where the devilare we?'

'Great Langdale, my lord. '

A door opened and let out a flood of light--the red light of a woodfire, the pale flame of a candle--upon the snowy darkness, revealing thepanelled hall of a neat little rustic inn: an eight-day clock ticking inthe corner, a black and white sheep-dog coming out at his master's heelsto investigate the travellers. To the right of the door showed the lightof a window, sheltered by a red curtain, behind which the chiefs of thevillage were enjoying their evening. 

'Have you any post-horses?' asked the Earl, discontentedly, as thelandlord stood on the threshold, shading the candle with his hand. 'No, sir. We don't keep post-horses. '

'Of course not. I knew as much before I asked, ' said the Earl. 

'We are fixed in this dismal hole for the night, I suppose. How far arewe from Fellside?'

'Seven miles, ' answered the landlord. 'I beg your pardon, my lord; Ididn't know it was your lordship, ' he added, hurriedly. 'We're in soretrouble, and it makes a man daft-like; but if there's anything we cando----'

'Is there no hope of getting on, Steadman?' asked the Earl, cuttingshort these civilities. 

'Not with these horses, my lord. '

'And you hear we can't get any others. Is there any farmer about herewho could lend us a pair of carriage horses?'

The landlord knew of no such person. 

'Then we must stop here till to-morrow morning. What infernal foolsthose post-boys must be, ' protested Lord Maulevrier. 

James Steadman apologised for the postilions, explaining that when theycame to the critical point of their journey, where the road branched offto the Langdales, the snow was falling so thickly, the whole country wasso hidden in all-pervading whiteness, that even he, who knew the way sowell, could give no help to the drivers. He could only trust to theinstinct of local postilions and local horses; and instinct had provedwrong. 

The travellers alighted, and were ushered into a notuncomfortable-looking parlour; very low as to the ceiling, veryold-fashioned as to the furniture, but spotlessly clean, and enlivenedby a good fire, to which his lordship drew near, shivering and mutteringdiscontentedly to himself. 

'We might be worse off, ' said her ladyship, looking round the brightlittle room, which pleased her better than many a state apartment in thelarge hotels at which they had stopped. 

'Hardly, unless we were out on the moor, ' grumbled her husband. 'I amsick to death of this ill-advised, unreasonable journey. I am at a lossto imagine your motive in bringing me here. You must have had a motive. '

'I had, ' answered Lady Maulevrier, with a freezing look. 'I wanted toget you out of the way. I told you that plainly enough at Southampton. '

'I don't see why I should be hurried away and hidden, ' said LordMaulevrier. 'I must face my accusers, sooner or later. '

'Of course. The day of reckoning must come. But in the meantime have youno delicacy? Do you want to be pointed at everywhere?'

'All I know is that I am very ill, ' answered her husband, 'and that thiswretched journey has made me twenty years older. '

'We shall be safe at home before noon to-morrow, and you can have Hortonto set you right again. You know you always believed in his skill. '

'Horton is a clever fellow enough, as country doctors go; but atHastings I could have had the best physicians in London to see me, 'grumbled his lordship. 

The rustic maid-servant came in to lay the table, assisted by herladyship's footman, who looked a good deal too tall for the room. 

'I shan't dine, ' said the Earl. 'I am a great deal too ill and cold. Light a fire in my room, girl, and send Steadman to me'--this to thefootman, who hastened to obey. 'You can send me up a basin of souppresently. I shall go to bed at once. '

He left the room without another word to his wife, who sat by the hearthstaring thoughtfully at the cheery wood fire. Presently she looked up, and saw that the man and maid were going on with their preparations fordinner. 

'I do not care about dining alone, ' said her ladyship. 'We lunched atWindermere, and I have no appetite. You can clear away those things, andbring me some tea. '

When the table furniture had been cleared, and a neat little tea-trayset upon the white cloth, Lady Maulevrier drew her chair to the table, and took out her pocket-book, from which she produced a letter. This sheread more than once, meditating profoundly upon its contents. 

'I am very sorry he has come home, ' wrote her correspondent, 'and yet ifhe had stayed in India there must have been an investigation on thespot. A public inquiry is inevitable, and the knowledge of his arrivalin the country will precipitate matters. From all I hear I much fearthat there is no chance of the result being favourable to him. You haveasked me to write the unvarnished truth, to be brutal even, remember. His delinquencies are painfully notorious, and I apprehend that the lastsixpence he owns will be answerable. His landed estate I am told canalso be confiscated, in the event of an impeachment at the bar of theHouse of Lords, as in the Warren Hastings case. But as yet nobody seemsclear as to the form which the investigation will take. In reply to yourinquiry as to what would have happened if his lordship had died on thepassage home, I believe I am justified in saying the scandal would havebeen allowed to die with him. He has contrived to provoke powerfulanimosities both in the Cabinet and at the India House, and there is, Ifear, an intention to pursue the inquiry to the bitter end. '

Assurances of the writer's sympathy followed these harsh truths. But tothis polite commonplace her ladyship paid no attention. Her mind wasintent on hard facts, the dismal probabilities of the near future. 

'If he had died upon the passage home!' she repeated. 'Would to God thathe had so died, and that my son's name and fortune could be saved. '

The innocent child who had never given her an hour's care; the onecreature she loved with all the strength of her proud nature--his futurewas to be blighted by his father's misdoings-overshadowed by shame anddishonour in the very dawn of life. It was a wicked wish--an unnaturalwish to find room in a woman's breast; but the wish was there. Would toGod he had died before the ship touched an English port. 

But he was living, and would have to face his accusers--and she, hiswife, must give him all the help she could. 

She sat long by the waning fire. She took nothing but a cup of tea, although the landlady had sent in substantial accompaniments to thetea-tray in the shape of broiled ham, new-laid eggs, and hot cakes, arguing that a traveller on such a night must be hungry, albeitdisinclined for a ceremonious dinner. She had been sitting for nearlyan hour in almost the same attitude, when there came a knock at thedoor, and, on being bidden to enter, the landlady came in, with somelogs in her apron, under pretence of replenishing the fire. 

'I was afraid your fire must be getting low, and that you'd be amoststarved, my lady, ' she said, as she put on the logs, and swept up theashes on the hearth. 'Such a dreadful night. So early in the year, too. I'm thinking we shall have a gay hard winter. '

'That does not always follow, ' said Lady Maulevrier. 'Has Steadman comedownstairs?'

'Yes, my lady. He told me to tell your ladyship that his lordship ispretty comfortable, and hopes to pass a good night. '

'I am glad to hear it. You can give me another room, I suppose. It wouldbe better for his lordship not to be disturbed, as he is very much outof health. '

'There is another room, my lady, but it's very small. '

'I don't mind how small, if it is clean and airy. '

'Yes, my lady. I am thankful to say you won't find dirt or stuffinessanywhere in this house. His lordship do look mortal badly, ' added thelandlady, shaking her head dolefully; 'and I remember him such a fineyoung gentleman, when he used to come down the Rothay with the otterhounds, running along the bank--joomping in and out of the beck--up tohis knees in the water--and now to see him, so white and mashiated, andbroken-down like, in the very prime of life, all along of living out ina hot country, among blackamoors, which is used to it--poor, ignorantcreatures--and never knew no better. It must be a hard trial for you, mylady. '

'It is a hard trial. '

'Ah! we all have our trials, rich and poor, ' sighed the woman, whodesired nothing better than to be allowed to unbosom her woes to thegrand looking lady in the fur-bordered cloth pelisse, with beautifuldark hair piled up in clustering masses above a broad white forehead, and slender white hands on which diamonds flashed and glittered in thefirelight, an unaccustomed figure by that rustic hearth. 

'We all have our trials--high and low. '

'That reminds me, ' said Lady Maulevrier, looking up at her, 'yourhusband said you were in trouble. What did that mean?'

'Sickness in the house, my lady. A brother of mine that went to Americato make his fortune, and seemed to be doing so well for the first fiveor six years, and wrote home such beautiful letters, and then left offwriting all at once, and we made sure as he was dead, and never got aword from him for ten years, and just three weeks ago he drops in uponus as we was sitting over our tea between the lights, looking as whiteas a ghost. I gave a shriek when I saw him, for I was regular scaredout of my senses. "Robert's ghost!" I cried; but it was Robert himself, come home to us to die. And he's lying upstairs now, with so little lifein him that I expect every breath to be his last. '

'What is his complaint?'

'Apathy, my lady. Dear, dear, that's not it. I never do remember thedoctor's foreign names. '

'Atrophy, ' perhaps. 

'Yes, my lady, that was it. Happen such crack-jaw words come easy to ascholar like your ladyship. '

'Does the doctor give no hope?'

'Well, no, my lady. He don't go so far as to say there's no hope, thoughRobert has been badly so long. It all depends, he says, upon therallying power of the constitution. The lungs are not gone, and theheart is not diseased. If there's rallying power, Robert will comeround, and if there isn't he'll sink. But the doctor says nature willhave to make an effort. But I have my own idea about the case, ' addedthe landlady, with a sigh. 

'What is your idea?'

'That our Robert was marked for death when he came into this house, andthat he meant what he said when he spoke of coming home to die. Thingshad gone against him for the last ten years in America. He married andtook his wife out to a farm in the Bush, and thought to make a goodthing out of farming with the bit of brass he'd saved at heeam. ButAmerica isn't Gert Langdale, you see, my lady, and his knowledge stoodhim in no stead in the Bush; and first he lost his money, and he fashedhimself terrible about that, and then he lost a child or two, and thenhe lost his wife, and he came back to us a broken-hearted man, with nowish to live. The doctor may call it atrophy, but I will call it whatthe Scripture calls it, a broken and a wounded spirit. '

'Who is your doctor?'

'Mr. Evans, of Ambleside. '

'That little half-blind old man!' exclaimed her ladyship. 'Surely youhave no confidence in him?'

'Not much, my lady. But I don't believe all the doctors in London coulddo anything for Robert. Good nursing will bring him round if anythingcan; and he gets that, I can assure your ladyship. He's my only brother, the only kith and kin that's left to me, and he and I were gay fond ofeach other when he was young. You may be sure I don't spare any trouble, and my good man thinks the best of his larder or his celler hardly goodenough for Robert. '

'I am sure you are kind good people, ' replied her ladyship gently; 'butI should have thought Mr. Horton, of Grasmere, could have done more thanold Evans. However, you know best. I hope his lordship is not going toadd to your cares by being laid up here, but he looked very ill thisevening. '

'He did, my lady, mortal bad. '

'However, we must hope for the best. Steadman is a splendid servant inillness. He nursed my father for years. Will you tell him to come to me, if you please? I want to hear what he thinks of his lordship, and todiscuss the chances of our getting home early to-morrow. '

The landlady retired, and summoned Mr. Steadman, who was enjoying hismodest glass of grog in front of the kitchen fire. He had taught himselfto dispense with the consolations of tobacco, lest he should at any timemake himself obnoxious to her ladyship. 

Steadman was closeted with Lady Maulevrier for the next half-hour, during which his lordship's condition was gravely discussed. When heleft the sitting-room he told the landlord to be sure and feed thepost-horses well, and make them comfortable for the night, so that theymight be ready for the drive to Fellside early next morning. 

'Do you think his lordship will be well enough to travel?' asked thelandlord. 

'He has made up his mind to get home--ill or well, ' answered Steadman. 'He has wasted about a week by his dawdling ways on the road; and nowhe's in a fever to get to Fellside. '

CHAPTER IV. 

THE LAST STAGE. 

The post-horses--which had been well fed, but accommodated somewhatpoorly in stable and barn--were quite ready to go on next morning; butLord Maulevrier was not able to leave his room, where her ladyshipremained in close attendance upon him. The hills and valleys were whitewith snow, but there was none falling, and Mr. Evans, the elderlysurgeon from Ambleside, rode over to Great Langdale on his elderly cobto look at Robert Haswell, and was called in to see Lord Maulevrier. Herladyship had spoken lightly of his skill on the previous evening, butany doctor is better than none, so this feeble little personage wasallowed to feel his lordship's pulse, and look at his lordship's tongue. 

His opinion, never too decidedly given, was a little more hazy thanusual on this occasion, perhaps because of a certain awfulness, tounaccustomed eyes, in Lady Maulevrier's proud bearing. He said that hislordship was low, very low, and that the pulse was more irregular thanhe liked, but he committed himself no further than this, and went away, promising to send such pills and potions as were appropriate to thepatient's condition. 

A boy rode the same pony over to Langdale later in the afternoon withthe promised medicines. 

Throughout the short winter day, which seemed terribly long in thestillness and solitude of Great Langdale, Lady Maulevrier kept watch inthe sick-room, Steadman going in and out in constant attendance upon hismaster--save for one half-hour only, which her ladyship passed in theparlour below, in conversation with the landlady, a very seriousconversation, as indicated by Mrs. Smithson's grave and somewhattroubled looks when she left her ladyship; but a good deal of hertrouble may have been caused by her anxiety about her brother, who waspronounced by the doctor to be 'much the same. '

At eleven o'clock that night a mounted messenger was sent off toAmbleside in hot haste to fetch Mr. Evans, who came to the inn to findLady Maulevrier kneeling beside her husband's bed, while Steadman stoodwith a troubled countenance at a respectful distance. 

The room was dimly lighted by a pair of candles burning on a table nearthe window, and at some distance from the old four-post bedstead, shaded by dark moreen curtains. The surgeon looked round the room, andthen fumbled in his pockets for his spectacles, without the aid of whichthe outside world presented itself to him under a blurred and uncertainaspect. 

He put on his spectacles, and moved towards the bed; but the firstglance in that direction showed him what had happened. The outline ofthe rigid figure under the coverlet looked like a sculptured effigy upona tomb. A sheet was drawn over the face of death. 

'You are too late to be of any use, Mr. Evans, ' murmured Steadman, laying his hand upon the doctor's sleeve and drawing him away towardsthe door. 

They went softly on to the landing, off which opened the door of thatother sick-room where the landlady's brother was lying. 

'When did this happen?'

'A quarter of an hour after the messenger rode off to fetch you, 'answered Steadman. 'His lordship lay all the afternoon in a heavy sleep, and we thought he was going on well; but after dark there was adifficulty in his breathing which alarmed her ladyship, and she insistedupon you being sent for. The messenger had hardly been gone a quarter ofan hour when his lordship woke suddenly, muttured to himself in acurious way, gave just one long drawn sigh, and--and all was over. Itwas a terrible shock for her ladyship. '

'Indeed it must have been, ' murmured the village doctor. 'It is a greatsurprise to me. I knew Lord Maulevrier was low, very low, the pulsefeeble and intermittent; but I had no fear of anything of this kind. Itis very sudden. '

'Yes, it is awfully sudden, ' said Steadman, and then he murmured in thedoctor's ear, 'You will give the necessary certificate, I hope, with aslittle trouble to her ladyship as possible. This is a dreadful blow, andshe----'

'She shall not be troubled. The body will be removed to-morrow, Isuppose. '

'Yes. He must be buried from his own house. I sent a second messenger toAmbleside for the undertaker. He will be here very soon, no doubt, andif the shell is ready by noon to-morrow, the body can be removed then. Ihave arranged to get her ladyship away to-night. '

'So late? After midnight?'

'Why not? She cannot stay in this small house--so near the dead. Thereis a moon, and there is no snow falling, and we are within seven milesof Fellside. '

The doctor had nothing further to say against the arrangement, althoughsuch a drive seemed to him a somewhat wild and reckless proceeding. Mr. Steadman's grave, self-possessed manner answered all doubts. Mr. Evansfilled in the certificate for the undertaker, drank a glass of hotbrandy and water, and remounted his nag, in nowise relishing hismidnight ride, but consoling himself with the reflection that he wouldbe handsomely paid for his trouble. 

An hour later Lady Maulevrier's travelling carriage stood ready in thestable yard, in the deep shadow of wall and gables. It was at Steadman'sorder that the carriage waited for her ladyship at an obscure side door, rather than in front of the inn. An east wind was blowing keenly alongthe mountain road, and the careful Steadman was anxious his mistressshould not be exposed to that chilly blast. 

There was some delay, and the four horses jingled their bitsimpatiently, and then the door of the inn opened, a feeble light gleamedin the narrow passage within, Steadman stood ready to assist herladyship, there was a bustle, a confusion of dark figures on thethreshold, a huddled mass of cloaks and fur wraps was lifted into thecarriage, the door was clapped to, the horses went clattering out of theyard, turned sharply into the snowy road, and started at a swinging pacetowards the dark sullen bulk of Loughrigg Fell. 

The moon was shining upon Elterwater in the valley yonder--the mountainridges, the deep gorges below those sullen heights, looked back wherethe shadow of night enfolded them, but all along the snow-white road thesilver light shone full and clear, and the mountain way looked like apath through fairyland. 

CHAPTER V. 

FORTY YEARS AFTER. 

'What a horrid day!' said Lady Mary, throwing down her book with a yawn, and looking out of the deep bay window into a world of mountain and lakewhich was clouded over by a dense veil of rain and dull grey mist; suchrain as one sees only in a lake district, a curtain of gloom which shutsoff sky and distance, and narrows the world to one solitary dwelling, suspended amidst cloud and water, like another ark in a new deluge. 

Rain--such rain as makes out-of-door exercise impossible--was always anaffliction to Lady Mary Haselden. Her delight was in open air andsunshine--fishing in the lake and rivers--sitting in some shelteredhollow of the hills more fitting for an eagle's nest than for theoccupation of a young lady, trying to paint those ever-varying, unpaintable mountain peaks, which change their hues with every change ofthe sky--swimming, riding, roving far and wide over hill andheather--pleasures all more or less masculine in their nature, and whichwere a subject of regret with Lady Maulevrier. 

Lady Lesbia was of a different temper. She loved ease and elegance, thegracious luxuries of life. She loved art and music, but not to labourhard at either. She played and sang a little--excellently within thatnarrow compass which she had allotted to herself--played Mendelssohn's'Lieder' with finished touch and faultless phrasing, sang Heine'sballads with consummate expression. She painted not at all. Why shouldanyone draw or paint indifferently, she asked, when Providence hasfurnished the world with so many great painters in the past and present?She could not understand Mary's ardent desire to do the thingherself, --to be able with her own pencil and her own brush to reproducethe lakes and valleys, the wild brown hills she loved so passionately. Lesbia did not care two straws for the lovely lake district amidst whichshe had been reared, --every pike and force, every beck and gill whereofwas distinctly dear to her younger sister. She thought it a very hardthing to have spent so much of her life at Fellside, a trial that wouldhave hardly been endurable if it were not for grandmother. Grandmotherand Lesbia adored each other. Lesbia was the one person for whom LadyMaulevrier's stateliness was subjugated by perfect love. To all the restof the world the Countess was marble, but to Lesbia she was wax. Lesbiacould mould her as she pleased; but happily Lesbia was not the kind ofyoung person to take advantage of this privilege; she was thoroughlyductile or docile, and had no desire, at present, which ran counter toher grandmother. 

Lesbia was a beauty. In her nineteenth year she was a curiousreproduction in face and figure, expression and carriage, of that LadyDiana Angersthorpe who five and forty years ago fluttered the dove-cotsof St. James's and Mayfair by her brilliant beauty and her keenintelligence. There in the panelled drawing-room at Fellside hungHarlow's portrait of Lady Diana in her zenith, in a short-waisted, whitesatin frock, with large puffed gauze sleeves, through which the perfectarm showed dimly. Standing under that picture Lady Lesbia looked as ifshe had stepped out of the canvas. She was to be painted by Millais nextyear. Lady Maulevrier said, when she had been introduced, and societywas beginning to talk about her: for Lady Maulevrier made up her mindfive or six years ago that Lesbia should be the reigning beauty of herseason. To this end she had educated and trained her, furnishing herwith all those graces best calculated to please and astonish society. She was too clever a woman not to discover Lesbia's shallowness and lackof all great gifts, save that one peerless dower of perfect beauty. Sheknew exactly what Lesbia could be trained to do; and to this end Lesbiahad been educated; and to this end Lady Maulevrier brought down toFellside the most accomplished of Hanoverian governesses, who hadlearned French in Paris, and had toiled in the educational mill withprofit to herself and her pupils for a quarter of a century. To thislady the Countess entrusted the education of her granddaughters' minds, while for their physical training she provided another teacher in theperson of a clever little Parisian dancing mistress, who had set up atthe West-End of London as a teacher of dancing and calisthenics, and hadutterly failed to find pupils enough to pay her rent and keep her modest_pot-au-feu_ going. Mademoiselle Thiebart was very glad to exchange theuncertainties of a first floor in North Audley Street for the comfortand security of Fellside Manor, with a salary of one hundred and fiftypounds a year. 

Both Fräulein and Mademoiselle had been quick to discover that LadyLesbia was the apple of her grandmother's eye, while Lady Mary wascomparatively an outsider. 

So it came about that Mary's education was in somewise a mere picking-upof the crumbs which fell from Lesbia's table, and that she was allowedin a general way to run wild. She was much quicker at any intellectualexercise than Lesbia. She learned the lessons that were given her atrailroad speed, and rattled off her exercises with a slap-dashpenmanship which horrified the neat and niggling Fräulein, and thenrushed off to the lake or mountain, and by this means grew browner andbrowner, and more indelibly freckled day by day, thus widening the gulfbetween herself and her beauty sister. 

But it is not to be supposed that because Lesbia was beautiful, Mary wasplain. This is very far from the truth. Mary had splendid hazel eyes, with a dancing light in them when she smiled, ruddy auburn hair, whiteteeth, a deeply-dimpled chin, and a vivacity and archness of expression, which served only in her present state of tutelage for the subjugationof old women and shepherd boys. Mary had been taught to believe that herchances of future promotion were of the smallest; that nobody would evertalk of her, or think of her by-and-by when she in her turn would makeher appearance in London society, and that it would be a very happything for her if she were so fortunate as to attract the attention of afashionable physician, a Canon of Westminster or St. Paul's, or abarrister in good practice. 

Mary turned up her pert little nose at this humdrum lot. 

'I would much rather spend all my life among these dear hills than marrya nobody in London, ' she said, fearless of that grand old lady at whosefrown so many people shivered. 'If you don't think people will like meand admire me--a little--you had better save yourself the trouble oftaking me to London. I don't want to play second fiddle to my sister. '

'You are a very impertinent person, and deserve to be taken at yourword, ' replied my lady, scowling at her; 'but I have no doubt before youare twenty you will tell another story. '

'Oh!' said Mary, now just turned seventeen, 'then I am not to come outtill I am twenty. '

'That will be soon enough, ' answered the Countess. 'It will take you aslong to get rid of those odious freckles. And no doubt by that timeLesbia will have made a brilliant marriage. '

And now on this rainy July morning these two girls, neither of whom hadany serious employment for her life, or any serious purpose in living, wasted the hours, each in her own fashion. 

Lesbia reclined upon a cushioned seat in the deep embrasure of a Tudorwindow, her _pose_ perfection--it was one of many such attitudes whichMademoiselle had taught her, and which by assiduous training had becomea second nature. Poor Mademoiselle, having finished her mission andtaught Lesbia all she could teach, had now departed to a new and farless luxurious situation in a finishing school at Passy; but FräuleinMüller was still retained, as watch-dog and duenna. 

Lesbia's pale blue morning gown harmonised exquisitely with a complexionof lilies and roses, violet eyes, and golden-brown hair. Her featureswere distinguished by that perfect chiselling which gave such a haughtygrace to her grandmother's countenance, even at sixty-seven years ofage--a loveliness which, like the sculptured marble it resembles, isunalterable by time. Lesbia was reading Keats. It was her habit to readthe poets, carefully and deliberately, taking up one at a time, and dulylaying a volume aside when she found herself mistress of its contents. She had no passion for poetry, but it was an elegant leisurely kind ofreading which suited her languid temperament. Moreover, her grandmotherhad told her that an easy familiarity with the great poets is of allknowledge that which best qualifies a woman to shine in conversation, without offending the superior sex by any assumption of scholarship. 

Mary was a very different class of reader; capricious, omniverous, tearing out the hearts of books, roaming from flower to flower in thefields of literature, loving old and new, romance and reality, novels, travels, plays, poetry, and never dwelling long on any one theme. Perhaps if Mary had lived in the bosom of a particularly sympatheticfamily she might have been reckoned almost a genius, so much of poetryand originality was there in her free unconventional character; buthitherto it had been Mary's mission in life to be snubbed, whereby shehad acquired a very poor opinion of her own talents. 

'Oh, ' she cried with a desperate yawn, while Lesbia smiled her languidsmile over Endymion, 'how I wished something would happen--anything tostir us out of this statuesque, sleeping-beauty state of being. I verilybelieve the spiders are all asleep in the ivy, and the mice behind thewainscot, and the horses in the stable. '

'What could happen?' asked Lesbia, with a gentle elevation of pencilledbrows. 'Are not these lovely lines--

 "And coverlids gold-tinted like the peach, Or ripe October's faded marigolds, Fell sleek about him in a thousand folds. "

Faded marigolds! Is not that intensely sweet?'

'Very well for your sleepy Keats, but I don't suppose you would havenoticed the passage if marigolds were not in fashion, ' said Mary, with atouch of scorn. 'What could happen? Why a hundred things--an earthquake, flood, or fire. What could happen, do you say, Lesbia? Why Maulevriermight come home unexpectedly, and charm us out of this death-in-life. '

'He would occasion a good deal of unpleasantness if he did, ' answeredLesbia, coldly. 'You know how angry he has made grandmother. '

'Because he keeps race-horses which have an unlucky knack of losing, 'said Mary, dubiously. 'I suppose if his horses won, grandmother wouldrather approve?'

'Not at all. That would make hardly any difference, except that he wouldnot ruin himself quite so quickly. Grandmother says that a young manwho goes on the turf is sure to be ruined sooner or later. And thenMaulevrier's habits are altogether wild and foolish. It is very hardupon grandmother, who has such noble ambition for all of us. '

'Not for me, ' answered Mary smiling. 'Her views about me are veryhumble. She considers that I shall be most fortunate if a doctor or alawyer condescend to like me well enough to make me an offer. He mightmake me the offer without liking me, for the sake of hearing himself andhis wife announced as Mr. And Lady Mary Snooks at dinner parties. Thatwould be too horrid! But I daresay such things have happened. '

'Don't talk nonsense, Mary, ' said Lesbia, loftily. 'There is no reasonwhy you should not make a really good marriage, if you followgrandmother's advice and don't affect eccentricity. '

'I don't affect eccentricity, but I'm afraid I really am eccentric, 'murmured Mary, meekly, 'for I like so many things I ought not to like, and detest so many things which I ought to admire. '

'I daresay you will have tamed down a little before you are presented, 'said Lesbia, carelessly. 

She could not even affect a profound interest in anyone but herself. Shehad a narrowness of mental vision which prevented her looking beyond thelimited circle of her own pleasures, her own desires, her own dreams andhopes. She was one of those strictly correct young women who was notlikely to do much harm in the world but who was just as unlikely to doany good. Mary sighed, and went back to her book, a bulky volume oftravels, and tried to lose herself in the sandy wastes of Africa, and tobe deeply interested in the sources of the Congo, not, in her heart ofhearts, caring a straw whether that far-away river comes from themountains of the moon, or from the moon itself. To-day she could not pinher mind to pages which might have interested her at another time. Herthoughts were with Lord Maulevrier, that fondly-loved only brother, justseven years her senior, who had taken to race-horses and bad ways, andseemed to be trying his hardest to dissipate the splendid fortune whichhis grandmother, the dowager Countess, had nursed so judiciously duringhis long minority. Maulevrier and Mary had always been what the youngman called 'no end of chums. '

He called her his own brown-eyed Molly, much to the annoyance of LadyMaulevrier and Lesbia; and Mary's life was all gladness when Maulevrierwas at Fellside. She devoted herself wholly to his amusements, rode anddrove with him, followed on her pony when he went otter hunting, andvery often abandoned the pony to the care of some stray mountain youthin order to join the hunters, and go leaping from stone to stone on themargin of the stream, and occasionally, in moments of wild excitement, when the hounds were in full cry, splashing in and out of the water, like a naiad in a neat little hunting-habit. 

Mary looked after Maulevrier's stable when he was away, and had supremecommand of a kennel of fox-terriers which cost her brother more moneythan the Countess would have cared to know; for in the wide area of LadyMaulevrier's ambition there was no room for two hundred guineafox-terriers, were they never so perfect. 

Altogether Mary's life was a different life when her brother was athome; and in his absence the best part of her days were spent inthinking about him and fulfilling the duties of her position as hisrepresentative in stable and kennel, and among certain rustics in thedistrict, chiefly of the sporting type, who were Maulevrier's chosenallies or _protégés_. 

Never, perhaps, had two girls of patrician lineage lived a more secludedlife than Lady Maulevrier's granddaughters. They had known no pleasuresbeyond the narrow sphere of home and home friends. They had nevertravelled--they had seen hardly anything of the outside world. They hadnever been to London or Paris, or to any city larger than York; andtheir visits to that centre of dissipation had been of the briefest, amere flash of mild gaiety, a horticultural show or an oratorio, and backby express train, closely guarded by governess and footmen, to Fellside. In the autumn, when the leaves were falling in the wooded grounds ofFellside, the young ladies were sent, still under guardianship ofgovernesses and footmen, to some quiet seaside resort between Alnwickand Edinburgh, where Mary lived the wild free life she loved, roamingabout the beach, boating, shrimping, seaweed-gathering, making hard workfor the governesses and footmen who had been sent in charge of her. 

Lady Maulevrier never accompanied her granddaughters on these occasions. She was a vigorous old woman, straight as a dart, slim as a girl, activein her degree as any young athlete among those hills, and she declaredthat she never felt the need of change of air. The sodden shrubberies, the falling leaves, did her no harm. Never within the memory of thisgeneration had she left Fellside. Her love of this mountain retreat wasa kind of _culte_. She had come here broken spirited, perhaps brokenhearted, bringing her dead husband from the little inn at Great Langdaleforty years ago, and she had hardly left the spot since that day. 

In those days Fellside House was a very different kind of dwelling fromthe gracious modern Tudor mansion which now crowned and beautified thehill-side above Grasmere Lake. It was then an old rambling stone house, with queer little rooms and inconvenient passages, low ceilings, thatched gables, and all manner of strange nooks and corners. LadyMaulevrier was of too strictly conservative a temper to think ofpulling down an old house which had been in her husband's family forgenerations. She left the original cottage undisturbed, and built hernew house at right angles with it, connecting the two with a widepassage below and a handsome corridor above, so that access should beperfect in the event of her requiring the accommodation of the oldquaint, low ceiled rooms for her family or her guests. During fortyyears no such necessity had ever arisen; but the old house, known as thesouth wing, was still left intact, the original furniture undisturbed, although the only occupants of the building were her ladyship's faithfulold house-steward, James Steadman, and his elderly wife. 

The house which Lady Maulevrier had built for herself and hergrandchildren had not been created all at once, though the nucleusdating forty years back was a handsome building. She had added morerooms as necessity or fancy dictated, now a library with bedrooms overit, now a music room for Lady Lesbia and her grand piano--anon abilliard-room, as an agreeable surprise for Maulevrier when he came homeafter a tour in America. Thus the house had grown into a long low pileof Tudor masonry--steep gables, heavily mullioned casements, grey stonewalls, curtained with the rich growth of passion-flower, magnolia, clematis, myrtle and roses--and all those flowers which thrive andflourish in that mild and sheltered spot. 

The views from those mullioned casements were perfect. Switzerland couldgive hardly any more exquisite picture than that lake shut in by hills, grand and bold in their varied outlines, so rich in their colouring thatthe eye, dazzled with beauty, forgot to calculate the actual height ofthose craggy peaks and headlands, the mind forgot to despise thembecause they were not so lofty as Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn. Thevelvet sward of the hill sloped steeply downward from Lady Maulevrier'sdrawing-room windows to the road beside the lake, and this road was sohidden by the wooded screen which bounded her ladyship's grounds thatthe lake seemed to lie in the green heart of her gardens, a lovely, placid lake on summer days, reflecting the emerald hue of thesurrounding hills, and looking like a smooth green meadow, which invitedthe foot passenger to cross it. 

The house was approached by a winding carriage drive that led up and upand up from the road beside the lake, so screened and sheltered byshrubberies and pine woods, that the stranger knew not whither he wasgoing, till he came upon an opening in the wood, and the stately Italiangarden in front of a massive stone porch, through which he entered aspacious oak-panelled hall, and anon, descending a step or two, he foundhimself in Lady Maulevrier's drawing-room, and face to face with thatdivine view of the everlasting hills, the lake shining below him, bathed in sunlight. 

Or if it were the stranger's evil fate to come in wet weather, he sawonly a rain-blotted landscape--the blurred outlines of grey mountainpeaks, scowling at him from the other side of a grey pool. But if thepicture without were depressing, the picture within was always good tolook upon, for those oak-panelled or tapestried rooms, communicating byrichly-curtained doorways from drawing room to library, from library tobilliard room, were as perfect as wealth and taste could make them. LadyMaulevrier argued that as there was but one house among all thepossessions of her race which she cared to inhabit, she had a right tomake that house beautiful, and she had spared nothing upon thebeautification of Fellside; and yet she had spent much less than wouldhave been squandered by any pleasure-loving dowager, restlessly rovingfrom Piccadilly to the Engadine, from Pontresina to Nice or Monaco, winding up with Easter in Paris, and then back to Piccadilly. Herladyship's friends wondered that she could care to bury herself alive inWestmoreland, and expatiated on the eccentricity of such a life; nay, those who had never seen Fellside argued that Lady Maulevrier had takenin her old age to hoarding, and that she pigged at a cottage in the Lakedistrict, in order to swell a fortune which young Maulevrier would setabout squandering as soon as she was in her coffin. But here they werewrong. It was not in Lady Maulevrier's nature to lead a sordid life inorder to save money. Yet in these quiet years that were gone--startingwith that golden nucleus which her husband was supposed to have broughthome from India, obtained no one knows how, the Countess had amassed oneof the largest fortunes possessed by any dowager in the peerage. She hadit, and she held it, with a grasp that nothing but death could loosen;nay, that all-foreseeing mind of hers might contrive to cheat grim deathitself, and to scheme a way for protecting this wealth, even when shewho had gathered and garnered it should be mouldering in her grave. Theentailed estates belonged to Maulevrier, were he never such a fool orspendthrift; but this fortune of the dowager's was her own, to disposeof as she pleased, and not a penny of it was likely to go to the youngEarl. 

Lady Maulevrier's pride and hopes were concentrated upon hergranddaughter Lesbia. She should be the inheritress of this noblefortune--she should spread and widen the power of the Maulevrier race. Lesbia's son should link the family name with the name of his father;and if by any hazard of fate the present Earl should die young andchildless, the old Countess's interest should be strained to theuttermost to obtain the title for Lesbia's offspring. Why should she notbe Countess of Maulevrier in her own right? But in order to make thisfuture possible the most important factor in the sum was yet to befound in the person of a husband for Lady Lesbia--a husband worthy ofpeerless beauty and exceptional wealth, a husband whose own fortuneshould be so important as to make him above suspicion. That was LadyMaulevrier's scheme--to wed wealth to wealth--to double or quadruple thefortune she had built up in the long slow years of her widowhood, andthus to make her granddaughter one of the greatest ladies in the land;for it need hardly be said that the man who was to wed Lady Lesbia mustbe her equal in wealth and lineage, if not her superior. 

Lady Maulevrier was not a miser. She was liberal and benevolent to allwho came within the circle of her life. Wealth for its own sake shevalued not a jot. But she lived in an age in which wealth is power, andambition was her ruling passion. As she had been ambitious for herhusband in the days that were gone, she was now ambitious for hergranddaughter. Time had intensified the keen eagerness of her mind. Shehad been disappointed, cruelly, bitterly, in the ambition of her youth. She had been made to drink the cup of shame and humiliation. But to thisambition of her old age she held with even greater tenacity. God helpher if she should be disappointed here!

It is not to be supposed that so astute a schemer as Lady Maulevrier hadnot surveyed the marriage market in order to discover that fortunateyouth who should be deemed worthy to become the winner of Lesbia's hand. Years ago, when Lesbia was still in the nursery, the dowager had madeherself informed of the age, weight, and colours of every likely runnerin the matrimonial stakes; or, in plainer words, had kept herself, byher correspondence with a few intimate friends, and her close study ofthe fashionable newspapers, thoroughly acquainted with the charactersand exploits, the dispositions and antecedents, of those half-dozenelder sons, among whom she hoped to find Lesbia's lord and master. Sheknew her peerage by heart, and she knew the family history of everyhouse recorded therein; the sins and weaknesses, the follies and lossesof bygone years; the taints, mental and physical; the lateral branchesand intermarriages; the runaway wives and unfaithful husbands; idiotsons or scrofulous daughters. She knew everything that was to be knownabout that aristocratic world into which she had been born sixty-sevenyears ago; and the sum-total of her knowledge was that there was one manwhom she desired for her granddaughter's husband--one man, and one only, and into whose hands, when earth and sky should fade from her glazingeyes, she could be content to resign the sceptre of power. 

There were no doubt half-a-dozen, or more, in the list of elder sons, who were fairly eligible. But this young man was the Achilles in therank and file of chivalry, and her soul yearned to have him and no otherfor her darling. 

Her soul yearned to him with a tenderness which was not all on Lesbia'saccount. Forty-nine years ago she had fondly loved his father--loved himand had been fain to renounce him; for Ronald Hollister, afterwards Earlof Hartfield, was then a younger son, and the two families had agreedthat marriage between paupers was an impudent flying in the face ofProvidence, which must be put down with an iron hand. Lord Hartfieldsent his son to Turkey in the diplomatic service; and the old dowagerLady Carrisbrook whisked her niece off to London, and kept her there, under watch and ward, till Lord Maulevrier proposed and was accepted byher. There should be no foolishness, no clandestine correspondence. Theiron hand crushed two young hearts, and secured a brilliant future forthe bodies which survived. 

Fifteen years later Ronald's elder brother died unmarried. Ha abandonedthat career of vagrant diplomacy which had taken him all over Europe, and as far as Washington, and re-appeared in London, the most elegantman of his era, but thoroughly _blasé_. There were rumours of an unhappyattachment in the Faubourg Saint Germain; of a tragedy at Petersburg. Society protested that Lord Hartfield would die a bachelor, as hisbrother died before him. The Hollisters are not a marrying family, saidsociety. But six or seven years after his return to England LordHartfield married Lady Florence Ilmington, a beauty in her first season, and a very sweet but somewhat prudish young person. The marriageresulted in the birth of an heir, whose appearance upon this mortalstage was followed within a year by his father's exit. Hence theHartfield property, always a fine estate, had been nursed and fattenedduring a long minority, and the present Lord Hartfield was reputed oneof the richest young men of his time. He was also spoken of as asuperior person, inheriting all his father's intellectual gifts, andhaving the reputation of being singularly free from the vices ofprofligate youth. He was neither prig nor pedant, and he was verypopular in the best society; but he was not ashamed to let it be seenthat his ambition soared higher than the fashionable world of turf andstable, cards and pigeon matches. 

Though not of the gay world, nor in it, Lady Maulevrier had contrived tokeep herself thoroughly _en rapport_ with society. Her few chosenfriends, with whom she corresponded on terms of perfect confidence, wereamong the best people in London--not the circulators of club-housecanards, the pickers-up of second-hand gossip from the society papers, but actors in the comedy of high life, arbiters of fashion and taste, born and bred in the purple. 

Last season Lord Hartfield's absence had cast a cloud over thematrimonial horizon. He had been a traveller for more than ayear--Patagonia, Peru, the Pyramids, Japan, the North Pole--societycared not where--the fact that he was gone was all-sufficient. Bachelorsa shade less eligible came to the front in his absence and became firstfavourites. Lady Maulevrier, well informed in advance, had deferredLesbia's presentation till next season, when she was told Lord Hartfieldwould certainly re-appear. His plans had been made for return beforeChristmas; and it would seem that his scheme of life was laid down withas much precision as if he had been a prince of the blood royal. Thus ithappened, to Lesbia's intense disgust, that her _début_ was deferredtill the verge of her twentieth birthday. It would never do, LadyMaulevrier told herself, for the edge to be taken off the effect whichLesbia's beauty was to make on society during Lord Hartfield's absence. He must be there, on the spot, to see this star rise gently and slowlyabove society's horizon, and to mark how everybody bowed down andworshipped the new light. 

'I shall be an old woman before I appear in society, ' said Lesbia, petulantly; 'and I shall be like a wild woman of the woods; for I haveseen nothing, and know nothing of the civilised world. '

'You will be ever so much more attractive than the young women I hearof, who have seen and known a great deal too much, ' answered thedowager; and as her granddaughter knew that Lady Maulevrier's word was alaw that altered not, there was no more idle repinings. 

Her ladyship gave no reason for the postponement of Lesbia'spresentation. She was far too diplomatic to breathe a word of her ideaswith regard to Lord Hartfield. Anything like a matrimonial scheme wouldhave been revolting to Lesbia, who had grand, but not sordid views aboutmatrimony. She thought it her mission to appear and to conquer. A crowdof suitors would sigh around her, like the loves and graces round thatfair Belinda whose story she had read so often; and it would be her partto choose the most worthy. The days are gone when a girl would so muchas look at such a fribble as Sir Plume. Her virgin fancy demands theTennysonian ideal, the grave and knightly Arthur. 

But when Lesbia thought of the most worthy, it was always of theworthiest in her own particular sphere; and he of course would be titledand wealthy, and altogether fitted to be her husband. He would take herby the hand and lead her to a higher seat on the dais, and place uponher head, or at least upon her letter-paper and the panels of hercarriage, a coronet in which the strawberry leaves should stand out moreprominently than in her brother's emblazonment. Lesbia's mind could notconceive an ignoble marriage, or the possibility of the most worthyhappening to be found in a lower circle than her own. 

And now it was the end of July, and the season which should have beenglorified by Lady Lesbia's _début_ was over and done with. She had readin the society papers of all the balls, and birthdays, and racemeetings, and regattas, and cricket matches, and gowns, and parasols, and bonnets--what this beauty wore on such an occasion, and how thatother beauty looked on another occasion--and she felt as she read like aspell-bound princess in a fairy tale, mewed up in a battlemented tower, and deprived of her legitimate share in all the pleasures of earth. Shehad no patience with Mary--that wild, unkempt, ungraceful creature, whocould be as happy as summer days are long, racing about the hills withher bamboo alpenstock, rioting with a pack of fox-terriers, practisinglong losers, rowing on the lake, doing all things unbecoming LadyMaulevrier's granddaughter. 

That long rainy day dragged its slow length to a close; and then came finedays, in which Molly and her fox-terriers went wandering over the sunlithills, skipping and dancing across the mountain streamlets--gills, as theywere called in this particular world--almost as gaily as the shadows offleecy cloudlets dancing up yonder in the windy sky. Molly spent half herdays among the hills, stealing off from governess and grandmother and thestately beauty sister, and sometimes hardly being missed by them, so illdid her young exuberance harmonise with their calmer life. 

'One can tell when Mary is at home by a perpetual banging of doors, 'said Lesbia, which was a sisterly exaggeration founded upon fact, forMolly was given to impetuous rushing in and out of rooms when that eagerspirit of hers impelled the light lithe body upon some new expedition. Nor is the society of fox-terriers conducive to repose or stateliness ofmovement; and Maulevrier's terriers, although strictly forbidden thehouse, were for ever breaking bonds and leaping in upon Molly'sretirement at all unreasonable hours. She and they were enchanted to getaway from the beautiful luxurious rooms, and to go roving by hill-sideand force, away to Easedale Tarn, to bask for hours on the grassy marginof the deep still water, or to row round and round the mountain lake ina rotten boat. It was here, or in some kindred spot, that Molly gotthrough most of her reading--here that she read Shakespeare, Byron, andShelley, and Wordsworth--dwelling lingeringly and lovingly upon everyline in which that good old man spoke of her native land. Sometimes sheclimbed to higher ground, and felt herself ever so much nearer heavenupon the crest of Silver Howe, or upon the rugged stony steep of DollyWaggon pike, half way up the dark brow of Helvellyn; sometimes shedisappeared for hours, and climbed to the summit of the hill, andwandered in perilous pathways on Striding Edge, or by the dark stillwater of the Red Tarn. This had been her life ever since she had beenold enough to have an independent existence; and the hills and thelakes, and the books of her own choosing, had done a great deal more inripening her mind than Fräulein Müller and that admirable series ofeducational works which has been provided for the tuition of modernyouth. Grammars and geographies, primers and elementary works of allkinds, were Mary's detestation; but she loved books that touched herheart and filled her mind with thoughts wide and deep enough to reachinto the infinite of time and space, the mystery of mind and matter, life and death. 

Nothing occurred to break the placid monotony of life at Fellside forthree long days after that rainy morning; and then came an event which, although commonplace enough in itself, marked the beginning of a new erain the existence of Lady Maulevrier's granddaughters. 

It was evening, and the two girls were dawdling about on the slopinglawn before the drawing-room windows, where Lady Maulevrier read thenewspapers in her own particular chair by one of those broad Tudorwindows, according to her infallible custom. Remote as her life had beenfrom the busy world, her ladyship had never allowed her knowledge ofpublic life and the bent of modern thought to fall into arrear. She tooka keen interest in politics, in progress of all kinds. She was a staunchConservative, and looked upon every Liberal politician as her personalenemy; but she took care to keep herself informed of everything that wasbeing said or done in the enemy's camp. She had an intense respect forLord Bacon's maxim: Knowledge is power. It was a kind of power secondaryto the power of wealth, perhaps; but wealth unprotected by wisdom wouldsoon dwindle into poverty. 

Lady Lesbia sauntered about the lawn, looking very elegant in hercream-coloured Indian silk gown, very listless, very tired of her lovelysurroundings. Neither lake nor mountain possessed any charm for her. Shehad had too much of them. Mary roamed about with a swifter footstep, looking at the roses, plucking off a dead leaf, or a cankered bud hereand there. Presently she tore across the lawn to the shrubbery whichscreened the lawn and flower gardens from the winding carriage drivesunk many feet below, and disappeared in a thicket of arbutus and Irishyew. 

'What terribly hoydenish manners!' murmured Lesbia, with a languid shrugof her shoulders, as she strolled back to the drawing-room. 

She cared very little for the newspapers, for politics not at all; butanything was better than everlasting-contemplation of the blue stillwater, and the rugged crest of Helm Crag. 

'What was the matter with Mary that she rushed off like a mad woman?'inquired Lady Maulevrier, looking up from the _Times_. 

'I haven't the least idea. Mary's movements are quite beyond the limitsof my comprehension. Perhaps she has gone after a bird's-nest. '

Mary was intent upon no bird's-nest. Her quick ear had caught the soundof manly voices in the winding drive under the pine wood; and surely, yes, surely one was a clear and familiar voice, which heralded thecoming of happiness. In such a moment she seemed to have wings. Shebecame unconscious that she touched the earth; she went skimmingbird-like over the lawn, and in and out, with fluttering muslin frock, among arbutus and bay, yew and laurel, till she stood poised lightly onthe top of the wooded bank which bordered the steep ascent to LadyMaulevrier's gate, looking down at two figures which were sauntering upthe drive. 

They were both young men, both tall, broad-shouldered, manly, walkingwith the easy swinging movement of men accustomed to active exercise. One, the handsomer of the two in Mary's eyes, since she thought himsimply perfection, was fair-haired, blue-eyed, the typical Saxon. Thiswas Lord Maulevrier. The other was dark, bronzed by foreign travel, perhaps, with black hair, cut very close to an intelligent-looking head, bared to the evening breeze. 

'Hulloa!' cried Maulevrier. 'There's Molly. How d'ye do, old girl?'

The two men looked up, and Molly looked down. Delight at her brother'sreturn so filled her heart and mind that there was no room left forembarrassment at the appearance of a stranger. 

'O, Maulevrier, I am so glad! I have been pining for you. Why didn't youwrite to say you were coming? It would have been something to lookforward to. '

'Couldn't. Never knew from day to day what I was going to be up to;besides, I knew I should find you at home. '

'Of course. We are always at home, ' said Mary; 'go up to the house asfast as ever you can. I'll go and tell grandmother. '

'And tell them to get us some dinner, ' said Maulevrier. 

Mary's fluttering figure dipped and was gone, vanishing in the darklabyrinth of shrubs. The two young men sauntered up to the house. 

'We needn't hurry, ' said Maulevrier to his companion, whom he had nottaken the trouble to introduce to his sister. 'We shall have to wait forour dinner. '

'And we shall have to change our dusty clothes, ' added the other; 'Ihope that man will bring our portmanteaux in time. '

'Oh, we needn't dress. We can spend the evening in my den, if youlike!'

Mary flew across the lawn again, and bounded up the steps of theverandah--a picturesque Swiss verandah which made a covered promenade infront of the house. 

'Mary, may I ask the meaning of this excitement, ' inquired her ladyship, as the breathless girl stood before her. 

'Maulevrier has come home. '

'At last?'

'And he has brought a friend. '

'Indeed! He might have done me the honour to inquire if his friend'svisit would be agreeable. What kind of person?'

'I have no idea. I didn't look at him. Maulevrier is looking so well. They will be here in a minute. May I order dinner for them?'

'Of course, they must have dinner, ' said her ladyship, resignedly, as ifthe whole thing were an infliction; and Mary ran out and interviewed thebutler, begging that all things might be made particularly comfortablefor the travellers. It was nine o'clock, and the servants were enjoyingtheir eventide repose. 

Having given her orders, Mary went back to the drawing-room, impatientlyexpectant of her brother's arrival, for which event Lesbia and hergrandmother waited with perfect tranquillity, the dowager calmlycontinuing the perusal of her _Times_, while Lesbia sat at her piano ina shadowy corner, and played one of Mendelssohn's softest Lieder. Tothese dreamy strains Maulevrier and his friend presently entered. 

'How d'ye do, grandmother? how do, Lesbia? This is my very good friendand Canadian travelling companion, Jack Hammond--Lady Maulevrier, LadyLesbia. '

'Very glad to see you, Mr. Hammond, ' said the dowager, in a tone sopurely conventional that it might mean anything. 'Hammond? I ought toremember your family--the Hammonds of----'

'Of nowhere, ' answered the stranger in the easiest tone; 'I spring froma race of nobodies, of whose existence your ladyship is not likely tohave heard. '

CHAPTER VI. 

MAULEVRIER'S HUMBLE FRIEND. 

That faint interest which Lady Lesbia had felt in the advent of astranger dwindled to nothing after Mr. Hammond's frank avowal of hisinsignificance. At the very beginning of her career, with the worldwaiting to be conquered by her, a high-born beauty could not be expectedto feel any interest in nobodies. Lesbia shook hands with her brother, honoured the stranger with a stately bend of her beautiful throat, andthen withdrew herself from their society altogether as it were, andbegan to explore her basket of crewels, at a distant table, by the softlight of a shaded lamp, while Maulevrier answered his grandmother'squestions, and Mary stood watching him, hanging on his words, as ifunconscious of any other presence. 

Mr. Hammond went over to the window and looked out at the view. The moonwas rising above the amphitheatre of hills, and her rays were silveringthe placid bosom of the lake. Lights were dotted here and there aboutthe valley, telling of village life. The Prince of Wales's hotel yondersparkled with its many lights, like a castle in a fairy tale. Thestranger had looked upon many a grander scene, but on none more lovely. Here were lake and mountain in little, without the snow-peaks and awfulinaccessible regions of solitude and peril; homely hills that one mightclimb, placid English vales in which English poets have lived and died. 

'Hammond and I mean to spend a month or six weeks with you, if you canmake us comfortable, ' said Maulevrier. 

'I am delighted to hear that you can contemplate staying a monthanywhere, ' replied her ladyship. 'Your usual habits are as restless asif your life were a disease. It shall not be my fault if you and Mr. Hammond are uncomfortable at Fellside. '

There was courtesy, but no cordiality in the reply. If Mr. Hammond was asensitive man, touchily conscious of his own obscurity, he must havefelt that he was not wanted at Fellside--that he was an excrescence, matter in the wrong place. 

Nobody had presented the stranger to Lady Mary. It never entered intoMaulevrier's mind to be ceremonious about his sister Molly. She was somuch a part of himself that it seemed as if anyone who knew him mustneeds know her. Molly sat a little way from the window by which Mr. Hammond was standing, and looked at him doubtfully, wonderingly, withnot altogether a friendly eye, as he stood with his profile turned toher, and his eyes upon the landscape. She was inclined to be jealous ofher brother's friend, who would most likely deprive her of much of thatbeloved society. Hitherto she had been Maulevrier's chosen companion, atFellside--indeed, his sole companion after the dismissal of his tutor. Now this brown, bearded stranger would usurp her privileges--those twoyoung men would go roaming over the hills, fishing, otter-hunting, goingto distant wrestling matches and leaving her at home. It was a hardthing, and she was prepared to detest the interloper. Even to-night shewould be a loser by his presence. Under ordinary circumstances she wouldhave gone to the dining-room with Maulevrier, and sat by him and waitedupon him as he ate. But she dared not intrude herself upon a meal thatwas to be shared with a stranger. 

She looked at John Hammond critically, eager to find fault with hisappearence; but unluckily for her present humour there was not much roomfor fault-finding. 

He was tall, broad-shouldered, well-built. His enemies would hardly denythat he was good-looking--nay, even handsome. The massive regularfeatures were irreproachable. He was more sunburnt than a gentlemanought to be, Mary thought. She told herself that his good looks were ofa vulgar quality, like those of Charles Ford, the champion wrestler, whom she saw at the sports the other day. Why did Maulevrier pick up acompanion who was evidently not of his own sphere? Hoydenish, plain-spoken, frank and affectionate as Mary Haselden was, she knew thatshe belonged to a race apart, that there were circles beneath circles, below her own world, circles which hers could never touch, and shesupposed Mr. Hammond to be some waif from one of those nethermostworlds--a village doctor's son, perhaps, or even a tradesman's--sent tothe University by some benevolent busybody, and placed at a disadvantageever afterwards, an unfortunate anomaly, suspended between two worldslike Mahomet's coffin. 

The butler announced that his lordship's dinner was served. 

'Come along, Molly, ' said Maulevrier; 'come and tell me about theterriers, while I eat my dinner. '

Mary hesitated, glanced doubtfully at her grandmother, who made no sign, and then slipped out of the room, hanging fondly on her brother's arm, and almost forgetting that there was any such person as Mr. Hammond inexistence. 

When these three were gone Lady Lesbia expressed herself strongly uponMaulevrier's folly in bringing such a person as Mr. Hammond to Fellside. 

'What are we to do with him, grandmother?' she said, pettishly. 'Is heto live with us, and be one of us, a person of whose belongings we knowpositively nothing, who owns that his people are common?'

'My dear, he is your brother's friend, and we have the right to supposehe is a gentleman. '

'Not on that account, ' said Lesbia, more sharply than her wont. 'Didn'the make a friend, or almost a friend of Jack Howell, the huntsman, andof Ford, the wrestler. I have no confidence in Maulevrier's ideas offitness. '

'We shall find out all about this Mr. Hamleigh--no Hammond--in a day ortwo, ' replied her ladyship, placidly; 'and in the meantime we musttolerate him, and be grateful to him if he reconcile Maulevrier toremaining at Fellside for the next six weeks. '

Lesbia was silent. She did not consider Maulevrier's presence atFellside an unmitigated advantage, or, indeed, his presence anywhere. Those two were not sympathetic. Maulevrier made fun of his eldersister's perfections, chaffed her intolerably about the great man shewas going to captivate, in her first season, the great houses in whichshe was going to reign. Lesbia despised him for that neglect of all hisopportunities of culture which had left him, after the most orthodox andcostly curriculum, almost as ignorant as a ploughboy. She despised a manwhose only delight was in horse and hound, gun and fishing-tackle. Mollywould have cared very little for the guns or the fishing-tackle perhapsin the abstract; but she cared for everything that interestedMaulevrier, even to the bagful of rats which were let loose in thestable-yard sometimes, for the education of a particularly gamefox-terrier. 

There was plenty of talk and laughter at the dinner-table, while theCountess and Lady Lesbia conversed gravely and languidly in thedimly-lighted drawing-room. The dinner was excellent, and bothtravellers were ravenous. They had eaten nothing since breakfast, andhad driven from Windermere on the top of the coach in the keen eveningair. When the sharp edge of the appetite was blunted, Maulevrier beganto talk of his adventures since he and Molly had last met. He had notbeing dissipating in London all the time--or, indeed, any great part ofthe time of his absence from Fellside; but Molly had been left inCimmerian, darkness as to his proceedings. He never wrote a letter if hecould possibly avoid doing so. If it became a vital necessity to him tocommunicate with anyone he telegraphed, or, in his own language, 'wired'to that person; but to sit down at a desk and labour with pen and inkwas not within his capacities or his views of his mission in life. 

'If a fellow is to write letters he might as well be a clerk in anoffice, ' he said, 'and sit on a high stool. '

Thus it happened that when Maulevrier was away from Fellside, no fair_châtelaine_ of the Middle Ages could be more ignorant of the movementsor whereabouts of her crusader knight than Mary was of her brother'sgoings on. She could but pray for him with fond and faithful prayer, andwait and hope for his return. And now he told her that things had gonebadly with him at Epsom, and worse at Ascot, that he had been, as heexpressed it, 'up a tree, ' and that he had gone off to the Black Forestdirectly the Ascot week was over, and at Rippoldsau he had met his oldfriend and fellow traveller, Hammond, and they had gone for a walkingtour together among the homely villages, the watchmakers, the timbercutters, the pretty peasant girls. They had danced at fairs--and shot atvillage sports--and had altogether enjoyed the thing. Hammond, who wassomething of an artist, had sketched a good deal. Maulevrier had donenothing but smoke his German pipe and enjoy himself. 

'I was glad to find myself in a world where a horse was an exception andnot the rule, ' he said. 

'Oh, how I should love to see the Black Forest!' cried Mary, who knewthe first part of Faust by heart, albeit she had never been givenpermission to read it, 'the gnomes and the witches--der Freischütz--allthat is lovely. Of course, you went up the Brocken?'

'Of course, ' answered Mr. Hammond; 'Mephistopheles was our _valet deplace_, and we went up among a company of witches riding onbroomsticks. ' And then quoted, 'Seh' die Bäume hinter Bäumen, Wie sie schnell vorüberrücken, Und die Klippen, die sich bücken, Und die langen Felsennasen, Wie sie schnarchen, wie sie blasen!'

This was the first time he had addressed himself directly to Mary, whosat close to her brother's side, and never took her eyes from his face, ready to pour out his wine or to change his plate, for the serving-menhad been dismissed at the beginning of this unceremonious meal. 

Mary looked at the stranger almost as superciliously as Lesbia mighthave done. She was not inclined to be friendly to her brother's friend. 

'Do you read German?' she inquired, with a touch of surprise. 

'You had better ask him what language he does not read or speak, ' saidher brother. 'Hammond is an admirable Crichton, my dear--by-the-by, whowas admirable Crichton?--knows everything, can twist your little headthe right way upon any subject. '

'Oh, ' thought Mary, 'highly cultivated, is he? Very proper in a man whowas educated on charity to have worked his hardest at the University. '

She was not prepared to think very kindly of young men who had beensuccessful in their college career, since poor Maulevrier had made sucha dismal failure of his, had been gated and sent down, and ploughed, andhad everything ignominious done to him that could be done, whichignominy had involved an expenditure of money that Lady Maulevrierbemoaned and lamented until this day. Because her brother had not beenvirtuous, Mary grudged virtuous young men their triumphs and theirhonours. Great, raw-boned fellows, who have taken their degrees atScotch Universities, come to Oxford and Cambridge and sweep the board, Maulevrier had told her, when his own failures demanded explanation. Perhaps this Mr. Hammond had graduated north of the Tweed, and had comesouthward to rob the native. Mary was not any more inclined to be civilto him because he was a linguist. He had a pleasant manner, frank andeasy, a good voice, a cheery laugh. But she had not yet made up her mindthat he was a gentleman. 

'If some benevolent old person were to take a fancy to Charles Ford, thewrestler, and send him to a Scotch University, I daresay he would turnout just as fine a fellow, ' she thought, Ford being somewhat of afavourite as a local hero. 

The two young men went off to the billiard-room after they had dined. Itwas half-past ten by this time, and, of course, Mary did not go withthem. She bade her brother good-night at the dining-room door. 

'Good-night, Molly; be sure you are up early to show me the dogs, ' saidMaulevrier, after an affectionate kiss. 

'Good-night, Lady Mary, ' said Mr. Hammond, holding out his hand, albeitshe had no idea of shaking hands with him. 

She allowed her hand to rest for an instant in that strong, friendlygrasp. She had not risen to giving a couple of fingers to a person whomshe considered her inferior; but she was inclined to snub Mr. Hammond asrather a presuming young man. 

'Well, Jack, what do you think of my beauty sister?' asked his lordship, as he chose his cue from the well-filled rack. 

The lamps were lighted, the table uncovered and ready, Carambole in hisplace, albeit it was months since any player had entered the room. Everything which concerned Maulevrier's comfort or pleasure was done asif by magic at Fellside; and Mary was the household fairy whoseinfluence secured this happy state of things. 

'What can any man think except that she is as lovely as the finest ofReynold's portraits, as that Lady Diana Beauclerk of Colonel Aldridge's, or the Kitty Fisher, or any example you please to name of womanlyloveliness?'

'Glad to hear it, ' answered Maulevrier, chalking his cue; 'can't say Iadmire her myself--not my style, don't you know. Too much of my ladyDi--too little of poor Kitty. But still, of course, it always pleases afellow to know that his people are admired; and I know that mygrandmother has views, grand views, ' smiling down at his cue. 'Shall Ibreak?' and he began with the usual miss in baulk. 

'Thank you, ' said Mr. Hammond, beginning to play. 'Matrimonial views, ofcourse. Very natural that her ladyship should expect such a lovelycreature to make a great match. Is there no one in view? Has there beenno family conclave--no secret treaty? Is the young lady fancy free?'

'Perfectly. She has been buried alive here; except parsons and a fewdecent people whom she is allowed to meet now and then at the housesabout here, she has seen nothing of the world. My grandmother has keptLesbia as close as a nun. She is not so fond of Molly, and that youngperson has wild ways of her own, and gives everybody the slip. By-the-by, how do you like my little Moll?'

The adjective was hardly accurate about a young lady who measured fivefeet six, but Maulevrier had not yet grown out of the ideas belonging tothat period when Mary was really his little sister, a girl of twelve, with long hair and short petticoats. 

Mr. Hammond was slow to reply. Mary had not made a very strongimpression upon him. Dazzled by her sister's pure and classical beauty, he had no eyes for Mary's homelier charms. She seemed to him a frank, affectionate girl, not too well-mannered; and that was all he thought ofher. 

'I'm afraid Lady Mary does not like me, ' he said, after his shot, whichgave him time for reflection. 

'Oh, Molly is rather _farouche_ in her manners; never would train fine, don't you know. Her ladyship lectured till she was tired, and now Maryruns wild, and I suppose will be left at grass till six months beforeher presentation, and then they'll put her on the pillar-reins a bit togive her a better mouth. Good shot, by Jove!'

John Hammond was used to his lordship's style of conversation, andunderstood his friend at all times. Maulevrier was not an intellectualcompanion, and the distance was wide between the two men; but hislordship's gaiety, good-nature, and acuteness made amends for allshortcomings in culture. And then Mr. Hammond may have been one of thosegood Conservatives who do not expect very much intellectual power in anhereditary legislator. 

CHAPTER VII. 

IN THE SUMMER MORNING. 

John Hammond loved the wild freshness of morning, and was always eagerto explore a new locality; so he was up at five o'clock next morning, and out of doors before six. He left the sophisticated beauty of theFellside gardens below him, and climbed higher and higher up the Fell, till he was able to command a bird's-eye view of the lake and village, and just under his feet, as it were, Lady Maulevrier's favourite abode. He was provided with a landscape glass which he always carried in hisrambles, and with the aid of this he could see every stone of thebuilding. 

The house, added to at her ladyship's pleasure, and without regard tocost, covered a considerable extent of ground. The new part consisted ofa straight range of about a hundred and twenty feet, facing the lake, and commandingly placed on the crest of a steepish slope; the oldbuildings, at right angles with the new, made a quadrangle, the thirdand fourth sides of which were formed by the dead walls of servants'rooms and coach-houses, which had no windows upon this inner enclosedside. The old buildings were low and irregular, one portion of the roofthatched, another tiled. In the quadrangle there was an old-fashionedgarden, with geometrical flower-beds, a yew tree hedge, and a stonesun-dial in the centre. A peacock stalked about in the morning light, and greeted the newly risen sun with a discordant scream. Presently aman came out of a half glass door under a verandah which shaded one sideof the quadrangle, and strolled about the garden, stopping here andthere to cut a dead rose, or trim a geranium, a stoutly-built broadshouldered man, with gray hair and beard, the image of well-fedrespectability. 

Mr. Hammond wondered a little at the man's leisurely movements as hesauntered about, whistling to the peacock. It was not the manner of aservant who had duties to perform--rather that of a gentleman living atease, and hardly knowing how to get rid of his time. 

"Some superior functionary, I suppose, " thought Hammond, "thehouse-steward, perhaps. "

He rambled a long way over the hill, and came back to Fellside by a pathof his own discovering, which brought him to a wooden gate leading intothe stable-yard, just in time to meet Maulevrier and Lady Mary emergingfrom the kennel, where his lordship had been inspecting the terriers. 

'Angelina is bully about the muzzle, ' said Maulevrier; 'we shall have togive her away. '

'Oh, don't, ' cried Mary. 'She is a most perfect darling, and laughs sodeliciously whenever she sees me. '

Angelina was in Lady Mary's arms at this moment; a beautifully markedlittle creature, all thew and sinew, palpitating with suppressedemotions, and grinning to her heart's content. 

Lady Mary looked very fresh and bright in her neat tailor gown, kiltedkirtle, and tight-fitting bodice, with neat little brass buttons. It wasa gown of Maulevrier's ordering, made at his own tailor's. Her splendidchestnut hair was uncovered, the short crisp curls about her foreheaddancing in the morning air. Her large, bright; brown eyes were dancing, too, with delight at having her brother home again. 

She shook hands with Mr. Hammond more graciously than last night; butstill with a carelessness which was not complimentary, looking at himabsently, as if she hardly knew that he was there, and hugging Angelinaall the time. 

Hammond told his friend about his ramble over the hills, yonder, upabove that homely bench called 'Rest, and be Thankful, ' on the crest ofLoughrigg Fell. He was beginning to learn the names of the hillsalready. Yonder darkling brow, rugged, gloomy looking, was Nab Scar;yonder green slope of sunny pasture, stretching wide its two arms as ifto enfold the valley, was Fairfield; and here, close on the left, as hefaced the lake, were Silver Howe and Helm Crag, with that stonyexcrescence on the summit of the latter known as the 'Lion and theLamb. ' Lady Maulevrier's house stood within a circle of mountain peaksand long fells, which walled in the deep, placid, fertile valley. 

'If you are not too tired to see the gardens, we might show them to youbefore breakfast, ' said Maulevrier. 'We have three-quarters of an hourto the good. '

'Half an hour for a stroll, and a quarter to make myself presentableafter my long walk, ' said Hammond, who did not wish to face the dowagerand Lady Lesbia in disordered apparel. Lady Mary was such an obviousTomboy that he might be pardoned for leaving her out of the question. 

They set out upon an exploration of the gardens, Mary clinging to herbrother's arm, as if she wanted to make sure of him, and still carryingAngelina. 

The gardens were as other gardens, but passing beautiful. The slopinglawns and richly-timbered banks, winding shrubberies, broad terraces cuton the side of the hill, gave infinite variety. All that wealth andtaste and labour could do to make those grounds beautiful had beendone--the rarest conifers, the loveliest flowering shrubs grew andflourished there, and the flowers bloomed as they bloom only inLakeland, where every cottage garden can show a wealth of luxuriousbloom, unknown in more exposed and arid districts. Mary was very proudof those gardens. She had loved them and worked in them from herbabyhood, trotting about on chubby legs after some chosen old gardener, carrying a few weeds or withered leaves in her pinafore, and fancyingherself useful. 

'I help 'oo, doesn't I, Teeven?' she used to say to the gray-headed oldgardener, who first taught her to distinguish flowers from weeds. 

'I shall never learn as much out of these horrid books as poor oldStevens taught me, ' she said afterwards, when the gray head was at restunder the sod, and governesses, botany manuals, and hard words from theGreek were the order of the day. 

Nine o'clock was the breakfast hour at Fellside. There were no familyprayers. Lady Maulevrier did not pretend to be pious, and she put norestraints of piety upon other people. She went to Church on Sundaymornings for the sake of example; but she read all the newest scientificbooks, subscribed to the Anthropological Society, and thought as thenewest scientific people think. She rarely communicated her opinionsamong her own sex; but now and then, in strictly masculine and superiorsociety, she had been heard to express herself freely upon the nebularhypothesis and the doctrine of evolution. 

'After all, what does it matter?' she said, finally, with her grand air;'I have only to marry my granddaughters creditably, and prevent mygrandson going to the dogs, and then my mission on this insignificantplanet will be accomplished. What new form that particular modificationof molecules which you call Lady Maulevrier may take afterwards ishidden in the great mystery of material life. '

There was no family prayer, therefore, at Fellside. The sisters had beenproperly educated in their religious duties, had been taught theAnglican faith carefully and well by their governess, Fräulein Müller, who had become a staunch Anglican before entering the families of theEnglish nobility, and by the kind Vicar of Grasmere, who took a warminterest in the orphan girls. Their grandmother had given them tounderstand that they might be as religious as they liked. She would beno let or hindrance to their piety; but they must ask her no awkwardquestions. 

'I have read a great deal and thought a great deal, and my ideas arestill in a state of transition, ' she told Lesbia; and Lesbia, who wassomewhat automatic in her piety, had no desire to know more. 

Lady Maulevrier seldom appeared in the forenoon. She was an early riser, being too vivid and highly strung a creature, even at sixty-seven yearsof age, to give way to sloth. She rose at seven, summer and winter, butshe spent the early part of the day in her own rooms, reading, writing, giving orders to her housekeeper, and occasionally interviewingSteadman, who, without any onerous duties, was certainly the mostinfluential person in the house. People in the village talked of him, and envied him so good a berth. He had a gentleman's house to live in, and to all appearance lived as a gentleman. This tranquil retirement, free from care or labour, was a rich reward for the faithful service ofhis youth. And it was known by the better informed among the Grasmerepeople that Mr. Steadman was saving money, and had shares in theNorth-Western Railway. These facts had oozed out, of themselves, as itwere. He was not a communicative man, and rarely wasted half an hour atthe snug little inn near St. Oswald's Church, amidst the cluster ofhabitations that was once called Kirktown. He was an unsociable man, people said, and thought himself better than Grasmere folk, thelodging-house keepers, and guides, and wrestlers, and the honestfriendly souls who were the outcome of that band of Norwegian exileswhich found a home in these peaceful vales. 

Miss Müller, more commonly known as Fräulein, officiated at breakfast. She never appeared at the board when Lady Maulevrier was present, but inher ladyship's absence Miss Müller was guardian of the proprieties. Shewas a stout, kindly creature, and by no means a formidable dragon. Whenthe gong sounded, John Hammond went into the dining-room, where he foundMiss Müller seated alone in front of the urn. 

He bowed, quick to read 'governess' or 'companion' in the lady'sappearance; and she bowed. 

'I hope you have had a nice walk, ' she said. 'I saw you from my bedroomwindow. '

'Did you? Then I suppose yours is one of the few windows which look intothat curious old quadrangle?'

'No, there are no windows looking into the quadrangle. Those that werein the original plan of the house were walled up at her ladyship'sorders, to keep out the cold winds which sweep down from the hills inwinter and early spring, when the edge of Loughrigg Fell is white withsnow. My window looks into the gardens, and I saw you there with hislordship and Lady Mary. '

Lady Lesbia came in at this moment, and saluted Mr. Hammond with ahaughty inclination of her beautiful head. She looked lovelier in hersimple morning gown of pale blue cambric than in her more elaboratetoilette of last evening; such purity of complexion, such lustrous eyes;the untarnished beauty of youth, breathing the delicate freshness of anewly-opened flower. She might be as scornful as she pleased, yet JohnHammond could not withhold his admiration. He was inclined to admire awoman who kept him at a distance; for the general bent of young womennow-a-days is otherwise. 

Maulevrier and Mary came in, and everyone sat down to breakfast. LadyLesbia unbent a little presently, and smiled upon the stranger. Therewas a relief in a stranger's presence. He talked of new things, placesand people she had never seen. She brightened and became quite friendly, deigned to invite the expression of Mr. Hammond's opinions upon musicand art, and after breakfast allowed him to follow her into thedrawing-room, and to linger there fascinated for half an hour, lookingover her newest books, and her last batch of music, but looking most ofall at her, while Maulevrier and Mary were loafing on the lawn outside. 

'What are you going to do with yourself this morning?' asked Maulevrier, appearing suddenly at the window. 

'Anything you like, ' answered Hammond. 'Stay, there is one pilgrimage Iam eager to make. I must see Wordsworth's grave, and Wordsworth'shouse. '

'You shall see them both, but they are in opposite directions--one atyour elbow, the other a four mile walk. Which will you see first? We'lltoss for it, ' taking a shilling from a pocketful of loose cash, alwaysready for moments of hesitation. 'Heads, house; tails, grave. Tails itis. Come and have a smoke, and see the poet's grave. The splendour ofthe monument, the exquisite neatness with which it is kept, will astoundyou, considering that we live in a period of Wordsworth worship. '

Hammond hesitated, and looked at Lady Lesbia. 

'Aren't you coming?' called Maulevrier from the lawn. 'It was a fairoffer. I've got my cigarette case. '

'Yes, I'm coming, ' answered the other, with a disappointed air. 

He had hoped that Lesbia would offer to show him the poet's grave. Hecould not abandon that hope without a struggle. 

'Will you come with us, Lady Lesbia? We'll suppress the cigarettes!'

'Thanks, no, ' she said, becoming suddenly frigid. 'I am going topractice. '

'Do you never walk in the morning--on such a lovely morning as this?'

'Not very often. '

She had re-entered those frozen regions from which his attentions hadlured him for a little while. She had reminded herself of the inferiorsocial position of this person, in whose conversation she had allowedherself to be interested. 

'_Filons_!' cried Maulevrier from below, and they went. 

Mary would have very much liked to go with them, but she did not want tobe intrusive; so she went off to the kennels to see the terriers eattheir morning and only meal of dog biscuit. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THERE IS ALWAYS A SKELETON. 

The two young men strolled through the village, Maulevrier pausing toexchange greetings with almost everyone he met, and so to the rusticchurchyard, above the beck. 

The beck was swollen with late rains, and was brawling merrily over itsstony bed; the churchyard grass was deep and cool and shadowy under theclustering branches. The poet's tomb was disappointing in its unlovelysimplicity, its stern, slatey hue. The plainest granite cross would havesatisfied Mr. Hammond, or a cross in pure white marble, with asculptured lamb at the base. Surely the lamb, emblem at once pastoraland sacred, ought to enter into any monument to Wordsworth; but thatgray headstone, with its catalogue of dates, those stern ironrailings--were these fit memorials of one whose soul so loved nature'sloveliness?

After Mr. Hammond had seen the little old, old church, and the medallionportrait inside, had seen all that Maulevrier could show him, in fact, the two young men went back to the place of graves, and sat on the lowparapet above the beck, smoking their cigarettes, and talking with thatperfect unreserve which can only obtain between men who are old andtried friends. They talked, as it was only natural they should talk, ofthat household at Fellside, where all things were new to John Hammond. 

'You like my sister Lesbia?' said Maulevrier. 

'Like her! well, yes. The difficulty with most men must be not toworship her. '

'Ah, she's not my style. And she's beastly proud. '

'A little _hauteur_ gives piquancy to her beauty; I admire a grandwoman. '

'So do I in a picture. Titian's Queen of Cyprus, or any party of thatkind; but for flesh and blood I like humility--a woman who knows she ishuman, and not infallible, and only just a little better than you or me. When I choose a wife, she will be no such example of cultivatedperfection as my sister Lesbia. I want no goddess, but a nice littlewomanly woman, to jog along the rough and tumble road of life with me. '

'Lady Maulevrier's influence, no doubt, has in a great measuredetermined the bent of your sister's character: and from what you havetold me about her ladyship, I should think a fixed idea of her ownsuperiority would be inevitable in any girl trained by her. '

'Yes, she is a proud woman--a proud, hard woman--and she has steepedLesbia's mind in all her own pet ideas and prejudices. Yet, God knows, we have little reason to hold our heads high, ' said Maulevrier, with agloomy look. 

John Hammond did not reply to this remark: perhaps there was somedifficulty for a man situated as he was in finding a fit reply. Hesmoked in silence, looking down at the pure swift waters of the Rothatumbling over the crags and boulders below. 

'Doesn't somebody say there is always a skeleton in the cupboard, andthe nobler and more ancient the race the bigger the skeleton?' saidMaulevrier, with a philosophical air. 

'Yes, your family secret is an attribute of a fine old race. ThePelopidae, for instance--in their case it was not a single skeleton, buta whole charnel house. I don't think your skeleton need trouble you, Maulevrier. It belongs to the remote past. '

'Those things never belong to the past, ' said the young man. 'If it wereany other kind of taint--profligacy--madness, even--the story of a duelthat went very near murder--a runaway wife--a rebellious son--a cruelhusband. I have heard such stories hinted at in the records of families. But our story means disgrace. I seldom see strangers putting their headstogether at the club without fancying they are telling each other aboutmy grandfather, and pointing me out as the grandson and heir of athief. '

'Why use unduly hard words?'

'Why should I stoop to sophistication, with you, my friend. Dishonestyis dishonesty all the world over; and to plunder Rajahs on a large scaleis no less vile than to pick a pocket on Ludgate Hill. '

'Nothing was ever proved against your grandfather. '

'No, he died in the nick of time, and the inquiry was squashed, thanksto the Angersthorpe interest, and my grandmother's cleverness. But if hehad lived a few weeks longer England would have rung with the story ofhis profligacy and dishonour. Some people say he committed suicide inorder to escape the inquiry; but I have heard my mother emphaticallydeny this. My father told her that he had often talked with the peoplewho kept the little inn where his father died, and they were clearenough in their assertion that the death was a natural death--the suddencollapse of an exhausted constitution. '

'Was it on account of this scandal that your father spent the best partof his life away from England?' Hammond asked, feeling that it was arelief to Maulevrier to talk about this secret burden of his. 

The young Earl was light-hearted and frivolous by nature, yet even hehad his graver moments; and upon this subject of the old Maulevrierscandal he was peculiarly sensitive, perhaps all the more so because hisgrandmother had never allowed him to speak to her about it, had neversatisfied his curiosity upon any details of that painful story. 

'I have very little doubt it was so--though I wasn't old enough when hedied to hear as much from his own lips. My father went straight from theUniversity to Vienna, where he began his career in the diplomaticservice, and where he soon afterwards married a dowerless English girlof good family. He went to Rio as first secretary, and died of feverwithin seven years of his marriage, leaving a widow and three babies, the youngest in long clothes. Mother and babies all came over toEngland, and were at once established at Fellside. I can remember thevoyage--and I can remember my poor mother who never recovered the blowof my father's death, and who died in yonder house, after five years ofbroken health and broken spirits. We had no one but the dowager to lookto as children--hardly another friend in the world. She did what sheliked with us; she kept the girls as close as nuns, so _they_ have neverheard a hint of the old history; no breach of scandal has reached_their_ ears. But she could not shut me up in a country house for ever, though she did succeed in keeping me away from a public school. The timecame when I had to go to the University, and there I heard all that hadbeen said about Lord Maulevrier. The men who told me about the oldscandal in a friendly way pretended not to believe it; but one night, when I had got into a row at a wine-party with a tailor's son, he toldme that if his father was a snip my grandfather was a thief, and so hethought himself the better bred of the two. I smashed his nose for him, but as it was a decided pug before the row began, that hardly squaredthe matter. '

'Did you ever hear the exact story?'

'I have heard a dozen stories; and if only a quarter of them are true mygrandfather was a scoundrel. It seems that he was immensely popular forthe first year or so of his government, gave more splendidentertainments than had been given at Madras for half a century beforehis time, lavished his wealth upon his favourites. Then arose a rumourthat the governor was insolvent and harassed by his creditors, and thena new source of wealth seemed to be at his command; he was morereckless, more princely than ever; and then, little by little, therearose the suspicion that he was trafficking in English interests, selling his influence to petty princes, winking at those mysteriouscrimes by which rightful heirs are pushed aside to make room forusurpers. Lastly it became notorious that he was the slave of a wickedwoman, false wife, suspected murderess, whose husband, a native prince, disappeared from the scene just when his existence became perilous tothe governor's reputation. According to one version of the story, thescandal of this Rajah's mysterious disappearance, followed not longafter by the Ranee's equally mysterious death, was the immediate causeof my grandfather's recall. How much, or how little of this story--orother dark stories of the same kind--is true, whether my grandfather wasa consummate scoundrel, or the victim of a baseless slander, --whether heleft India a rich man or a poor man, is known to no mortal except LadyMaulevrier, and compared with her the Theban Sphinx was a communicativeindividual. '

'Let the dead bury their dead, ' said Hammond. 'Neither you nor yoursisters can be the worse for this ancient slander. No doubt every partof the story has been distorted and exaggerated in the telling; and agreat deal of it may be pure invention, evolved from the innerconsciousness of the slanderer. God forbid that any whisper of scandalshould ever reach Lady Lesbia's ears. '

He ignored poor Mary. It was to him as if there were no such person. Herfeeble light was extinguished by the radiance of her sister's beauty;her very individuality was annihilated. 

'As for you, dear old fellow, ' he said, with warm affection, 'no onewill ever think the worse of you on account of your grandfather'speccadilloes. '

'Yes, they will. Hereditary genius is one of our modern crazes. When aman's grandfather was a rogue, there must be a taint in his blood. People don't believe in spontaneous generation, moral or physical, now-a-days. Typhoid breeds typhoid, and typhus breeds typhus, just asdog breeds dog; and who will believe that a cheat and a liar can be thefather of honest men?'

'In that case, knowing what kind of man the grandson is, I will neverbelieve that the grandfather was a rogue, ' said Hammond, heartily. 

Maulevrier put out his hand without a word, and it was warmly grasped byhis friend. 

'As for her ladyship, I respect and honour her as a woman who has led alife of self-sacrifice, and has worn her pride as an armour, ' continuedHammond. 

'Yes, I believe the dowager's character is rather fine, ' saidMaulevrier; 'but she and I have never hit our horses very well together. She would have liked such a fellow as you for a grandson, Jack--a manwho took high honours at Oxford, and could hold his own against allcomers. Such a grandson would have gratified her pride, and would haverepaid her for the trouble she had taken in nursing the Maulevrierestate; for however poor a property it was when her husband went toIndia there is no doubt that it is a very fine estate now, and that thedowager has been the making of it. '

The two young men strolled up to Easedale Tarn before they went back toFellside, where Lady Maulevrier received them with a statelygraciousness, and where Lady Lesbia unbent considerably at luncheon, andcondescended to an animated conversation with her brother's friend. Itwas such a new thing to have a stranger at the family board, a man whoseinformation was well abreast with the march of progress, who could talkeloquently upon every subject which people care to talk about. In thisnew and animated society Lesbia seemed like an enchanted princesssuddenly awakened from a spell-bound slumber. Molly looked at her sisterwith absolute astonishment. Never had she seen her so bright, sobeautiful--no longer a picture or a statue, but a woman warm with theglow of life. 

'No wonder Mr. Hammond admires her, ' thought poor Molly, who was quiteacute enough to see the stranger's keen appreciation of her sister'scharms, and positive indifference towards herself. 

There are some things which women find out by instinct, just as theneedle turns towards the magnet. Shut a girl up in a tower till she iseighteen years old, and on the day of her release introduce her to thefirst man her eyes have ever looked upon, and she will know at a glancewhether he admires her. 

After luncheon the four young people started for Rydal Mount; withFräulein as chaperon and watch-dog. The girls were both good walkers. Lady Lesbia even, though she looked like a hot-house flower, had beentrained to active habits, could walk and ride, and play tennis, andclimb a hill as became a mountain-bred damsel. Molly, feeling that herconversational powers were not appreciated by her brother's friend, tookhalf a dozen dogs for company, and with three fox-terriers, a littleYorkshire dog, a colley and an otter-hound, was at no loss for societyon the road, more especially as Maulevrier gave her most of his company, and entertained her with an account of his Black Forest adventures, andall the fine things he had said to the fair-haired, blue-eyed Badengirls, who had sold him photographs or wild strawberries, or hadawakened the echoes of the hills with the music of their rustic flutes. 

Fräulein was perfectly aware that her mission upon this particularafternoon was not to let Lady Lesbia out of her sight for an instant, tohear every word the young lady said, and every word Mr. Hammondaddressed to her. She had received no specific instructions from LadyMaulevrier. They were not necessary, for the Fräulein knew herladyship's intentions with regard to her elder granddaughter, --knewthem, at least, so far as that Lesbia was intended to make a brilliantmarriage; and she knew, therefore, that the presence of this handsomeand altogether attractive young man was to the last degree obnoxious tothe dowager. She was obliged to be civil to him for her nephew's sake, and she was too wise to let Lesbia imagine him dangerous: but the factthat he was dangerous was obvious, and it was Fräulein's duty to protecther employer's interests. 

Everybody knew Lord Maulevrier, so there was no difficulty about gettingadmission to Wordsworth's garden and Wordsworth's house, and after Mr. Hammond and his companions had explored these, they went back to theshores of the little lake, and climbed that rocky eminence upon whichthe poet used to sit, above the placid waters of silvery Rydal. It is alovely spot, and that narrow lake, so poor a thing were magnitude thegauge of beauty, had a soft and pensive loveliness in the clearafternoon light. 

'Poor Wordsworth' sighed Lesbia, as she stood on the grassy crag lookingdown on the shining water, broken in the foreground by fringes ofrushes, and the rich luxuriance of water-lilies. 'Is it not pitiable tothink of the years he spent in this monotonous place, without anysociety worth speaking of, with only the shabbiest collection of books, with hardly any interest in life except the sky, and the hills, and thepeasantry?'

'I think Wordsworth's was an essentially happy life, in spite of hisnarrow range, ' answered Hammond. 'You, with your ardent youth and vividdesire for a life of action, cannot imagine the calm blisses of reverieand constant communion with nature. Wordsworth had a thousand companionsyou and I would never dream of; for him every flower that grows was anindividual existence--almost a soul. '

'It was a mild kind of lunacy, an everlasting opium dream without theopium; but I am grateful to him for living such a life, since it hasbequeathed us some exquisite poetry, ' said Lesbia, who had been toocarefully cultured to fleer or flout at Wordsworth. 

'I do believe there's an otter just under that bank, ' cried Molly, whohad been watching the obvious excitement of her bandy-legged hound; andshe rushed down to the brink of the water, leaping lightly from stone tostone, and inciting the hound to business. 

'Let him alone, can't you?' roared Maulevrier; 'leave him in peace tillhe's wanted. If you disturb him now he'll desert his holt, and we mayhave a blank day. The hounds are to be out to-morrow. '

'I may go with you?' asked Mary, eagerly. 

'Well, yes, I suppose you'll want to be in it. ' Molly and her brotherwent on an exploring ramble along the edge of the water towardsAmbleside, leaving John Hammond in Lesbia's company, but closely guardedby Miss Müller. These three went to look at Nab Cottage, where poorHartley Coleridge ended his brief and clouded days; and they had gonesome way upon their homeward walk before they were rejoined byMaulevrier and Mary, the damsel's kilted skirt considerably the worsefor mud and mire. 

'What would grandmother say if she were to see you!' exclaimed Lesbia, looking contemptuously at the muddy petticoat. 

'I am not going to let her see me, so she will say nothing, ' cried Mary, and then she called to the dogs, 'Ammon, Agag, Angelina;' and the threefox terriers flew along the road, falling over themselves in theswiftness of their flight, darting, and leaping, and scrambling overeach other, and offering the spectators the most intense example ofjoyous animal life. 

The colley was far up on the hill-side, and the otter-hound was stillhunting the water, but the terriers never went out of Mary's sight. Theylooked to her to take the initiative in all their sports. 

They were back at Fellside in time for a very late tea. Lady Maulevrierwas waiting for them in the drawing-room. 

'Oh, grandmother, why did you not take your tea!' exclaimed Lesbia, looking really distressed. 'It is six o'clock. '

'I am used to have you at home to hand me my cup, ' replied the dowager, with a touch of reproachfulness. 

'I am so sorry, ' said Lesbia, sitting down before the tea-table, andbeginning her accustomed duty. 'Indeed, dear grandmother, I had no ideait was so late; but it was such a lovely afternoon, and Mr. Hammond isso interested in everything connected with Wordsworth--'

She was looking her loveliest at this moment, all that was softest inher nature called forth by her desire to please her grandmother, whomshe really loved. She hung over Lady Maulevrier's chair, attending toher small wants, and seeming scarcely to remember the existence ofanyone else. In this phase of her character she seemed to Mr. Hammondthe perfection of womanly grace. 

Mary had rushed off to her room to change her muddy gown, and came inpresently, dressed for dinner, looking the picture of innocence. 

John Hammond received his tea-cup from Lesbia's hand, and lingered inthe drawing-room talking to the dowager and her granddaughters till itwas time to dress. Lady Maulevrier found herself favourably impressed byhim in spite of her prejudices. It was very provoking of Maulevrier tohave brought such a man to Fellside. His very merits were objectionable. She tried with exquisite art to draw him into some revealment as to hisfamily and antecedents: but he evaded every attempt of that kind. It wastoo evident that he was a self-made man, whose intellect and good lookswere his only fortune. It was criminal in Maulevrier to have broughtsuch a person to Fellside. Her ladyship began to think seriously ofsending the two girls to St. Bees or Tynemouth for change of air, incharge of Fräulein. But any sudden proceeding of that kind wouldinevitably awaken Lesbia's suspicions; and there is nothing so fatal toa woman's peace as this idea of danger. No, the peril must be faced. Shecould only hope that Maulevrier would soon tire of Fellside. A week'sWestmoreland weather--gray skies and long rainy days, would send theseyoung men away. 

CHAPTER IX. 

A CRY IN THE DARKNESS. 

The peril had to be faced, for the weather did not favour LadyMaulevrier's hopes. Westmoreland skies forgot to shed their accustomedshowers. Westmoreland hills seemed to have lost their power of drawingdown the rain. That August was a lovely month, and the young people atFellside revelled in ideal weather. Maulevrier took his friendeverywhere--by hill and stream and force and gill--to all those chosenspots which make the glory of the Lake country--on Windermere andThirlmere, away through the bleak pass of Kirkstone to Ullswater--ondriving excursions, and on boating excursions, and pedestrian rambles, which latter the homely-minded Hammond seemed to like best of all, forhe was a splendid walker, and loved the freedom of a mountain ramble, the liberty to pause and loiter and waste an hour at will, without beingaccountable to anybody's coachman, or responsible for the well-being ofanybody's horses. 

On some occasions the two girls and Miss Müller were of the party, andthen it seemed to John Hammond as if nothing were needed to complete theglory of earth and sky. There were other days--rougher journeys--whenthe men went alone, and there were days when Lady Mary stole away fromher books and music, and all those studies which she was supposed stillto be pursuing--no longer closely supervised by her governess, but onparole, as it were--and went with her brother and his friend across thehills and far away. Those were happy days for Mary, for it was alwaysdelight to her to be with Maulevrier; yet she had a profound convictionof John Hammond's indifference, kind and courteous as he was in all hisdealings with her, and a sense of her own inferiority, of her own humblecharms and little power to please, which was so acute as to be almostpain. One day this keen sense of humiliation broke from her unawares inher talk with her brother, as they two sat on a broad heathy slope faceto face with one of the Langdale pikes, and with a deep valley at theirfeet, while John Hammond was climbing from rock to rock in the gorge ontheir right, exploring the beauties of Dungeon Ghyll. 

'I wonder whether he thinks me very ugly?' said Mary, with her handsclasped upon her knees, her eyes fixed on Wetherlam, upon whose steepbrow a craggy mass of brown rock clothed with crimson heather stood outfrom the velvety green of the hill-side. 

'Who thinks you ugly?'

'Mr. Hammond. I'm sure he does. I am so sunburnt and so horrid!'

'But you are not ugly. Why, Molly, what are you dreaming about?'

'Oh, yes, I am ugly. I may not seem so to you, perhaps, because you areused to me, but I know he must think me very plain compared with Lesbia, whom he admires so much. '

'Yes, he admires Lesbia. There is no doubt of that. '

'And I know he thinks me plain, ' said Molly, contemplating Wetherlamwith sorrowful eyes, as if the sequence were inevitable. 

'My dearest girl, what nonsense! Plain, forsooth? Ugly, quotha? Why, there are not a finer pair of eyes in Westmoreland than my Molly's, or aprettier smile, or whiter teeth. '

'But all the rest is horrid, ' said Mary, intensely in earnest. 'I amsunburnt, freckled, and altogether odious--like a haymaker or a marketwoman. Grandmother has said so often enough, and I know it is the truth. I can see it in Mr. Hammond's manner. '

'What! freckles and sunburn, and the haymaker, and all that?' criedMaulevrier, laughing. 'What an expressive manner Jack's must be, if itcan convey all that--like Lord Burleigh's nod, by Jove. Why, what agoose you are, Mary. Jack thinks you a very nice girl, and a very prettygirl, I'll be bound; but aren't you clever enough to understand thatwhen a man is over head and ears in love with one woman, he is apt toseem just a little indifferent to all the other women in the world? andthere is no doubt Jack is desperately in love with Lesbia. '

'You ought not to let him be in love with her, ' protested Mary. 'Youknow it can only lead to his unhappiness. You must know what grandmotheris, and how she has made up her mind that Lesbia is to marry some greatperson. You ought not to have brought Mr. Hammond here. It is likeletting him into a trap. '

'Do you think it was wrong?' asked her brother, smiling at herearnestness. 'I should be very sorry if poor Jack should come to grief. But still, if Lesbia likes him--which I think she does--we ought to beable to talk over the dowager. '

'Never, ' cried Mary. 'Grandmother would never give way. You have no ideahow ambitious she is. Why, once when Lesbia was in a poetical mood, andsaid she would marry the man she liked best in the world, if he were apauper, her ladyship flew into a terrible passion, and told her shewould renounce her, that she would curse her, if she were to marrybeneath her, or marry without her grandmother's consent. '

'Hard lines for Hammond, ' said Maulevrier, rather lightly. 'Then Isuppose we must give up the idea of a match between him and Lesbia. '

'You ought not to have brought him here, ' retorted Mary. 'You had betterinvent some plan for sending him away. If he stay it will be only tobreak his heart. '

'Dear child, men's hearts do not break so easily. I have fancied thatmine was broken more than once in my life, yet it is sound enough, Iassure you. '

'Oh!' sighed Mary, 'but you are not like him; wounds do not go so deepwith you. '

The subject of their conversation came out of the rocky cleft in thehills as Mary spoke. She saw his hat appearing out of the gorge, andthen the man himself emerged, a tall well-built figure, clad in browntweed, coming towards them, with sketch-book and colour-box in hispocket. He had been making what he called memoranda of the waterfall, astone or two here, a cluster of ferns there, or a tree torn up by theroots, and yet green and living, hanging across the torrent, a rudenatural bridge. 

This round by the Langdale Pikes and Dungeon Ghyll was one of their bestdays; or, at least, Molly and her brother thought so; for to those twothe presence of Lesbia and her chaperon was always a restraint. 

Mary could walk twice as far as her elder sister, and revelled inhill-side paths and all manner of rough places. They ordered theirluncheon at the inn below the waterfall, and had it carried up on to thefurzy slope in front of Wetherlam, where they could eat and drink and bemerry to the music of the force as it came down from the hills behindthem, while the lights and shadows came and went upon yonder ruggedbrow, now gray in the shadow, now ruddy in the sunshine. 

Mary was as gay as a bird during that rough and ready luncheon. No onewould have suspected her uneasiness about John Hammond's peril or herown plainness. She might let her real self appear to her brother, whohad been her trusted friend and father confessor from her babyhood; butshe was too thorough a woman to let Mr. Hammond discover the depth ofher sympathy, the tenderness of her compassion for his woes. Later, asthey were walking home across the hills, by Great Langdale and LittleLangdale, and Fox Howe and Loughrigg Fell, she fell behind a few paceswith Maulevrier, and said to him very earnestly--

'You won't tell, will you, dear?'

'Tell what?' he asked, staring at her. 

'Don't tell Mr. Hammond what I said about his thinking me ugly. He mightwant to apologise to me, and that would be too humiliating. I was verychildish to say such a silly thing. '

'Undoubtedly you were. '

'And you won't tell him?'

'Tell him anything that would degrade my Mary? Assail her dignity by somuch as a breath? Sooner would I have this tongue torn out with red-hotpincers. '

On the next day, and the next, sunshine and summer skies stillprevailed; but Mr. Hammond did not seem to care for rambling far afield. He preferred loitering about in the village, rowing on the lake, readingin the garden, and playing lawn tennis. He had only inclination forthose amusements which kept him within a stone's throw of Fellside: andMary knew that this disposition had arisen in his mind since Lesbia hadwithdrawn herself from all share in their excursions. Lesbia had notbeen rude to her brother or her brother's friend; she had declined theirinvitations with smiles and sweetness; but there was always somereason--a new song to be practised, a new book to be read, a letter tobe written--why she should not go for drives or walks or steamboat tripswith Maulevrier and his friend. 

So Mr. Hammond suddenly found out that he had seen all that was worthseeing in the Lake country, and that there was nothing so enjoyable asthe placid idleness of Fellside; and at Fellside Lady Lesbia could notalways avoid him without a too-marked intention, so he tasted thesweetness of her society to a much greater extent than was good for hispeace, if the case were indeed as hopeless as Lady Mary declared. Hestrolled about the grounds with her; he drank the sweet melody of hervoice in Heine's tenderest ballads; he read to her on the sunlit lawn inthe lazy afternoon hours; he played billiards with her; he was herfaithful attendant at afternoon tea; he gave himself up to the study ofher character, which, to his charmed eyes, seemed the perfection of pureand placid womanhood. There might, perhaps, be some lack of passion andof force in this nature, a marked absence of that impulsive feelingwhich is a charm in some women: but this want was atoned for bysweetness of character, and Mr. Hammond argued that in these calmnatures there is often an unsuspected depth, a latent force, a grandeurof soul, which only reveals itself in the great ordeals of life. 

So John Hammond hung about the luxurious drawing-room at Fellside in amanner which his friend Maulevrier ridiculed as unmanly. 

'I had no idea you were such a tame cat, ' he said: 'if when we weresalmon fishing in Canada anybody had told me you could loll about adrawing-room all day listening to a girl squalling and reading novels, Ishouldn't have believed a word of it. '

'We had plenty of roughing on the shores of the St. Lawrence, ' answeredHammond. 'Summer idleness in a drawing-room is an agreeable variety. '

It is not to be supposed that John Hammond's state of mind could longremain unperceived by the keen eyes of the dowager. She saw the gradualdawning of his love, she saw the glow of its meridian. She was pleasedto behold this proof of Lesbia's power over the heart of man. So wouldshe conquer the man foredoomed to be her husband when the coming timeshould bring them together. But agreeable as the fact of this firstconquest might be, as an evidence of Lesbia's supremacy among women, thesituation was not without its peril; and Lady Maulevrier felt that shecould no longer defer the duty of warning her granddaughter. She hadwished, if possible, to treat the thing lightly to the very last, sothat Lesbia should never know there had been danger. She had told her, afew days ago, that those drives, and walks with the two young men wereundignified, even although guarded by the Fräulein's substantialpresence. 

'You are making yourself too much a companion to Maulevrier and hisfriend, ' said the dowager. 'If you do not take care you will grow likeMary. '

'I would do anything in the world to avoid _that_, ' replied Lesbia. 'Ourwalks and drives have been very pleasant. Mr. Hammond is extremelyclever, and can talk about everything. '

Her colour heightened ever so little as she spoke of him, an indicationduly observed by Lady Maulevrier. 

'No doubt the man is clever; all adventurers are clever; and you havesense enough to see that this man is an adventurer--a mere sponge andtoady of Maulevrier's. '

'There is nothing of the sponge or the toady in his manner, ' protestedLady Lesbia, with a still deeper blush, the warm glow of angry feeling. 

'My dear child, what do you know of such people--or of the atmosphere inwhich they are generated? The sponge and toady of to-day is not theclumsy fawning wretch you have read about in old-fashioned novels. Hecan flatter adroitly, and feed upon his friends, and yet maintain a showof manhood and independence. I'll wager Mr. Hammond's trip to Canada didnot cost him sixpence, and that he hardly opened his purse all the timehe was in Germany. '

'If my brother wants the company of a friend who is much poorer thanhimself, he must pay for it, ' argued Lesbia. 'I think Maulevrier islucky to have such a companion as Mr. Hammond. '

Yet, even while she so argued, Lady Lesbia felt in some mannerhumiliated by the idea that this man who so palpably worshipped her wastoo poor to pay his own travelling expenses. 

Poets and philosophers may say what they will about the grandeur ofplain living and high thinking; but a young woman thinks better of theplain liver who is not compelled to plainness by want of cash. The ideaof narrow means, of dependence upon the capricious generosity of awealthy friend is not without its humiliating influence. Lesbia wasbarely civil to Mr. Hammond that evening when he praised her singing;and she refused to join in a four game proposed by Maulevrier, albeitshe and Mr. Hammond had beaten Mary and Maulevrier the evening before, with much exultant hilarity. 

Hammond had been at Fellside nearly a month, and Maulevrier wasbeginning to talk about a move further northward. There was a grousemoor in Argyleshire which the two young men talked about as belonging tosome unnamed friend of the Earl's, which they had thought of shootingover before the grouse season was ended. 

'Lord Hartfield has property in Argyleshire, ' said the dowager, whenthey talked of these shootings. 'Do you know his estate, Mr. Hammond?'

'Hammond knows that there is such a place, I daresay, ' repliedMaulevrier, replying for his friend. 

'But you do not know Lord Hartfield, perhaps, ' said her ladyship, notarrogantly, but still in a tone which implied her conviction that JohnHammond would not be hand-in-glove with earls, in Scotland or elsewhere. 

'Oh, yes! I know him by sight every one in Argyleshire knows him bysight. '

'Naturally. A young man in his position must be widely known. Is hepopular?'

'Fairly so. '

'His father and I were friends many years ago, ' said Lady Maulevrier, with a faint sigh. 'Have you ever heard if he resembles his father?'

'I believe not. I am told he is like his mother's family. '

'Then he ought to be handsome. Lady Florence Ilmington was a famousbeauty. '

They were sitting in the drawing-room after dinner, the room dimlylighted by darkly-shaded lamps, the windows wide open to the summer skyand moonlit lake. In that subdued light Lady Maulevrier looked a womanin the prime of life. The classical modelling of her features and thedelicacy of her complexion were unimpaired by time, while those tracesof thought and care which gave age to her face in the broad light of daywere invisible at night. John Hammond contemplated that refined andplacid countenance with profound admiration. He remembered how herladyship's grandson had compared her with the Sphinx; and it seemed tohim to-night, as be studied her proud and tranquil beauty, that therewas indeed something of the mysterious, the unreadable in thatcountenance, and that beneath its heroic calm there might be the ashesof tragic passion, the traces of a life-long struggle with fate. Thatsuch a woman, so beautiful, so gifted, so well fitted to shine andgovern in the great world, should have been content to live a long lifeof absolute seclusion in this remote valley was in itself a socialmystery which must needs set an observant young man wondering. It wasall very well to say that Lady Maulevrier loved a country life, that shehad made Fellside her earthly Paradise, and had no desire beyond it. Thefact remained that it was not in Lady Maulevrier's temperament to besatisfied with such an existence; that falcon eye was never meant togaze for ever upon one narrow range of mountain and lake; that lip wasmade to speak among the great ones of the world. 

Lady Maulevrier was particularly gracious to her grandson's friend thisevening. Maulevrier spoke so decisively about a speedy migrationnorthward, seemed so inclined to regret the time wasted since thetwelfth of the month, that she thought the danger was past, and shecould afford to be civil. She really liked the young man, had no doubtin her own mind that he was a gentleman in the highest and broadestsense of the word, but not in the sense which made him an eligiblehusband for either of her granddaughters. 

Lesbia was in a pensive mood this evening. She sat in the verandah, looking dreamily at the lake, and at Fairfield yonder, a broad greenslope, silvered with moonlight, and seeming to stretch far away intounfathomable distance. 

If one could but take one's lover by the hand and go wandering overthose mystic moonlit slopes into some new unreal world where it wouldnot matter whether a man were rich or poor, high-born or low-born, wherethere should be no such things as rank and state to be won or lost!Lesbia felt to-night as if she would like to live out her life indreamland. Reality was too hard, too much set round by difficulties andsacrifices. 

While Lesbia was losing herself in that dream-world, Lady Maulevrierunbent considerably to John Hammond, and talked to him with moreappearance of interest in his actual self, and in his own affairs, thanshe had manifested hitherto although she had been uniformly courteous. 

She asked him his plans for the future--had he chosen a profession?

He told her that he had not. He meant to devote himself to literatureand politics. 

'Is not that rather vague?' inquired her ladyship. 

'Everything is vague at first. '

'But literature now--as an amusement, no doubt, it is delightful--but asa profession--does literature ever pay?'

'There have been such cases. '

'Yes, I suppose so. Walter Scott, Gibbon, Macaulay, Froude, those mademoney no doubt. But there is a suspicion of hopelessness in the idea ofa young man starting in life intending to earn his bread by literature. One remembers Chatterton. I should have thought that in your case thelaw or the church would have been better. In the latter Maulevrier mighthave been useful to you. He is patron of three or four livings. '

'You are too good even to think of such a thing, ' said Hammond; 'but Ihave set my heart upon a political career. I must swim or sink in thatsea. '

Lady Maulevrier looked at him with a compassionate smile Poor young man!No doubt he thought himself a genius, and that doors which had remainedshut to everybody else would turn on their hinges directly he knocked atthem. She was sincerely sorry for him. Young, clever, enthusiastic, anddoomed to bitterest disappointment. 

'You have parents, perhaps, who are ambitious for you--a mother whothinks her son a heaven-born statesman!' said her ladyship, kindly. 

'Alas, no! that incentive to ambition is wanting in my case. I haveneither father nor mother living. '

'That is very sad. No doubt that fact has been a bond of sympathybetween you and Maulevrier?'

'I believe it has. '

'Well, I hope Providence will smile upon your path. '

'Come what may, I shall never forget the happy weeks I have spent atFellside, ' said Hammond, 'or your ladyship's gracious hospitality. '

He took up the beautiful hand, white to transparency, showing thedelicate tracing of blue veins, and pressed his lips upon it inchivalrous worship of age and womanly dignity. 

Lady Maulevrier smiled upon him with her calm, grave smile. She wouldhave liked to say, 'You shall be welcome again at Fellside, ' but shefelt that the man was dangerous. Not while Lesbia remained single couldshe court his company. If Maulevrier brought him she must tolerate hispresence, but she would do nothing to invite that danger. 

There was no music that evening. Maulevrier and Mary were playingbilliards; Fräulein Müller was sitting in her corner working at ahigh-art counterpane. Lesbia came in from the verandah presently, andsat on a low stool by her grandmother's arm-chair, and talked to her insoft, cooing accents, inaudible to John Hammond, who sat a little wayoff turning the leaves of the _Contemporary Review_: and this went ontill eleven o'clock, the regular hour for retiring, when Mary came infrom the billiard-room, and told Mr. Hammond that Maulevrier was waitingfor a smoke and a talk. Then candles were lighted, and the ladies alldeparted, leaving John Hammond and his friend with the house tothemselves. 

They played a fifty game, and smoked and talked till the stroke ofmidnight, by which time it seemed as if there were not another creatureawake in the house. Maulevrier put out the lamps in the billiard-room, and then they went softly up the shadowy staircase, and parted in thegallery, the Earl going one way, and his friend the other. 

The house was large and roomy, spread over a good deal of ground, LadyMaulevrier having insisted upon there being only two stories. Theservants' rooms were all in a side wing, corresponding with those olderbuildings which had been given over to Steadman and his wife, and amongthe villagers of Grasmere enjoyed the reputation of being haunted. Awide panelled corridor extended from one end of the house to the other. It was lighted from the roof, and served as a gallery for the display ofa small and choice collection of modern art, which her ladyship hadacquired during her long residence at Fellside. Here, too, in Sheratoncabinets, were those treasures of old English china which LadyMaulevrier had inherited from past generations. 

Her ladyship's rooms were situated at the southern end of this corridor, her bed-chamber being at the extreme end of the house, with windowscommanding two magnificent views, one across the lake and the village ofGrasmere to the green slopes of Fairfield, the other along the valleytowards Rydal Water. This and the adjoining boudoir were the prettiestrooms in the house, and no one wondered that her ladyship should spendso much of her life in the luxurious seclusion of her own apartments. 

John Hammond went to his room, which was on the same side of the houseas her ladyship's; but he was in no disposition for sleep. He opened thecasement, and stood looking out upon the moonlit lake and the quietvillage, where one solitary light shone like a faint star in a cottagewindow, amidst that little cluster of houses by the old church, onceknown as Kirktown. Beyond the village rose gentle slopes, crowned withfoliage, and above those wooded crests appeared the grand outline of thehills, surrounding and guarding Easedale's lovely valley, as the hillssurrounded Jerusalem of old. 

He looked at that delicious landscape with eyes that hardly saw itsbeauty. The image of a lovely face came between him and all the glory ofearth and sky. 

'I think she likes me, ' he was saying to himself. 'There was a look inher eyes to-night that told me the time was come when----'

The thought died unfinished in his brain. Through the silent house, across the placid lake, there rang a wild, shrill cry that froze theblood in his veins, or seemed so to freeze it--a shriek of agony, and ina woman's voice. It rang out from an open window near his own. The soundseemed close to his ear. 

CHAPTER X. 

'O BITTERNESS OF THINGS TOO SWEET. '

Only for an instant did John Hammond stand motionless after hearing thatunearthly shriek. In the next moment he rushed into the corridor, expecting to hear the sound repeated, to find himself face to face withsome midnight robber, whose presence had caused that wild cry of alarm. But in the corridor all was silent as the grave. No open door suggestedthe entrance of an intruder. The dimly-burning lamps showed only thelong empty gallery. He stood still for a few moments listening forvoices, footsteps, the rustle of garments: but there was nothing. 

Nothing? Yes, a groan, a long-drawn moaning sound, as of infinite pain. This time there was no doubt as to the direction from which the soundcame. It came from Lady Maulevrier's room. The door was ajar, and hecould see the faint light of the night-lamp within. That fearful cry hadcome from her ladyship's room. She was in peril or pain of some kind. 

Convinced of this one fact, Mr. Hammond had not an instant's hesitation. He pushed open the door without compunction, and entered the room, prepared to behold some terrible scene. 

But all was quiet as death itself. No midnight burglar had violated thesanctity of Lady Maulevrier's apartment. The soft, steady light of thenight-lamp shone on the face of the sleeper. Yes, all was quiet in theroom, but not in that sleeper's soul. The broad white brow was painfullycontracted, the lips drawn down and distorted, the delicate hand, halfhidden by the deep Valenciennes ruffle, clutched the coverlet withconvulsive force. Sigh after sigh burst from the agitated breast. JohnHammond gazed upon the sleeper in an agony of apprehension, uncertainwhat to do. Was this dreaming only; or was it some kind of seizure whichcalled for medical aid? At her ladyship's age the idea of paralysis wasnot too improbable for belief. If this was a dream, then indeed thevisions of Lady Maulevrier's head upon her bed were more terrible thanthe dreams of common mortals. 

In any case Mr. Hammond felt that it was his duty to send some attendantto Lady Maulevrier, some member of the household who was familiar withher ladyship's habits, her own maid if that person could be unearthedeasily. He knew that the servants slept in a separate wing; but hethought it more than likely that her ladyship's personal attendantoccupied a room near her mistress. 

He went back to the corridor and looked round him in doubt, for a momentor two. 

Close against her ladyship's door there was a swing door, covered withred cloth, which seemed to communicate with the old part of the house. John Hammond pushed this door, and it yielded to his hand, revealing alamp-lit passage, narrow, old-fashioned, and low. He thought it likelythat Lady Maulevrier's maid might occupy a room in this half-desertedwing. As he pushed open the door he saw an elderly man coming towardshim, with a candle in his hand, and with the appearance of havinghuddled on his clothes hastily. 

'You heard that scream?' said Hammond. 

'Yes. It was her ladyship, I suppose. Nightmare. She is subject tonightmare. '

'It is very dreadful. Her whole countenance was convulsed just now, whenI went into her room to see what was wrong. I was almost afraid of a fitof some kind. Ought not her maid to go to her?'

'She wants no assistance, ' the man answered, coolly. 'It was only adream. It is not the first time I have been awakened by a shriek likethat. It is a kind of nightmare, no doubt; and it passes off in a fewminutes, and leaves her sleeping calmly. '

He went to her ladyship's door, pushed it open a little way, and lookedin. 'Yes, she is sleeping as quietly as an infant, ' he said, shuttingthe door softly as he spoke. 

'I am very glad; but surely she ought to have her maid near her atnight, if she is subject to those attacks. '

'It is no attack, I tell you. It is nothing but a dream, ' answeredSteadman impatiently. 

'Yet you were frightened, just as I was, or you would not have got upand dressed, ' said Hammond, looking at the man suspiciously. 

He had heard of this old servant Steadman, who was supposed to enjoymore of her ladyship's confidence than any one else in the household;but he had never spoken to the man before that night. 

'Yes, I came. It was my duty to come, knowing her ladyship's habits. Iam a light sleeper, and that scream woke me instantly. If her ladyship'smaid were wanted I should call her. I am a kind of watch-dog, you see, sir. '

'You seem to be a very faithful dog. '

'I have been in her ladyship's service more than forty years. I havereason to be faithful. I know her ladyship's habits better than any onein the house. I know that she had a great deal of trouble in her earlylife, and I believe the memory of it comes back upon her sometimes inher dreams, and gets the better of her. '

'If it was memory that wrung that agonised shriek from her just now, herrecollections of the past must be very terrible. '

'Ah, sir, there is a skeleton in every house, ' answered James Steadman, gravely. 

This was exactly what Maulevrier had said under the yew trees whichWordsworth planted. 

'Good-night, sir, ' said Steadman. 

'Good-night. You are sure that Lady Maulevrier may be left safely--thatthere is no fear of illness of any kind?'

'No, sir. It was only a bad dream. Good-night, sir. '

Steadman went back to his own quarters. Mr. Hammond heard him draw thebolts of the swing door, thus cutting off all communication with thecorridor. 

The eight-day clock on the staircase struck two as Mr. Hammond returnedto his room, even less inclined for sleep than when he left it. Strange, that nocturnal disturbance of a mind which seemed so tranquil in theday. Or was that tranquillity only a mask which her ladyship wore beforethe world: and was the bitter memory of events which happened fortyyears ago still a source of anguish to that highly strung nature?

'There are some minds which cannot forget, ' John Hammond said tohimself, as he meditated upon her ladyship's character and history. 'Thestory of her husband's crime may still be fresh in her memory, though itis only a tradition for the outside world. His crime may have involvedsome deep wrong done to herself, some outrage against her love and faithas a wife. One of the stories Maulevrier spoke of the other day was of awicked woman's influence upon the governor--a much more likely storythan that of any traffic in British interests or British honour, whichwould have been almost impossible for a man in Lord Maulevrier'sposition. If the scandal was of a darker kind--a guilty wife--themysterious disappearance of a husband--the horror of the thing may havemade a deeper impression on Lady Maulevrier than even her nearest anddearest dream of: and that superb calm which she wears like a royalmantle may be maintained at the cost of struggles which tear herheart-strings. And then at night, when the will is dormant, when thenervous system is no longer ruled by the power of waking intelligence, the old familiar agony returns, the hated images flash back upon thebrain, and in proportion to the fineness of the temperament is theintensity of the dreamer's pain. '

And then he went on to reflect upon the long monotonous years spent inthat lonely house, shut in from the world by those everlasting hills. Albeit the house was an ideal house, set in a landscape of infinitebeauty, the monotony must be none the less oppressive for a mindburdened with dark memories, weighed down by sorrows which could seek norelief from sympathy, which could never become familiarised bydiscussion. 

'I wonder that a woman of Lady Maulevrier's intellect should not havebetter known how to treat her own malady, ' thought Hammond. 

Mr. Hammond inquired after her ladyship's health next morning, and wastold she was perfectly well. 

'Grandmother is in capital spirits, ' said Lady Lesbia. 'She is pleasedwith the contents of yesterday's _Globe_. Lord Denyer, the son of one ofher oldest friends, has been making a great speech at Liverpool in theConservative interest, and her ladyship thinks we shall have a change ofparties before long. '

'A general shuffle of the cards, ' said Maulevrier, looking up from hisbreakfast. 'I'm sure I hope so. I'm no politician, but I like a row. '

'I hope you are a Conservative, Mr. Hammond, ' said Lesbia. 

'I had hoped you would have known that ever so long ago, Lady Lesbia. '

Lesbia blushed at his tone, which was almost a reproach. 

'I suppose I ought to have understood from the general tenor of yourconversation, ' she said; 'but I am terribly stupid about politics. Itake so little interest in them. I am always hearing that we are beingbadly governed--that the men who legislate for us are stupid or wicked;yet the world seems to go on somehow, and we are no worse. '

'It is just the same with sport, ' said Maulevrier. 'Every rainy springwe are told that all the young birds have been drowned, or that thegrouse-disease has decimated the fathers and mothers, and that we shallhave nothing to shoot; but when August comes the birds are there all thesame. '

'It is the nature of mankind to complain, ' said Hammond. 'Cain and Abelwere the first farmers, and you see one of them grumbled. '

They were rather lively at breakfast that morning--Maulevrier's lastbreakfast but one--for he had announced his determination of going toScotland next day. Other fellows would shoot all the birds if he dawdledany longer. Mary was in deep despondency at the idea of his departure, yet she laughed and talked with the rest. And perhaps Lesbia felt alittle moved at the thought of losing Mr. Hammond. Maulevrier would comeback to Mary, but John Hammond was hardly likely to return. Theirparting would be for ever. 

'You needn't sit quite in my pocket, Molly, ' said Maulevrier to hisyounger sister. 

'I like to make the most of you, now you are going away, ' sighed Mary. 'Oh, dear, how dull we shall all be when you are gone. '

'Not a bit of it! You will have some fox-hunting, perhaps, before thesnow is on the hills. '

At the very mention of fox-hounds Lady Mary's bright young facecrimsoned, and Maulevrier began to laugh in a provoking way, withside-long glances at his younger sister. 

'Did you ever hear of Molly's fox-hunting, by-the-by, Hammond?' heasked. 

Mary tried to put her hand before his lips, but it was useless. 

'Why shouldn't I tell?' he exclaimed. 'It was quite a heroic adventure. You must know our fox-hunting here is rather a peculiarinstitution, --very good in its way, but strictly local. No horse couldlive among our hills, so we hunt on foot, and as the pace is good, andthe work hard, nobody who starts with the hounds is likely to be in atthe death, except the huntsmen. We are all mad for the sport, and off wego, over the hills and far away, picking up a fresh field as we go. Theploughman leaves his plough, and the shepherd leaves his flock, and thefarmer leaves his thrashing, to follow us; in every field we cross weget fresh blood, while those who join us at the start fall off bydegrees. Well, it happened one day late in October, when there were longridges of snow on Helvellyn, and patches of white on Fairfield, MistressMary here must needs take her bamboo staff and start for the StridingEdge. It was just the day upon which she might have met her death easilyon that perilous point, but happily something occurred to divert herjuvenile fancy, for scarcely had she got to the bottom of Dolly WaggonPike--you know Dolly----'

'Intimately, ' said Hammond, with a nod. 

'Scarcely had she neared the base of Dolly Waggon when she heard thehuntsman's horn and the hounds at full cry, streaming along towardsDunmail Raise. Off flew Molly, all among the butcher boys, and farmers'men, and rosy-cheeked squireens of the district--racing over the ruggedfields--clambering over the low stone walls--up hill, downhill--shouting when the others shouted--never losing sight of the wavingsterns--winding and doubling, and still going upward and upward, tillshe stood, panting and puffing like a young grampus, on the top of SeatSandal, still all among the butcher boys and the farmer's men, and theguides and the red-cheeked squireens, her frock torn to ribbons, her hatlost in a ditch, her hair streaming down her back, and every inch ofher, from her nose downwards, splashed and spattered with mire and clay. What a spectacle for gods and men, guides and butcher boys. And thereshe stood with the sun going down beyond Coniston Old Man, and aseven-mile walk between her and Fellside. 

'Poor Lady Mary!' said Hammond, looking at her very kindly: but Mary didnot see that friendly glance, which betokened sympathy rather thanscorn. She sat silent and very red, with drooping eyelids, thinking herbrother horribly cruel for thus publishing her foolishness. 

'Poor, indeed!' exclaimed Maulevrier. 'She came crawling home afterdark, footsore and draggled, looking like a beggar girl, and as evilfate would have it, her ladyship, who so seldom goes out, must needshave been taking afternoon tea at the Vicarage upon that particularoccasion, and was driving up the avenue as Mary crawled to the gate. Thestorm that followed may be more easily imagined than described. '

'It was years and years ago, ' expostulated Mary, looking very angry. 'Grandmother needn't have made such a fuss about it. '

'Ah, but in those days she still had hopes of civilising you, ' answeredMaulevrier. 'Since then she has abandoned all endeavour in thatdirection, and has given you over to your own devices--and me. Sincethen you have become a chartered libertine. You have letters of mark. '

'I don't care what you call me, ' said Mary. 'I only know that I am veryhappy when you are at home, and very miserable when you are away. '

'It is hardly kind of you to say that, Lady Mary, ' remonstrated FräuleinMüller, who, up to this point, had been busily engaged with muffins andgooseberry jam. 

'Oh, I don't mean that any one is unkind to me or uses me badly, ' saidMary. 'I only mean that my life is empty when Maulevrier is away, andthat I am always longing for him to come back again. '

'I thought you adored the hills, and the lake, and the villagers, andyour pony, and Maulevrier's dogs, ' said, Lesbia faintly contemptuous. 

'Yes, but one wants something human to love, ' answered Mary, making itvery obvious that there was no warmth of affection between herself andthe feminine members of her family. 

She had not thought of the significance of her speech. She was veryangry with Maulevrier for having held her up to ridicule before Mr. Hammond, who already despised her, as she believed, and whose contemptwas more galling than it need have been, considering that he was a merecasual visitor who would go away and return no more. Never till hiscoming had she felt her deficiencies; but in his presence she writhedunder the sense of her unworthiness, and had an almost agonisingconsciousness of all those faults which her grandmother had told herabout so often with not the slightest effect. In those days she had notcared what Lady Maulevrier or any one else might say of her, or think ofher. She lived her life, and defied fortune. She was worse than herreputation. To-day she felt it a bitter thing that she had grown to theage of womanhood lacking all those graces and accomplishments which madeher sister adorable, and which might make even a plain woman charming. 

Never till John Hammond's coming had she felt a pang of envy in thecontemplation of Lesbia's beauty or Lesbia's grace; but now she had sokeen a sense of the difference between herself and her sister that shebegan to fear that this cruel pain must indeed be that lowest of allvices. Even the difference in their gowns was a source of humiliation toher how. Lesbia was looking her loveliest this morning, in a gown thatwas all lace and soft Madras muslin, flowing, cloud-like; while Mary'stailor gown, with its trim tight bodice, horn buttons, and kilted skirt, seemed to cry aloud that it had been made for a Tomboy. And this tailorgown was a costume to which Mary had condemned herself by her own folly. Only a year ago, moved by an artistic admiration for Lesbia's delicatebreakfast gowns, Mary had told her grandmother that she would like tohave something of the same kind, whereupon the dowager, who did not takethe faintest interest in Mary's toilet, but who had a stern sense ofjustice, replied--

'I do not think Lesbia's frocks and your habits will agree, but you canhave some pretty morning gowns if you like;' and the order had beengiven for a confection in muslin and lace for Lady Mary. 

Mary came down to breakfast one bright June morning, in the new frock, feeling very proud of herself, and looking very pretty. 

'Fine feathers make fine birds, ' said Fräulein Müller. 'I should hardlyhave known you. '

'I wish you would always dress like that, ' said Lesbia; 'you really looklike a young lady;' and Mary danced about on the lawn, feelingsylph-like, and quite in love with her own elegance, when a suddenuplifting of canine voices in the distance had sent her flying to seewhat was the matter with the terrier pack. 

In the kennel there was riot and confusion. Ahab was demolishingAngelina, Absalom had Agamemnon in a deadly grip. Dog-whip in hand, Maryrushed to the rescue, and laid about her, like the knights of old, utterly forgetful of her frock. She soon succeeded in restoring order, but the Madras muslin, the Breton lace had perished in the conflict. Sheleft the kennel panting, and in rags and tatters, some of the muslin andlace hanging about her in strips a yard long, but the greater partremaining in the possession of the terriers, who had mauled and munchedher finery to their hearts' content, while she was reading the Riot Act. 

She went back to the house, bowed down by shame and confusion, andmarched straight to the dowager's morning-room. 

'Look what the terriers have done to me, grandmother, ' she said, with asob. 'It is all my own fault, of course. I ought not to have gone nearthem in that stupid muslin. Please forgive me for being so foolish. I amnot fit to have pretty frocks. '

'I think, my dear, you can now have no doubt that the tailor gowns arefittest for you, ' answered Lady Maulevrier, with crushing placidity. 'Wehave tried the experiment of dressing you like Lesbia, and you see itdoes not answer. Tell Kibble to throw your new gown in the rag-bag, andplease let me hear no more about it. '

After this dismal failure Mary could not feel herself ill-used inhaving to wear tailor gowns all the year round. She was allowed cottonfrocks for very warm weather, and she had pretty gowns for evening wear;but her usual attire was cloth or linsey woolsey, made by the localtailor. Sometimes Maulevrier ordered her a gown or a coat from his ownman in Conduit Street, and then she felt herself smart and fashionable. And even the local tailor contrived to make her gowns prettily, having agreat appreciation of her straight willowy figure, and deeming it aprivilege to work for her, so that hitherto Mary had felt very wellcontent with her cloth and linsey. But now that John Hammond soobviously admired Lesbia's delicate raiment, poor Mary began to thinkher woollen gowns odious. 

After breakfast Mary and Maulevrier went straight off to the kennels. His lordship had numerous instructions to give on this last day, and hislieutenant had to receive and register his orders. Lesbia went to thegarden with her book and with Fräulein--the inevitable Fräulein asHammond thought her--in close attendance. 

It was a lovely morning, sultry, summer-like, albeit September had justbegun. The tennis lawn, which had been levelled on one side of thehouse, was surrounded on three sides by shrubberies planted forty yearsago, in the beginning of Lady Maulevrier's widowhood. All loveliesttrees grew there in perfection, sheltered by the mighty wall of themountain, fed by the mists from the lake. Larch and mountain ash, andLawsonian cyprus, --deodara and magnolia, arbutus, and silver broom, acacia and lilac, flourished here in that rich beauty which made everycottage garden in the happy district a little paradise; and here in asemi-circular recess at one end of the lawn were rustic chairs andtables and an umbrella tent. This was Lady Lesbia's chosen retreat onsummer mornings, and a favourite place for afternoon tea. 

Mr. Hammond followed the two ladies to their bower. 

'This is to be my last morning, ' he said, looking at Lesbia. 'Will youthink me a great bore if I spend it with you?'

'We shall think it very nice of you, ' answered Lesbia, without a vestigeof emotion; 'especially if you will read to us. '

'I will do any thing to make myself useful. What shall I read?'

'Anything you like. What do you say to Tennyson?'

'That he is a noble poet, a teacher of all good; but too philosophicalfor my present mood. May I read you some of Heine's ballads, those songswhich you sing so exquisitely, or rather some you do not sing, and whichwill be fresher to you. My German is far from perfect, but I am told itis passable, and Fräulein Müller can throw her scissors at me when myaccent is too dreadful. '

'You speak German beautifully, ' said Fräulein. 'I wonder where youlearned it?'

'I have been a good deal in Germany, and I had a Hanoverian valet whowas quite a gentleman, and spoke admirably, I think I learned more fromhim than from grammars or dictionaries. I'll go and fetch Heine. '

'What a very agreeable person Mr. Hammond is, ' said Fräulein, when hewas gone. 'We shall quite miss him. '

'Yes, I have no doubt we shall miss him, ' said Lesbia, again without thefaintest emotion. 

The governess began to think that the ordeal of an agreeable young man'spresence at Fellside had been passed in safety, and that her pupil wasunscathed. She had kept a close watch on the two, as in duty bound. Sheknew that Hammond was in love with Lesbia; but she thought Lesbia washeart-whole. 

Mr. Hammond came back with a shabby little book in his hand andestablished himself comfortably in one of the two Beaconsfield chairs. 

He opened his book at that group of short poems called Heimkehr, andread here and there, as fancy led him. Sometimes the strain was alove-song, brief, passionate as the cry of a soul in pain; sometimes theverses were bitter and cynical; sometimes full of tenderest simplicity, telling of childhood, and youth and purity; sometimes dark with hiddenmeanings, grim, awful, cold with the chilling breath of thecharnel-house. Sometimes Lesbia's heart beat a little faster as Mr. Hammond read, for it seemed as if it was he who was speaking to her, andnot the dead poet. 

An hour or more passed in this way. Fräulein Müller was charmed athearing some of her favourite poems, asking now for this little bit, andanon for another, and expatiating upon the merits of German poets ingeneral, and Heine in particular, in the pauses of the lecture. She wasquite carried away by her delight in the poet, and was so entirelyuplifted to the ideal world that, when a footman came with a messagefrom Lady Maulevrier requesting her presence, she tripped gaily off atonce, without a thought of danger in leaving those two together on thelawn. She had been a faithful watch-dog up to this point; but she wasnow lulled into a false sense of security by the idea that the time ofperil was all but ended. 

So she left them; but could she have looked hack two minutes afterwardsshe would have perceived the unwisdom of that act. 

No sooner had the Fräulein turned the corner of the shrubbery thanHammond laid aside his book and drew nearer Lesbia, who sat lookingdownward, with her eyes upon the delicate piece of fancy work which hadoccupied her fingers all the morning. 

'Lesbia, this is my last day at Fellside, and you and I may never have aminute alone together again while I am here. Will you come for a littlewalk with me on the Fell? There is something I must say to you before Igo. '

Lesbia's delicate cheek grew a shade more pale. Instinct told her whatwas coming, though never mortal man had spoken to her of love. Nor untilnow had Mr. Hammond ever addressed her by her Christian name withoutthe ceremonious prefix. There was a deeper tone in his voice, a graverlook in his eyes, than she had ever noticed before. 

She rose, and took up her sunshade, and went with him meekly through thecultivated shrubbery of ornamental timber to the rougher pathway thatwound through a copse of Scotch fir, which formed the outer boundary ofLady Maulevrier's domain. Beyond the fir trees rose the grassy slope ofthe hill, on the brow of which sheep were feeding. Deep down in thehollow below the lawns and shrubberries of Fellside the placid bosom ofthe lake shone like an emerald floor in the sunlight, reflecting theverdure of the hill, and the white sheep dotted about here and there. 

There was not a breath in the air around them as those two saunteredslowly side by side in the pine wood, not a cloud in the dazzling bluesky above; and for a little time they too were silent, as if bound by aspell which neither dared to break. Then at last Hammond spoke. 

'Lesbia, you know that I love you, ' he began, in his low, grave voice, tremulous with feeling. 'No words I can say to-day can tell you of mylove more plainly than my heart has been telling you in every hour ofthis happy, happy time that you and I have spent together. I love you asI never hoped to love, fervently, completely, believing that theperfection of earthly bliss will be mine if I can but win you. Dearest, is there such a sweet hope for me; are you indeed my own, as I am yours, heart and soul, and mind and being, till the last throb of life in thispoor clay?'

He tried to take her hand, but she drew herself away from him with afrightened look. She was very pale, and there was infinite distress inthe dark violet eyes, which looked entreatingly, deprecatingly at herlover. 

'I dare not answer as you would like me to answer, ' she faltered, aftera painful pause. 'I am not my own mistress. My grandmother has broughtme up, devoted herself to me almost, and she has her own views, her ownplans. I dare not frustrate them!'

'She would like to marry you to a man of rank and fortune--a man whowill choose you, perhaps, because other people admire you, rather thanbecause he himself loves you as you ought to be loved; who will chooseyou because you are altogether the best and most perfect thing of youryear; just as he would buy a yearling at Newmarket or Doncaster. Herladyship means you to make a great alliances--coronets, not hearts, arethe counters for her game; but, Lesbia, would you, in the bloom andfreshness of youth--you with the pulses of youth throbbing at yourheart--lend yourself to the calculations of age which has lived its lifeand forgotten the very meaning of love? Would you submit to be played asa card in the game of a dowager's ambition? Trust me, dearest, in thecrisis of a woman's life there is one only counsellor she should listento, and that counsellor is her own heart. If you love me--as I dare tohope you do--trust in me, hold by me, and leave the rest to Heaven. Iknow that I can make your life happy. '

'You frighten me by your impetuosity, ' said Lesbia. 'Surely you forgethow short a time we have known each other. '

'An age. All my life before the day I saw you is a dead, dull blank ascompared with the magical hours I have spent with you. '

'I do not even know who and what you are. '

'First, I am a gentleman, or I should not be your brother's friend. Apoor gentleman, if you like, with only my own right arm to hew mypathway through the wood of life to the temple of fortune; but trust me, only trust me, Lesbia, and I will so hew my path as to reach thattemple. Look at me, love. Do I look like a man born to fail?'

She looked up at him shyly, with eyes that were dim with tears. Helooked like a demi-god, tall, straight as the pine trunks amongst whichhe was standing, a frame formed for strength and activity, a faceinstinct with mental power, dark eyes that glowed with the fire ofintellect and passion. The sunlight gave an almost unearthly radiance tothe clear dark of his complexion, the curly brown hair cut close to thefinely shaped head, the broad brow and boldly modelled features. 

Lesbia felt in her heart that such a man must be destined for success, born to be a conqueror in all strifes, a victor upon every field. 

'Have I the thews and sinews of a man doomed to be beaten in thebattle?' he asked her. 'No, dearest; Heaven meant me to succeed; andwith you to fight for I shall not be beaten by adverse fortune. Can younot trust Providence and me?'

'I cannot disobey my grandmother. If she will consent----'

'She will not consent. You must defy Lady Maulevrier, Lesbia, if youmean to reward my love. But I will promise you this much, darling, thatif you will be my wife--with your brother's consent--which I am sure ofbefore I ask for it, within one year of our marriage I will find meansof reconciling her ladyship to the match, and winning her entireforgiveness for you and me. '

'You are talking of impossibilities, ' said Lesbia, frowning. 'Why do youtalk to me as if I were a child? I know hardly anything of the world, but I do know the woman who has reared and educated me. My grandmotherwould never forgive me if I married a poor man. I should be an outcast. '

'We would be outcasts together--happy outcasts. Besides, we should notalways be poor. I tell you I am predestined to conquer fate. '

'But we should have to begin from the beginning. '

'Yes, we should have to begin from the beginning, as Adam and Eve didwhen they left Paradise. '

'We are not told in the Bible that they had any happiness after that. Itseems to have been all trouble and weariness, and toil and death, afterthe angel with the flaming sword drove them out of Eden. '

'They were together, and they must have been happy. Oh, Lesbia, if youdo not feel that you can face poverty and the world's contempt by myside, and for my sake, you do not love me. Love never calculates sonicely; love never fears the future; and yet you do love me, Lesbia, ' hesaid, trying to fold her in his arms; but again she drew herself awayfrom him--this time with a look almost of horror--and stood facing him, clinging to one of the pine trunks, like a scared wood-nymph. 

'You have no right to say that, ' she said. 

'I have the divine right of my own deep love--of heart which cries outto heart. Do you think there is no magnetic power in true love which candivine the answering love in another? Lesbia, call me an insolentcoxcomb if you like, but I know you love me, and that you and I may beutterly happy together. Oh, why--why do you shrink from me, my beloved;why withhold yourself from my arms! Oh, love, let me hold you to myheart--let me seal our betrothal with a kiss!'

'Betrothal--no, no; not for the world, ' cried Lesbia. 'Lady Maulevrierwould cast me off for ever; she would curse me. '

'What would the curse of an ambitious woman weigh against my love? And Itell you that her anger would be only a passing tempest. She wouldforgive you. '

'Never--you don't know her. '

'I tell you she would forgive you, and all would be well with us beforewe had been married a year. Why cannot you believe me, Lesbia?'

'Because I cannot believe impossibilities, even from your lips, ' sheanswered sullenly. 

She stood before him with downcast eyes, the tears streaming down herpale cheeks, exquisitively lovely in her agitation and sorrow. Yes, shedid love him; her heart was beating passionately; she was longing tothrow herself on his breast, to be folded upon that manly heart, intrust in that brave, bright look which seemed to defy fortune. Yes, hewas a man born to conquer; he was handsome, intellectual, powerful inall mental and physical gifts. A man of men. But he was, by his ownadmission, a very obscure and insignificant person, and he had no money. Life with him meant a long fight with adverse circumstances; life forhis wife must mean patience, submission, long waiting upon destiny, andperhaps with old age and grey hairs the tardy turning of Fortune'swheel. And was she for this to resign the kingdom that had beenpromised to her, the giddy heights which she was born to scale, thetriumphs and delights and victories of the great world? Yes, Lesbialoved this fortuneless knight; but she loved herself and her prospectsof promotion still better. 

'Oh, Lesbia, can you not be brave for my sake--trustful for my sake? Godwill be good to us if we are true to each other. '

'God will not be good to me if I disobey my grandmother. I owe her toomuch; ingratitude in me would be doubly base. I will speak to her. Iwill tell her all you have said, and if she gives me the faintestencouragement----'

'She will not; that is a foregone conclusion. Tell her all, if you like;but let us be prepared for the answer. When she denies the right of yourheart to choose its own mate, then rise up in the might of yourwomanhood and defy her. Tell her, "I love him, and be he rich or poor, Iwill share his fate;" tell her boldly, bravely, nobly, as a true womanshould; and if she be adamant still, proclaim your right to disobey herworldly wisdom rather than the voice of your own heart. And then come tome, darling, and be my own, and the world which you and I will facetogether shall not be a bad world. I will answer for that. No troubleshall come near you. No humiliation shall ever touch you. Only believein me. '

'I can believe in you, but not in the impossible, ' answered Lesbia, withmeasured accents. 

The voice was silver-sweet, but passing cold. Just then there was arustling among the pine branches, and Lesbia looked round with astartled air. 

'Is there any one listening?' she exclaimed. 'What was that?'

'Only the breath of heaven. Oh, Lesbia, if you were but a little lesswise, a little more trustful. Do not be a dumb idol. Say that you loveme, or do not love me. If you can look me in the face and say the last, I will leave you without another word. I will take my sentence and go. '

But this was just what Lesbia could not do. She could not deny her love;and yet she could not sacrifice all things for her love. She lifted theheavy lids which veiled those lovely eyes, and looked up at himimploringly. 

'Give me time to breathe, time to think, ' she said. 

'And then will you answer me plainly, truthfully, without a shadow ofreserve, remembering that the fate of two lives hangs on your words. '

'I will. '

'Let it be so, then. I'll go for a ramble over the hills, and return intime for afternoon tea. I shall look for you on the tennis lawn athalf-past four. '

He took her in his arms, and this time she yielded herself to him, andthe beautiful head rested for a few moments upon his breast, and thesoft eyes looked up at him in confiding fondness. He bent and kissed heronce only, but a kiss that meant for life and death. In the next momenthe was gone, leaving her alone among the pine trees. 

CHAPTER XI. 

'IF I WERE TO DO AS ISEULT DID. '

Lady Maulevrier rarely appeared at luncheon. She took some slightrefection in her morning-room, among her books and papers, and in thesociety of her canine favourites, whose company suited her better atcertain hours than the noisier companionship of her grandchildren. Shewas a studious woman, loving the silent life of books better than theinane chatter of everyday humanity. She was a woman who thought much andread much, and who lived more in the past than the present. She livedalso in the future, counting much upon the splendid career of herbeautiful granddaughter, which should be in a manner a lengthening out, a renewal of her own life. She looked forward to the day when Lesbiashould reign supreme in the great world, a famous beauty and leader offashion, her every act and word inspired and directed by hergrandmother, who would be the shadow behind the throne. It waspossible--nay, probable--that in those days Lady Maulevrier wouldherself re-appear in society, establish her salon, and draw around herclosing years all that is wittiest, best, and wisest in the great world. 

Her ladyship was reposing in her low reading-chair, with a volume ofTyndall on the book-stand before her, when the door was opened softlyand Lesbia came gliding in, and seated herself without a word on thehassock at her grandmother's feet. Lady Maulevrier passed her handcaressingly over the girl's soft brown hair, without looking up from herbook. 

'You are a late visitor, ' she said; 'why did you not come to me afterbreakfast?'

'It was such a lovely morning, we went straight from the breakfast tableto the garden; I did not think you wanted me. '

'I did not want you; but I am always glad to see my pet. What were youdoing in the garden all the morning? I did not hear you playing tennis. '

Lady Maulevrier had already interrogated the German governess upon thisvery subject, but she had her own reasons for wishing to hear Lesbia'saccount. 

'No, it was too warm for tennis. Fräulein and I sat and worked, and Mr. Hammond read to us. '

'What did he read?'

'Heine's ballads. He reads German beautifully. 

'Indeed! I daresay he was at school in Germany. There are cheap schoolsthere to which middle-class people send their boys. '

This was like a thrust from a rusty knife. 

'Mr. Hammond was at Oxford, ' Lesbia said, reproachfully; and then, aftera longish pause, she clasped her hands upon the arm of Lady Maulevrier'schair, and said, in a pleading voice, 'Grandmother, Mr. Hammond hasasked me to marry him. '

'Indeed! Only that? And pray, did he tell you what are his means ofmaintaining Lord Maulevrier's sister in the position to which her birthentitles her?' inquired the dowager, with crushing calmness. 

'He is not rich; indeed, I believe, he is poor; but he is brave andclever, and he is full of confidence in his power to conquer fortune. '

'No doubt; that is your true adventurer's style. He confides implicitlyin his own talents, and in somebody else's banker. Mr. Hammond wouldmake a tremendous figure in the world, I daresay, and while he wasmaking it your brother would have to keep him. Well, my dear Lesbia, Ihope you gave this gentleman the answer his insolence deserved; or thatyou did better, and referred him to me. I should be glad to give him myopinion of his conduct--a person admitted to this house as yourbrother's hanger-on--tolerated only on your brother's account; such aperson, nameless, penniless, friendless (except for Maulevrier's toofacile patronage), to dare to lift his eyes to my granddaughter! It isineffable insolence!'

Lesbia crouched by her grandmother's chair, her face hidden from LadyMaulevrier's falcon eye. Every word uttered by her ladyship stung likethe knotted cords of a knout. She knew not whether to be most ashamed ofher lover or of herself--of her lover for his obscure position, hishopeless poverty; of herself for her folly in loving such a man. And shedid love him, and would fain have pleaded his cause, had she not beencowed by the authority that had ruled her all her life. 

'Lesbia, if I thought you had been silly enough, degraded enough, togive this young man encouragement, to have justified his audacity ofto-day by any act or word of yours, I should despise, I should detestyou, ' said Lady Maulevrier, sternly. 'What could be more contemptible, more hateful in a girl reared as you have been than to giveencouragement to the first comer--to listen greedily to the firstadventurer who had the insolence to make love to you, to be eager tothrow yourself into the arms of the first man who asked you. That mygranddaughter, a girl reared and taught and watched and guarded by me, should have no more dignity, no more modesty, or womanly feeling, than abarmaid at an inn!'

Lesbia began to cry. 

'I don't see why a barmaid, should not be a good woman, or why itshould be a crime to fall in love, ' she said, in a voice broken by sobs. 'You need not speak to me so unkindly. I am not going to marry Mr. Hammond. '

'Oh, you are not? that is very good of you. I am deeply grateful forsuch an assurance. '

'But I like him better than anyone I ever saw in my life before. '

'You have seen to many people. You have had such a wide area forchoice. '

'No; I know I have been kept like a nun in a convent: but I don't thinkwhen I go into the world I shall ever see anyone I should like betterthan Mr. Hammond. '

'Wait till you have seen the world before you make up your mind aboutthat. And now, Lesbia, leave off talking and thinking like a child; lookme in the face and listen to me, for I am going to speak seriously; andwith me, when I am in earnest, what is said once is said for ever. '

Lady Maulevrier grasped her granddaughter's arm with long slenderfingers which held it as tightly as the grasp of a vice. She drew thegirl's slim figure round till they were face to face, looking into eachother's eyes, the dowager's eagle countenance lit up with impassionedfeeling, severe, awful as the face of one of the fatal sisters, theavengers of blood, the harbingers of doom. 

'Lesbia, I think I have been good to you, and kind to you, ' she said. 

'You have been all that is kind and dear, ' faltered Lesbia. 

'Then give me measure for measure. My life has been a hard one, child;hard and lonely, and loveless and joyless. My son, to whom I devotedmyself in the vigour of youth and in the prime of life, never loved me, never repaid me for my love. He spent his days far away from me, whenhis presence would have gladdened my difficult life. He died in astrange land. Of his three children, you are the one I took into myheart. I did my duty to the others; I lavished my love upon you. Do notgive me cursing instead of blessing. Do not give me a stone instead ofbread. I have built every hope of happiness or pleasure in this worldupon you and your obedience. Obey me, be true to me, and I will make youa queen, and I will sit in the shadow of your throne. I will toil foryou, and be wise for you. You shall have only to shine, and dazzle, andenjoy the glory of life. My beautiful darling, for pity's sake do notgive yourself over to folly. '

'Did not you marry for love, grandmother?'

'No, Lesbia. Lord Maulevrier and I got on very well together, but ourswas no love-match. '

'Does nobody in our rank ever marry for love? are all marriages a mereexchange and barter?'

'No, there are love-matches now and then, which often turn out badly. But, my darling, I am not asking you to marry for rank or for money. Iam only asking you to wait till you find your mate among the noblest inthe land. He may be the handsomest and most accomplished of men, a manborn to win women's hearts; and you may love him as fervently as ever avillage girl loved her first lover. I am not going to sacrifice you, orto barter you, dearest. I mean to marry you to the best and noblestyoung man of his day. You shall never be asked to stoop to the unworthy, not even if worthlessness wore strawberry leaves in his cap, and ownedthe greatest estate in the land. '

'And if--instead of waiting-for this King Arthur of yours--I were to doas Iseult did--as Guinevere did--choose for myself----'

'Iseult and Guinevere were wantons. I wonder that you can name them incomparison with yourself. '

'If I were to marry a good and honourable man who has his place to makein the world, would you never forgive me?'

'You mean Mr. Hammond? You may just as well speak plainly, ' said LadyMaulevrier, freezingly. 'If you were capable of such idiocy as that, Lesbia, I would pluck you out of my heart like a foul weed. I wouldnever look upon you, or hear your name spoken, or think of you again aslong as I lived. My life would not last very long after that blow. Oldage cannot bear such shocks. Oh, Lesbia, I have been father and motherto you; do not bring my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. '

Lesbia gave a deep sigh, and brushed the tears from her cheeks. Yes, thevery idea of such a marriage was foolishness. Just now, in the pinewood, carried away by the force of her lover's passion, by her ownsofter feelings, it had seemed to her as if she could count the worldwell lost for his sake; but now, at Lady Maulevrier's feet, she becameagain true to her training, and the world was too much to lose. 

'What can I do, grandmother?' she asked, submissively, despairingly. 'Heloves me, and I love him. How can I tell him that he and I can never beanything to each other in this world?'

'Refer him to me. I will give him his answer. '

'No, no; that will not do. I have promised to answer him myself. He hasgone for a walk on the hills, and will come back at four o'clock for myanswer. '

'Sit down at that table, and write as I dictate. '

'But a letter will be so formal. '

'It is the only way in which you can answer him. When he comes back fromhis walk you will have left Fellside. I shall send you off to St. Beeswith Fräulein. You must never look upon that man's face again. '

Lesbia brushed away a few more tears, and obeyed. She had been too welltrained to attempt resistance. Defiance was out of the question. 

CHAPTER XII. 

'THE GREATER CANTLE OF THE WORLD IS LOST. '

The sky was still cloudless when John Hammond strolled slowly up theleafy avenue at Fellside. He had been across the valley and up the hillto Easedale Tarn, and then by rough untrodden ways, across a chaos ofrock and heather, into a second valley, long, narrow, and sterile, knownas Far Easedale, a desolate gorge, a rugged cleft in the heart of themountains. The walk had been long and laborious; but only in suchclambering and toiling, such expenditure of muscular force and latentheat, could the man's restless soul endure those long hours of suspense. 

'How will she answer me? Oh, my God! how will she answer?' he saidwithin himself, as he walked up the romantic winding road, which made sopicturesque an approach to Lady Maulevrier's domain, 'Is my idol gold orclay? How will she come through the crucible? Oh, dearest, sweetest, loveliest, only be true to the instinct of your womanhood, and my cupwill be full of bliss, and all my days will flow as sweetly as theburden of a song. But if you prove heartless, if you love the world's. Wealth better than you love me--ah! then all is over, and you and I arelost to each other for ever. I have made up my mind. '

His face settled into an expression of indomitable determination, as ofa man who would die rather than be false to his own purpose. There wasno glow of hope in his heart. He had no deep faith in the girl he loved;indeed in his heart of hearts he knew that this being to whom he hadtrusted his hopes of bliss was no heroine. She was a lovely, loveablegirl, nothing more. How would she greet him when they met presently onthe tennis lawn? With tears and entreaties, and pretty littledeprecating speeches, irresolution, timidity, vacillation, perhaps;hardly with heroic resolve to act and dare for his sake. 

There was no one on the tennis lawn when he went there, though the hourwas close at hand at which Lesbia had promised to give him his answer. He sat down in one of the low chairs, glad to rest after his long ramblehaving had no refreshment but a bottle of soda-water and a biscuit atthe cottage by Easedale Tarn. He waited, calmly as to outward seeming, but with a heavy heart. 

'If it were Mary now whom I loved, I should have little fear of theissue, ' he thought, weighing his sweetheart's character, as he weighedhis chances of success. 'That young termagant would defy the world forher lover. '

He sat in the summer silence for nearly half-an-hour, and still therewas no sign of Lady Lesbia. Her satin-lined workbasket, with the workthrown carelessly across it, was still on the rustic table, just as shehad left it when they went to the pine wood. Waiting was weary work whenthe bliss of a lifetime trembled in the balance; and yet he did not wantto be impatient. She might find it difficult to get away from herfamily, perhaps. She was closely watched and guarded, as the mostprecious thing at Fellside. 

At last the clock struck five, and Hammond could endure delay no longer. He went round by the flower garden to the terrace before thedrawing-room windows, and through an open window to the drawing-room. 

Lady Maulevrier was in her accustomed seat, with her own particularlittle table, magazines, books, newspapers at her side. Lady Mary waspouring out the tea, a most unusual thing; and Maulevrier was sitting ona stool at her feet, with his knees up to his chin, very warm and dusty, eating pound cake. 

'Where the mischief have you been hiding yourself all day, Jack?' hecalled out as Hammond appeared, looking round the room as he entered, with eager, interrogating eyes, for that one figure which was absent. 

'I have been for a walk. '

'You might have had the civility to announce your design, and Molly andI would have shared your peregrinations. '

'I am sorry that I lost the privilege of your company. '

'I suppose you lost your luncheon, which was of more importance, ' saidMaulevrier. 

'Will you have some tea?' asked Mary, who looked more womanly than usualin a cream-coloured surah gown--one of her Sunday gowns. 

She had a faint hope that by this essentially feminine apparel she mightlessen the prejudicial effect of Maulevrier's cruel story about thefox-hunt. 

Mr. Hammond answered absently, hardly looking at Mary, and quiteunconscious of her pretty gown. 

'Thanks, yes, ' he said, taking the cup and saucer, and looking at thedoor by which he momently expected Lady Lesbia's entrance, and then, asthe door did not open, he looked down at Mary, very busy with chinateapots and a brass kettle which hissed and throbbed over a spirit lamp. 

'Won't you have some cake, ' she asked, looking up at him gently, grievedat the distress and disappointment in his face. 'I am sure you must bedreadfully hungry. '

'Not in the least, thanks. How came you to be entrusted with thosesacred vessels, Lady Mary? What has become of Fräulein and your sister?'

'They have rushed off to St. Bees. Grandmother thought Lesbia lookingpale and out of spirits, and packed her off to the seaside at a minute'snotice. '

'What! She has left Fellside?' asked Hammond, paling suddenly, as if aman had struck him. 'Lady Maulevrier, do I understand that Lady Lesbiahas gone away?'

He asked the question in an authoritative tone, with the air of a manwho had a right to be answered. The dowager wondered at his surpassinginsolence. 

'My granddaughter has gone to the seaside with her governess, ' she said, haughtily. 

'At a minute's notice?'

'At a minute's notice. I am not in the habit of hesitating about anystep which I consider necessary for my grandchildren's welfare. '

She looked him full in the face, with those falcon eyes of hers; and hegave her back a look as resolute, and every whit as full of courage andof pride. 

'Well, ' he said, after a very perceptible pause, 'no doubt your ladyshiphas done wisely, and I must submit to your jurisdiction. But I had askedLady Lesbia a question, and I had been promised an answer. '

'Your question has been answered by Lady Lesbia. She left a note foryou, ' replied Lady Maulevrier. 

'Thanks, ' answered Mr. Hammond, briefly, and he hurried from the roomwithout another word. 

The letter was on the table in his bedroom. He had little hope of anygood waiting for him in a letter so written. The dowager and the worldhad triumphed over a girl's dawning love, no doubt. 

This was Lesbia's letter:

 'Dear Mr. Hammond, --Lady Maulevrier desires me to say that the proposal which you honoured me by making this morning is one which I cannot possibly accept, and that any idea of an engagement between you and me could result only in misery and humiliation to both. She thinks it best, under these circumstances, that we should not again meet, and I shall therefore have left Fellside before you receive this letter. 

 'With all good wishes, very faithfully yours, 'LESBIA HASELDEN. '

'Very faithfully mine--faithful to her false training, to the worldlymind that rules her; faithful to the gods of this world--Belial andMammon, and the Moloch Fashion. Poor cowardly soul! She loves me, andowns as much, yet weakly flies from me, afraid to trust the strong armand the brave heart of the man who loves her, preferring the glitteringshams of the world to the reality of true and honest love. Well, child, I have weighed you in the balance and found you wanting. Would to God ithad been otherwise! If you had been brave and bold for love's sake, where is that pure and perfect chrysolite for which I would havebartered you?'

He flung himself into a chair, and sat with his head bowed upon hisfolded arms, and his eyes not innocent of tears. What would he not havegiven to find truth and courage and scorn of the world's wealth in thatheart which he had tried to win. Did he think her altogether heartlessbecause she so glibly renounced him? No, he was too just for that. Hecalled her only half-hearted. She was like the cat in the adage, 'Letting I dare not, wait upon I would. ' But he told himself with onedeep sigh of resignation that she was lost to him for ever. 

'I have tried her, and found her not worth the winning, ' he said. 

The house, even the lovely landscape smiling under his windows, thepastoral valley, smooth lake and willowy island, seemed hateful to him. He felt himself hemmed round by those green hills, by yonder brown andrugged wall of Nabb Scar, stifled for want of breathing space. Thelandscape was lovely enough, but it was like a beautiful grave. Helonged to get away from it. 

'Another man would follow her to St. Bees, ' he said. 'I will not. '

He flung a few things into a Gladstone bag, sat down, and wrote a briefnote to Maulevrier, asking him to make his excuses to her ladyship. Hehad made up his mind to go to Keswick that afternoon, and would rejoinhis friend to-morrow, at Carlisle. This done, he rang for Maulevrier'svalet, and asked that person to look after his luggage and bring it onto Scotland with his master's things; and then, without a word of adieuto anyone, John Hammond went out of the house, with the Gladstone bag inhis hand, and shook the dust of Fellside off his feet. 

He ordered a fly at the Prince of Wales's Hotel, and drove to Keswick, whence he went on to the Lodore. The gloom and spaciousness ofDerwentwater, grey in the gathering dusk, suited his humour better thanthe emerald prettiness of Grasmere--the roar of the waterfall made musicin his ear. He dined in a private room, and spent the evening roaming onthe shores of the lake, and at eleven o'clock went back to his hotel andsat late into the night reading Heine, and thinking of the girl who hadrefused him. 

Mr. Hammond's letter was delivered to Lord Maulevrier five minutesbefore dinner, as he sat in the drawing-room with her ladyship and Mary. Poor Mary had put on another pretty gown for dinner, still bent uponeffacing Mr. Hammond's image of her as a tousled, frantic creature intorn and muddy raiment. She sat watching the door, just as Hammond hadwatched it three hours ago. 

'So, ' said Maulevrier, 'your ladyship has succeeded in driving my friendaway. Hammond has left Fellside, and begs me to convey to you hiscompliments and his grateful acknowledgment of all your kindness. '

'I hope I have not been uncivil to him, ' answered Lady Maulevriercoldly. 'As you had both made up your minds to go to-morrow, it canmatter very little that he should go to-day. '

Mary looked down at the ribbon and lace on her prettiest frock, andthought that it mattered a great deal to her. Yet, if he had stayed, would he have seen her frock or her? With his bodily eyes, perhaps, butnot with the eyes of his mind. Those eyes saw only Lesbia. 

'No, perhaps it hardly matters, ' answered Maulevrier, with suppressedanger. 'The man is not worth talking about or thinking about. What ishe? Only the best, truest, bravest fellow I ever knew. '

'There are shepherds and guides in Grasmere of whom we could say almostas much, ' said Lady Maulevrier, 'yet you would scarcely expect me toencourage one of them to pay his addresses to your sister? Pray spare usall nonsense-talk, Maulevrier. This business is very well ended. Youought never to have brought Mr. Hammond here. '

'I am sure of that now. I am very sorry I did bring him. '

'Oh, the man will not die for love. A disappointment of that kind isgood for a young man in his position. It will preserve him from morevulgar entanglements, and perhaps from the folly of a too earlymarriage. '

'That is a mighty philosophical way of looking at the matter. '

'It is the only true way. I hope when you are my age you will havelearnt to look at everything in a philosophical spirit. '

'Well, Lady Maulevrier, you have had it all your own way, ' said theyoung man, walking up and down the room in an angry mood. 'I hope youwill never be sorry for having come between two people who loved eachother, and might have made each other happy. '

'I shall never he sorry for having saved my granddaughter from animprudent marriage. Give me your arm, Maulevrier, and let me hear nomore about Mr. Hammond. We have all had quite enough of him, ' said herladyship, as the butler announced dinner. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

'SINCE PAINTED OR NOT PAINTED ALL SHALL FADE. '

Fräulein Müller and her charge returned from St. Bees after a sojourn ofabout three weeks upon that quiet shore: but Lady Lesbia did not appearto be improved in health or spirits by the revivifying breezes of theocean. 

'It is a dull, horrid place, and I was bored to death there!' she said, when Mary asked how she had enjoyed herself. 'There was no question ofenjoyment. Grandmother took it into her head that I was looking ill, andsent me to the sea; but I should have been just as well at Fellside. '

This meant that between Lesbia and that distinctly inferior being, heryounger sister, there was to be no confidence. Mary had watched thelife-drama acted under her eyes too closely not to know all about it, and was not inclined to be so put off. 

That pale perturbed countenance of John Hammond's, those eager inquiringeyes looking to the door which opened not, had haunted Mary's wakingthoughts, had even mingled with the tangled web of her dreams. Oh, howcould any woman scorn such love? To be so loved, and by such a man, seemed to Mary the perfection of earthly bliss. She had never beeneducated up to those wider and loftier views of life, which teach awoman that houses and lands, place and power, are the supreme good. 

'I can't understand how you could treat that noble-minded man so badly, 'she exclaimed one day, when she and Lesbia were alone in the library, and after she had sat for ever so long, staring out of the window, meditating upon her sister's cruelty. 

'Of whom are you speaking, pray?'

'As if you didn't know! Of Mr. Hammond. '

'And pray, how do you know that he is noble-minded, or that I treatedhim badly?'

'Well, as to his being noble-minded, that jumps to the eyes, as Frenchbooks say. As for your treatment of him, I was looking on all the time, and I know how unkind you were, and I heard him talking to you in thefir-copse that day. '

'You Were listening' cried Lesbia indignantly. 

'I was not listening! I was passing by. And if people choose to carry ontheir love affairs out of doors they must expect to be overheard. Iheard him pleading to you, telling you how he would work for you, fightthe battle of life for you, asking you to be trustful and brave for hissake. But you have a heart of stone. You and grandmother both havehearts of stone. I think she must have taken out your heart when youwere little, and put a stone in its place. '

'Really, ' said Lesbia, trying to carry things with a high hand, albeither very human heart was beating passionately all the time, 'I think youought to be very grateful to me--and grandmother--for refusing Mr. Hammond. '

'Why grateful?'

'Because it leaves you a chance of getting him for yourself; andeverybody can see that you are over head and ears in love with him. Thatjumps to the eyes, as you say. '

Mary turned crimson, trembled with rage, looked at her sister as if shewould kill her, for a moment or so, and finally burst into tears. 

'That is not true, and it is shameful for you to say such a thing, ' shecried. 

'Why, what a virago you are, Mary. Well, I'm very glad it is not true. Mr. Hammond is--yes, I will be quite candid with you--he is the only manI am ever likely to admire for his own sake. He is good, brave, clever, all that you think him. But you and I do not live in a world in whichgirls are free to follow their own inclinations. I should break LadyMaulevrier's heart if I were to make a foolish marriage; and I owe hertoo much to set her wishes at naught, or to make her declining yearsunhappy. I must obey her, at any cost to my own feelings. Please nevermention Mr. Hammond's name. I'm sure I've had quite enough unhappinessabout him. '

'I see, ' said Mary, bitterly. 'It is your own pain you think of, nothis. He may suffer, so long as you are not worried. '

'You are an impertinent chit, ' retorted Lesbia, 'and you know nothingabout it. '

After this there was no more said about Mr. Hammond; but Mary did notforget him. She wrote long letters to her brother, who was still inScotland, shooting, deer-stalking, fishing, killing something or otherdaily, in the most approved fashion of an Englishman taking hispleasure. Maulevrier occasionally repaid her with a telegram; but he wasnot a good correspondent. He declared that life was too short forletter-writing. 

Summer was gone; the lake was no longer a shining emerald floor, dottedwith the reflection of the flock upon the verdant slopes above it, butdull and grey of hue, and broken by white-edged wavelets. Patches ofsnow gleamed on the misty heights of Helvellyn, and the autumn windshowled and shrieked around Fellside in the evenings, when all theshutters were shut, and the outside world seemed little more than anidea: that mystic hour when the sheep are slumbering under the starrysky, and when, as the Westmoreland peasant believes, the fairies helpthe housewife at her spinning-wheel. 

Those October evenings were very long and weary for Lesbia and hersister. Lady Maulevrier read and mused in her low chair beside the fire, with her books piled upon her own particular table, and lighted by herown particular lamp. She talked very little, but she was always graciousto her granddaughters and their governess, and she liked them to be withher in the evening. Lesbia played or sang, or sat at work at herbasket-table, which occupied the other side of the fireplace; andFräulein and Mary had the rest of the room to themselves, as it were, those two places by the hearth being sacred, as if dedicated tohousehold gods. Mary read immensely in those long evenings, devouringvolume after volume, feeding her imagination with every kind ofnutriment, good, bad, and indifferent. Fräulein Müller knitted a woollenshawl, which seemed to have neither beginning, middle, nor end, and wasalways ready for conversation, but there were times when silence broodedover the scene for long intervals, and when every sound of the lightwood-ashes dropping on the tiled hearth was distinctly audible. 

This state of things went on for about three weeks after Lesbia's returnfrom St. Bees, Lady Maulevrier watchful of her granddaughter all thetime, though saying nothing. She saw that Lesbia was not happy, not asshe had been in the time before the coming of John Hammond. She hadnever been particularly gay or light-hearted, never gifted with the wildspirits and buoyancy which make girlhood so lovely a season to somenatures, a time of dance and song and joyousness, a morning of lifesteeped in the beauty and gladness of the universe. She had never beengay as young lambs and foals and fawns and kittens and puppy dogs aregay, by reason of the well-spring of delight within them, needing nostimulus from the outside world. She had been just a little inclined tomurmur at the dulness of her life at Fellside; yet she had borne herselfwith a placid sweetness which had been Lady Maulevrier's delight. Butnow there was a marked change in her manner. She was not the lesssubmissive and dutiful in her bearing to her grandmother, whom she bothloved and feared; but there were moments of fretfulness and impatiencewhich she could not conceal. She was captious and sullen in her mannerto Mary and the Fräulein. She would not walk or drive with them, orshare in any of their amusements. Sometimes of an evening that studioussilence of the drawing-room was suddenly broken by Lesbia's weary sigh, breathed unawares as she bent over her work. 

Lady Maulevrier saw, too, that Lesbia's cheek was paler than of old, hereyes less bright. There was a heavy look that told of broken slumbers, there was a pinched look in that oval check. Good heavens! if her beautywere to pale and wane, before society had bowed down and worshipped it;if this fair flower were to fade untimely; if this prize rose in thegarden of beauty were to wither and decay before it won the prize. 

Her ladyship was a woman of action, and no sooner did this fear shapeitself in her mind than she took steps to prevent the evil her thoughtsforeshadowed. 

Among those friends of her youth and allies of her house with whom shehad always maintained an affectionate correspondence was Lady Kirkbank, the fashionable wife of a sporting baronet, owner of a castle inScotland, a place in Yorkshire, a villa at Cannes, and a fine house inArlington Street, with an income large enough for their enjoyment. WhenLady Diana Angersthorpe shone forth in the West End world as theacknowledged belle of the season, the star of Georgina Lorimer wasbeginning to wane. She was the eldest daughter of Colonel Lorimer, a manof good old family, and a fine soldier, who had fought shoulder toshoulder with Gough and Lawrence, and who had contrived to make a figurein society with very small means. Georgina's sisters had all marriedwell. It was a case of necessity, the Colonel told them; they musteither marry or gravitate ultimately to the workhouse. So the MissLorimers made the best use of their youth and freshness, and 'no goodoffer refused' was the guiding rule of their young lives. Lucy marriedan East India merchant, and set up a fine house in Porchester Terrace. Maud married wealth personified in the person of a leading member of theTallow Chandlers' Company, and had her town house and country house, andas fine a set of diamonds as a duchess. 

But Georgina, the eldest, trifled with her chances, and hertwenty-seventh birthday beheld her pouring out her father's tea in asmall furnished house in a street off Portland Place, which the Colonelhad hired on his return from India, and which he declared himself unableto maintain another year. 

'Directly the season is over I shall give up housekeeping and take alodging at Bath, ' said Colonel Lorimer. 'If you don't like Bath all theyear round you can stay with your sisters. '

'That is the last thing I am likely to do, ' answered Georgina; 'mysisters were barely endurable when they were single and poor. They arequite intolerable now they are married and rich. I would sooner live inthe monkey-house at the Zoological than stay with either Lucy or Maud. '

'That's rank envy, ' retorted her father 'You can't forgive them forhaving done so much better than you. '

'I can't forgive them for having married snobs. When I marry I shallmarry a gentleman. '

'When!' echoed the parent, with a sneering laugh. 'Hadn't you better say"if"'?

At this period Georgina's waning good looks were in some measurecounterbalanced by the cumulative effects of half a dozen seasons ingood society, which had given style to her person, ease to her manners, and sharpness to her tongue. Nobody in society said sharper or moreunpleasant things than Miss Lorimer, and by virtue of this gift she gotinvited about a great deal more than she might have done had she beendistinguished for sweetness of speech and manner. Georgie Lorimer'spresence at a dinner table gave just that pungent flavour which is likethe faint suspicion of garlic in a fricassee or of tarragon in a salad. 

Now in this very season, when Colonel Lorimer was inclined to speak ofhis daughter, as Sainte Beuve wrote of Musset, as a young woman with avery brilliant past, a lucky turn of events gave Georgina a fresh startin life, which may be called a new departure. Lady Diana Angersthorpe, the belle of the season, took a fancy to her, was charmed with her sharptongue and acute sense of the ridiculous. The two became fast friends, and were seen everywhere together. The best men all flocked round thebeauty, and all talked to the beauty's companion: and before the seasonwas over, Sir George Kirkbank, who had had half made up his mind topropose to Lady Diana, found himself engaged to that uncommonly jollygirl, Lady Diana's friend. Georgina spent August and September with LadyDi, at the Marchioness of Carisbroke's delightful villa in the Isle ofWight, and Sir George kept his yacht at Cowes all the time, and was inconstant attendance upon his fiancée. It was George and Georgieeverywhere. In October Colonel Lorimer had the profound pleasure ofgiving away his daughter, before the altar in St. George's, HanoverSquare, and it may be said of him that nothing in his relations withthat young lady became him better than his manner of parting with her. 

So the needy Colonel's daughter became Lady Kirkbank, and in thefollowing spring Diana Angersthorpe was married at the same St. George'sto the Earl of Maulevrier. The friends were divided by distance and bycircumstance as the years rolled on; but friendship was steadilymaintained; and a regular correspondence with Lady Kirkbank, whose penwas as sharp as her tongue, was one of the means by which LadyMaulevrier had kept herself thoroughly posted in all those small events, unrecorded by newspapers, which make up the secret history of society. 

It was of her old friend Georgie that her ladyship thought in herpresent anxiety. Lady Kirkbank had more than once suggested that LadyMaulevrier's granddaughters should vary the monotony of Fellside by avisit to her place near Doncaster, or her castle north of Aberdeen; buther ladyship had evaded these friendly suggestions, being very jealousof any strange influence upon Lesbia's life. Now, however, there hadcome a time when Lesbia must have a complete change of scenery andsurroundings, lest she should pine and dwindle in sullen submission tofate, or else defy the world and elope with John Hammond. 

Now, therefore, Lady Maulevrier decided to accept Lady Kirkbank'shospitality. She told her friend the whole story with perfect frankness, and her letter was immediately answered by a telegram. 

'I start for Scotland to-morrow, will break my journey by staying anight at Fellside, and will take Lady Lesbia on to Kirkbank with me nextday, if she can be ready to go. '

'She shall be ready, ' said Lady Maulevrier. 

She told Lesbia that she had accepted an invitation for her, and thatshe was to go to Kirkbank Castle the day after to-morrow. She wasprepared for unwillingness, resistance even; but Lesbia received thenews with evident pleasure. 

'I shall be very glad to go, ' she said, 'this place is so dull. Ofcourse I shall be sorry to leave you, grandmother, and I wish you wouldgo with me; but any change will be a relief. I think if I had to stayhere all the winter, counting the days and the hours, I should go out ofmy mind. '

The tears came into her eyes, but she wiped them away hurriedly, ashamedof her emotion. 

'My dearest child, I am so sorry for you, ' murmured Lady Maulevrier. 'But believe me the day will come when you will be very glad that youconquered the first foolish inclination of your girlish heart. '

'Yes, I daresay, when I am eighty, ' Lesbia answered, impatiently. Shehad made up her mind to submit to the inevitable. She had loved JohnHammond--had been as near breaking her heart for him as it was in hernature to break her heart for anybody; but she wanted to make a greatmarriage, to be renowned and admired. She had been reared and trainedfor that; and she was not going to belie her training. 

A visitor from the great London world was so rare an event that therewas naturally a little excitement in the idea of Lady Kirkbank'sarrival. The handsomest and most spacious of the spare bedrooms wasprepared for the occasion. The housekeeper was told that the dinner mustbe perfect. There must be nothing old-fashioned or ponderous; there mustbe mind as well as matter in everything. Rarely did Lady Maulevrier lookat a bill of fare; but on this particular morning she went carefullythrough the menu, and corrected it with her own hand. 

A pair of post-horses brought Lady Kirkbank and her maid from Windermerestation, in time for afternoon tea, and the friends who had only mettwice within the last forty years, embraced each other on the thresholdof Lady Maulevrier's morning-room. 

'My dearest Di, ' cried Lady Kirkbank, 'what a delight to see you againafter such ages; and what a too lovely spot you have chosen for yourretreat from the world, the flesh, and the devil. If I could be arecluse anywhere, it would be amongst just such delicious surroundings. '

Without, twilight shades were gathering; within, there was only thelight of a fire and a shaded lamp upon the tea table; there was justlight enough for the two women to see each other's faces, and the changewhich time had wrought there. 

Never did womanhood in advanced years offer a more striking contrastthan that presented by the woman of fashion and the recluse. LadyMaulevrier was almost as handsome in the winter of her days as she hadbeen when life was in its spring. The tall, slim figure, erect as adart, the delicately chiselled features and alabaster complexion, thesoft silvery hair, the perfect hand, whiter and more transparent thanthe hand of girlhood, the stately movements and bearing, all combined tomake Lady Maulevrier a queen among woman. Her brocade gown of a deepshade of red, with a border of dark sable on cuffs and collar, suggesteda portrait by Velasquez. She wore no ornaments except the fine oldBrazilian diamonds which flashed and sparkled upon her slender fingers. 

If Lady Maulevrier looked like a picture in the Escurial, Lady Kirkbankresembled a caricature in _La Vie Parisienne_. Everything she wore wasin the very latest fashion of the Parisian _demi-monde_, thatexaggerated elegance of a fashion plate which only the most exquisite ofwomen could redeem from vulgarity. Plush, brocade, peacock's feathers, golden bangles, mousquetaire gloves, a bonnet of purple plumage set offby ornaments of filagree gold, an infantine little muff of lace and wildflowers, buttercups and daisies; and hair, eyebrows and complexion asartificial as the flowers on the muff. 

All that art could do to obliterate the traces of age had been done forGeorgina Kirkbank. But seventy years are not to be obliterated easily, and the crow's feet showed through the bloom de Ninon, and the eyesunder the painted arches were glassy and haggard, the carnation lips hada withered look. Age was made all the more palpable by the artificewhich would have disguised it. 

Lady Maulevrier suffered an absolute shock at beholding the friend ofher youth. She had not accustomed herself to the idea that women insociety could raddle their cheeks, stain their lips, and play tricksbefore high heaven with their eyebrows and eyelashes. In her own youthpainted faces had been the ghastly privilege of a class of womankind ofwhich the women of society were supposed to know nothing. Persons whoshowed their ankles and rouged their cheeks were to be seen of anafternoon in Bond Street; but Lady Diana Angersthorpe had been taught topass them by as if she saw them not, to behold without seeing thesecreatures outside the pale. And now she saw her own dearest friend, aperson distinctly within the pale, plastered with bismuth and stainedwith carmine, and wearing hair of a colour so obviously false andinharmonious, that child-like faith could hardly accept it as reality. Forty years ago Lady Kirkbank's long ringlets had been darkest glossiestbrown, to-day she wore a tousled fringe of bright yellow, piquantlycontrasting with Vandyke brown eyebrows. 

It took Lady Maulevrier some moments to get over the shock. She drew achair to the fire and established her friend in it, and then, with alittle gasp, she said:

'I am charmed to see you again, Georgie!'

'You darling, I was sure you would be glad. But you must find me awfullychanged--awfully. '

For worlds Lady Maulevrier could not have denied this truth. HappilyLady Kirkbank did not wait for an answer. 

'Society is so wearing, and George and I never seem to get an intervalof quiet. Kirkbank is to be full of men next week. Your granddaughterwill have a good time. '

'There will be a few women, of course?'

'Oh, yes, there's no avoiding that; only one doesn't reckon them. SirGeorge only counts his guns. We expect a splendid season. I shall sendyou some birds of my own shooting. '

'You shoot!' exclaimed Lady Maulevrier, amazed. 

'Shoot! I should think I do. What else is there to amuse one inScotland, after the salmon fishing is over? I have never missed a seasonfor the last thirty years, unless we have been abroad. '

'Please, don't innoculate Lesbia with your love of sport. '

'What! you wouldn't like her to shoot? Well, perhaps you are right. Itis hardly the thing for a pretty girl with her fortune to make. Itspoils the delicacy of the skin. But I'm afraid she'll find Kirkbankdull if she doesn't go out with the guns. She can meet us with the restof the women at luncheon. We have some capital picnic luncheons on themoor, I can assure you. '

'I know she will enjoy herself with you. She has been accustomed to avery quiet life here. '

'It is a lovely spot; but I own I cannot understand how you can havelived here exclusively during all these years--you who used to be alllife and fire, loving change, action, political and diplomatic society, to dance upon the crest of the wave, as it were. Your whole nature musthave suffered some curious change. '

Their close intimacy of the past warranted freedom of speech in thepresent. 

'My nature did undergo a change, and a severe one, ' answered LadyMaulevrier, gloomily. 

'It was that horrid--and I daresay unfortunate scandal about hislordship; and then the sad shock of his death, ' murmured Lady Kirkbank, sympathetically. 'Most women, with your youth and beauty, would haveforgotten the scandal and the husband in a twelvemonth, and would havemade a second marriage more brilliant than the first. But no Indianwidow who ever performed suttee was more worthy of praise than you, oreven that person of Ephesus, whose story I have heard somewhere. Indeed, I have always spoken of your life as a long suttee. But you mean tore-appear in society next season, I hope, when you present yourgranddaughter?'

'I shall certainly go up to London to present her, and possibly I mayspend the season in town; but I shall feel like Rip Van Winkle. '

'No, no, you won't, my dear Di. You have kept yourself _au courant_, Iknow. Even my silly gossiping letters may have been of _some_ use. '

'They have been most valuable. Let me give you another cup of tea, ' saidLady Maulevrier, who had been officiating at her own exquisitetea-table, an arrangement of inlaid woods, antique silver, and modernchina, which her friend pronounced a perfect poem. 

Indeed, the whole room was poetic, Lady Kirkbank declared, and there aremany highly praised scenes which less deserve the epithet. The dark redwalls and cedar dado, the stamped velvet curtains, of an indescribableshade between silver-grey and olive, the Sheraton furniture, theparqueterie floor and Persian prayer-rugs, the deep yet brilliant huesof crackle porcelain and Chinese cloisonné enamel, the artisticfireplace, with dog-stove, low brass fender, and ingle-nook recessedunder the high mantelpiece, all combined to form a luxurious andharmonious whole. 

Lady Kirkbank admired the _tout ensemble_ in the fitful light of thefire, the dim grey of deepening twilight. 

'There never was a more delicious cell!' she exclaimed, 'but still Ishould feel it a prison, if I had to spend six weeks in the year in it. I never stay more than six weeks anywhere out of London; and I alwaysfind six weeks more than enough. The first fortnight is rapture, thethird and fourth weeks are calm content, the fifth is weariness, thesixth a fever to be gone. I once tried a seventh week at Pontresina, andI hated the place so intensely that I dared not go back there for thenext three years. But now tell me. Diana, have you really performedsuttee, have you buried yourself alive in this sweet spot deliberately, or has the love of retirement grown upon you, and have you become a kindof lotus-eater?'

'I believe I have become a kind of lotus-eater. My retirement here hasbeen no sentimental sacrifice to Lord Maulevrier's memory. '

'I am glad to hear that; for I really think the worst possible use awoman can make of her life is in wasting it on lamentation for a deadand gone husband. Life is odiously short at the best, and it is mereimbecility to fritter away any of our scanty portion upon the dead, whocan never be any the better for our tears. '

'My motive in living at Fellside was not reverence for the dead. And nowlet us talk of the gay world, of which you know all the secrets. Haveyou heard anything more about Lord Hartfield?'

'Ah, there is a subject in which you have reason to be interested. Ihave not forgotten the romance of your youth--that first season in whichRonald Hollister used to haunt every place at which you appeared. Do youremember that wet afternoon at the Chiswick flower-show, when you and heand I took shelter in the orange house, and you two made love to eachother most audaciously in an atmosphere of orange-blossoms that almoststifled me? Yes, those were glorious days!'

'A short summer of gladness, a brief dream, ' sighed Lady Maulevrier. 'Isyoung Lord Hartfield like his father?'

'No, he takes after the Ilmingtons; but still there is a look of yourold sweetheart--yes, I think there is an expression. I have not seen himfor nearly a year. He is still abroad, roaming about somewhere in searchof adventures. These young men who belong to the Geographical and theAlpine Club are hardly ever at home. '

'But though they may be sometimes lost to society, they are all themore worthy of society's esteem when they do appear, ' said LadyMaulevrier. 'I think there must be an ennobling influence in Alpinetravel, or in the vast solitudes of the Dark Continent. A man findshimself face to face with unsophisticated nature, and with the grandestforces of the universe. Professor Tyndall writes delightfully of hisAlpine experiences; his mind seems to have ripened in the solitude anduntainted air of the Alps. And I believe Lord Hartfield is a young manof very high character and of considerable cultivation, is he not?'

'He is a splendid young fellow. I never heard a word to hisdisparagement, even from those people who pretend to know something badabout everybody. What a husband he would make for one of your girls!'

'Admirable! But those perfect arrangements, which seem predestined byheaven itself, are so rarely realised on earth, ' answered the dowager, lightly. 

She was not going to show her cards, even to an old friend. 

'Well, it would be very sweet if they were to meet next season and fallin love with each other, ' said Lady Kirkbank. 'He is enormously rich, andI daresay your girls will not be portionless. '

'Lesbia may take a modest place among heiresses, ' answered LadyMaulevrier. 'I have lived so quietly during the last forty years that Icould hardly help saving money. '

'How nice!' sighed Georgie. 'I never saved sixpence in my life, and amalways in debt. '

'The little fortune I have saved is much too small for division. Lesbiawill therefore have all I can leave her. Mary has the usual provision asa daughter of the Maulevrier house. '

'And I suppose Lesbia has that provision also?'

'Of course. '

'Lucky Lesbia. I only wish Hartfield were coming to us for the shooting. I would engage he should fall in love with her. Kirkbank is a splendidplace for match-making. But the fact is I am not very intimate with him. He is almost always travelling, and when he is at home he is not in ourset. And now, my dear Diana, tell me more about yourself, and your ownlife in this delicious place. '

'There is so little to tell. The books I have read, the theories ofliterature and art and science which I have adopted and dismissed, learnt and forgotten--those are the history of my life. The ideas of theoutside world reach me here only in books and newspapers; but you whohave been living in the world must have so much to say. Let me be thelistener. '

Lady Kirkbank desired nothing better. She rattled on for three-quartersof an hour about her doings in the great world, her social triumphs, thewonderful things she had done for Sir George, who seemed to be as apuppet in her hands, the princes and princelings she had entertained, the songs she had composed, the comedy she had written, for privaterepresentation only, albeit the Haymarket manager was dying to produceit, the scathing witticisms with which she had withered her socialenemies. She would have gone on much longer, but for the gong, whichreminded her that it was time to dross for dinner. 

Half-an-hour later Lady Kirkbank was in the drawing-room, where Mary hadretired to the most shadowy corner, anxious to escape the gaze of thefashionable visitor. 

But Lady Kirkbank was not inclined to take much notice of Mary. Lesbia'sbrilliant beauty, the exquisite Greek head, the faultless complexion, the deep, violet eyes, caught Georgina Kirkbank's eye the moment she hadentered the room, and she saw that this girl and no other must be thebeauty, the beloved and chosen grandchild. 

'How do you do, my dear?' she said, taking Lesbia's hand, and then, asif with a gush of warm feeling, suddenly drawing the girl towards herand kissing her on both cheeks. 'I am going to be desperately fond ofyou, and I hope you will soon contrive to like me--just a little. '

'I feel sure that I shall like you very much, ' Lesbia answered sweetly. 'I am prepared to love you as grandmother's old friend. '

'Oh, my dear, to think that I should ever be the old friend of anybody'sgrandmother!' sighed Lady Kirkbank, with unaffected regret. 'When I wasyour age I used to think all old people odious. It never occurred to methat I should live to be one of them. '

'Then you had no dear grandmother whom you loved, ' said Lesbia, 'or youwould have liked old people for her sake. '

'No, my love, I had no grandparents. I had a father, and he wasall-sufficient--anything beyond him in the ancestral line would havebeen a burden laid upon me greater than I could bear, as the poet says. '

Dinner was announced, and Mary came shyly out of her corner, blushingdeeply. 

'And this is Lady Mary, I suppose?' said Lady Kirkbank, in an off-handway, 'How do you do, my dear? I am going to steal your sister. '

'I am very glad, ' faltered Mary. 'I mean I am glad that Lesbia shouldenjoy herself. '

'And some fine day, when Lesbia is married and a great lady, I shall askyou to come to Scotland, ' said Lady Kirkbank, condescendingly, and thanshe murmured in her friend's ear, as they went to the dining-room, 'Quite an English girl. Very fresh and frank and nice, ' which was greatpraise for such a second-rate young person as Lady Mary. 

'What do you think of Lesbia?' asked Lady Maulevrier, in the sameundertone. 

'She is simply adorable. Your letters prepared me to expect beauty, butnot such beauty. My dear, I thought the progress of the human race wasall in a downward line since our time; but your granddaughter is ashandsome as you were in your first season, and that is going very far. '

CHAPTER XIV. 

'NOT YET. '

Lady Kirkbank carried off Lesbia early next day, the girl radiant at theidea of seeing life under new conditions. She had a few minutes' serioustalk with her grandmother before she went. 

'Lesbia, you are going into the world, ' said Lady Maulevrier; 'yes, evena country house is the world in little. You will have many admirersinstead of one; but I think, I believe, that you will be true to me andto yourself. '

'You need not fear, grandmother. I have been an idiot; but--but it wasonly a passing folly, and I shall never be so weak again. '

Lesbia's scornful lips and kindling eyes gave intensity to her speech. It was evident that she despised herself for that one touch of womanlysoftness which had made her as ready to fall in love with her firstwooer as any peasant girl in Grasmere Vale. 

'I am delighted to hear you speak thus, dearest, ' said Lady Maulevrier. 'And if Mr. Hamilton--Hammond, I mean--should have the audacity tofollow you to Kirkbank, and to intrude himself upon you there--perhapsto persecute you with clandestine addresses----'

'I do not believe he would do anything clandestine, ' said Lesbia, drawing herself up. 'He is quite above that. '

'My dear child, we know absolutely nothing about him. He has his way tomake in the world unaided by family or connections. He isclever--daring. Such a man cannot help being an adventurer; and anadventurer is capable of anything. I warn you to beware of him. '

'I don't suppose I shall ever see his face again, ' retorted Lesbia, irritably. 

She had made up her mind that her life was not to be spoiled, herbrilliant future sacrificed, for the sake of John Hammond; but the woundwhich she had suffered in renouncing him was still fresh, her feelingswere still sore. Any contemptuous mention of him stung her to the quick. 

'I hope not. And you will beware of other adventurers, Lesbia, men of aworse stamp than Mr. Hammond, more experienced in ruse and iniquity, mensteeped to the lips in worldly knowledge, men who look upon women asmere counters in the game of life. The world thinks that I am rich, andyou will no doubt take rank as an heiress. You will therefore be a markfor every spendthrift, noble or otherwise, who wants to restore hisbroken fortunes by a wealthy marriage. And now, my dearest, good-bye. Half my heart goes with you. Nothing could induce me to part with you, even for a few weeks, except the conviction that it is for your good. '

'But we shall not be parted next year, I hope, grandmother, ' saidLesbia, affectionately. 'You said something about presenting me, andthen leaving me in Lady Kirkbank's care for the season. I should notlike that at all. I want you to go everywhere with me, to teach me allthe mysteries of the great world. You have always promised me that itshould be so. '

'And I have always intended that it should be so. I hope that it will beso, ' answered her grandmother, with a sigh; 'but I am an old woman, Lesbia, and I am rooted to this place. '

'But why should you be rooted here? What charm can keep you here, whenyou are so fitted to shine in society? You are old in nothing but years, and not even old in years in comparison with women whom we hear of, going everywhere and mixing in every fashionable amusement. You are fullof fire and energy, and as active as a girl. Why should you not enjoy aLondon season, grandmother?' pleaded Lesbia, nestling her head lovinglyagainst Lady Maulevrier's shoulder. 

'I should enjoy it, dearest, with you. It would be a renewal of my youthto see you shine and conquer. I should be as proud as if the glory wereall my own. Yes, dear, I hope that I shall be a spectator of yourtriumphs. But do not let us plan the future. Life is so full of changes. Remember what Horace says----'

'Horace is a bore, ' said Lesbia. 'I hate a poet who is always harpingupon change and death. '

The carriage, which was to take the travellers to Windermere Station, was announced at this moment, and Lesbia and her grandmother gave eachother the farewell embrace. 

'You like Lady Kirkbank, I hope?' said Lady Maulevrier, as they wenttowards the ball, where that lady was waiting for them, with Lady Maryand Fräulein Müller in attendance upon her. 

'She seems very kind, but I should like her better if she did notpaint--or if she painted better. '

'My dear child I'm afraid it is the fashion of the day, just as it wasin Pope's time, and we ought to think nothing about it. '

'Well, I suppose I shall get hardened in time. '

'My dearest Lesbia, ' shrieked Lady Kirkbank from below, 'remember wehave to catch a train. '

Lesbia hurried downstairs, followed by Lady Maulevrier, who had to bidher friend adieu. The luggage had been sent on in a cart, Lesbia'strunks and dress baskets forming no small item. She was so wellfurnished with pretty gowns of all kinds that there had been nodifficulty in getting her ready for this sudden visit. Her maid was onthe box beside the coachman. Lady Kirkbank's attendant, a Frenchwoman offive-and-thirty, who looked as if she had graduated at Mabille, was tooccupy the back seat of the landau. 

Lady Mary looked after her sister longingly, as the carriage drove downthe hill. She was going into a new world, to see all kinds ofpeople--clever people--distinguished people--musical, artistic, political people--hunting and shooting people--while Mary was to stay athome all the winter among the old familiar faces. Dearly as she lovedthese hills and vales her heart sank a little at the thought of thoselong lonely months, days and evenings that would be all alike, and whichmust be spent without sympathetic companionship. And there would bedreary days on which the weather would keep her a prisoner in herluxurious gaol, when the mountains, and the rugged paths beside themountain streams, would be inaccessible, when she would be restricted toFräulein's phlegmatic society, that lady being stout and lazy, fond ofher meals, and given to afternoon slumbers. Lesbia and Mary were not byany means sympathetic; yet, after all, blood is thicker than water; andLesbia was intelligent, and could talk of the things Mary loved, whichwas better than total dumbness, even if she generally took anantagonistic view of them. 

'I shall miss her dreadfully, ' thought Mary, as she strolled listlesslyin the gardens, where the leaves where falling and the flowers fading. 

'I wonder if she will see Mr. Hammond at Lady Kirkbank's?' mused Mary. 'If he were anything like a lover he would find out all about her visit, and seize the opportunity of her being away from grandmother. But thenif he had been much of a lover he would have followed her to St. Bees. '

Lady Maulevrier sorely missed her favourite grandchild. In a life spentin such profound seclusion, so remote from the busy interests of theworld, this beloved companionship had become a necessity to her. She hadconcentrated her affections upon Lesbia, and the girl's absence made afearful blank. But her ladyship's dignity was not compromised by anyoutward signs of trouble or loss. 

She spent her mornings in her own room, reading and writing and musingat her leisure; she drove or walked every fine afternoon, sometimesalone, sometimes attended by Mary, who hated these stately drives andwalks. She dined _tête-à-tête_ with Mary, except on those rare occasionswhen there were visitors--the Vicar and his wife, or some wandering starfrom other worlds Mary lived in profound awe of her grandmother, butwas of far too frank a nature to be able to adapt her speech or hermanners to her ladyship's idea of feminine perfection. She was silentand shy under those falcon eyes; but she was still the same Mary, thegirl to whom pretence or simulation of any kind was impossible. 

Letters came almost every day from Kirkbank Castle, letters from Lesbiadescribing the bright gay life she was living at that hospitable abode, the excursions, the rides, the picnic luncheons after the morning'ssport, the dinner parties, the dances. 

'It is the most delightful house you can imagine, ' wrote Lesbia; 'andLady Kirkbank is an admirable hostess. I have quite forgiven her forwearing false eyebrows; for after all, you know, one must _have_eyebrows; they are a necessity; but why does she not have the two archesalike? They are _never_ a pair, and I really think that French maid ofhers does it on purpose. 

'By-the-bye, Lady Kirkbank is going to write to you to beseech you tolet me go to Cannes and Monte Carlo with her. Sir George insists uponit. He says they both like young society, and will be horribly vexed ifI refuse to go with them. And Lady Kirkbank thinks my chest is just alittle weak--I almost broke down the other night in that lovely littlesong of Jensen's--and that a winter in the south is just what I want. But, of course, dear grandmother, I won't ask you to let me be away solong if you think you will miss me. '

'If I think I shall miss her!' repeated Lady Maulevrier. 'Has the girlno heart, that she can ask such a question? But can I wonder at that? Ofwhat account was I or my love to her father, although I sacrificedmyself for his good name? Can I expect that she should be of a differentclay?'

And then, meditating upon the events of the summer that was gone, LadyMaulevrier thought--

She renounced her first lover at my bidding; she renounces her love forme at the bidding of the world. Or was it not rather self-interest, thefear of making a bad marriage, which influenced her in her renunciationof Mr. Hammond. It was not obedience to me, it was not love for me whichmade her give him up. It was the selfishness engrained in her race. Well, I have heaped my love upon her, because she is fair and sweet, andreminds me of my own youth. I must let her go, and try to be happy inthe knowledge that she is enjoying her life far away from me. '

Lady Maulevrier wrote her consent to the extension of Lesbia's visit, and by return of post came a letter from Lesbia which seemed brimmingover with love, and which comforted the grandmother's wounded heart. 

'Lady Kirkbank and I are both agreed, dearest, that you must join us atCannes, ' wrote Lesbia. 'At your age it is very wrong of you to spend awinter in our horrible climate. You can travel with Steadman and yourmaid. Lady Kirkbank will secure you a charming suite of rooms at thehotel, or she would like it still better if you would stay at her ownvilla. Do consent to this plan, dear grandmother, and then we shall notbe parted for a long winter. Of course Mary would be quite happy at homerunning wild. '

Lady Maulevrier sighed as she read this letter, sighed again, andheavily, as she put it back into the envelope. Alas, how many and many ayear had gone, long, monotonous, colourless years, since she had seenthat bright southern world which she was now urged to revisit. In fancyshe saw it again to-day, the tideless sea of deepest sapphire blue, thelittle wavelets breaking on a yellow beach, the white triangular sails, the woods full of asphodel and great purple and white lilies, theatmosphere steeped in warmth and light and perfume, the glare of whitehouses in the sun, the red and yellow blinds, the pots of green andorange and crimson clay, with oleanders abloom, the wonderful glow ofcolour everywhere and upon all things. And then as the eyes of the mindrecalled these vivid images her bodily eyes looked out upon therain-blotted scene, the mountains rising in a dark and dismal circleround that sombre pool below, walling her in from the outer world. 

'I am at the bottom of a grave, ' she said to herself. 'I am in a livingtomb, from which there is no escape. Forty years! Forty years ofpatience and hope, for what? For dreams which may never be realised; fordescendants who may never give me the price of my labours. Yes, I shouldlike to go to my dear one. I should like to revisit the South of France, to go on to Italy. I should feel young again amidst that eternal, unchangeable loveliness. I should forget all I have suffered. But itcannot be. Not yet, not yet!'

Presently with a smile of concentrated bitterness she repeated the words'Not yet!'

'Surely at my age it must be folly to dream of the future; and yet Ifeel as if there were half a century of life in me, as if I had lostnothing in either mental or bodily vigour since I came here forty yearsago. '

She rose as she said these words, and began to pace the room, withquiet, firm step, erect, stately, beautiful in her advanced years as shehad been in her bloom and freshness, only with another kind ofbeauty--an empress among women. The boast that she had made to herselfwas no idle boast. At sixty-seven years of age her physical powersshowed no signs of decay, her mental qualities were at their best andbrightest. Long years of thought and study had ripened and widened hermind. She was a woman fit to be the friend and counsellor of statesmen, the companion and confidant of her sovereign: and yet fate willed thatshe should be buried alive in a Westmoreland valley, seeing the samehills and streams, the same rustic faces, from year's end to year's end. Surely it was a hard fate, a heavy penance, albeit self-imposed. 

Lesbia went straight from Scotland to Paris with Sir George and LadyKirkbank. Here they stayed at the Bristol for just two days, duringwhich her hostess went all over the fashionable quarter buying clothesfor the Cannes campaign, and assisting Lesbia to spend the hundredpounds which her grandmother had sent her for the replenishment of herwell-provided wardrobe. It is astonishing how little way a hundredpounds goes among the dressmakers, corset-makers, and shoemakers ofLutetia. 

'I had no notion that clothes were so dear, ' said Lesbia, when she sawhow little she had got for her money. 

'My dear, you have two gowns which are absolutely _chien_, ' replied LadyKirkbank, 'and you have a corset which gives you a figure, which youmust forgive me for saying you never had before. '

Lady Kirkbank had to explain that _chien_ as applied to a gown or bonnetwas the same thing as _chic_, only a little more so. 

'I hope my gowns will always be _chien_, ' said Lesbia meekly. 

Next evening they were dining at Cannes, with the blue sea in front oftheir windows, dining at a table all abloom with orange flowers, tearoses, mignonette, waxen camellias, and pale Parma violets, while LadyMaulevrier and Mary dined _tête-à-tête_ at Fellside, with the featherysnow flakes falling outside, and the world whitening all around them. 

Next day the world was all white, and Mary's beloved hills wereinaccessible. 

Who could tell how long they might be covered; the winding trackshidden; the narrow forces looking like black water or molten ironagainst that glittering whiteness? Mary could only walk along the roadby Loughrigg to the bench called 'Rest and be thankful, ' from which shelooked with longing eyes across towards the Langdale Pikes, and to thesharp cone-shaped peak, known as Coniston Old Man, just visible abovethe nearer hills. Fräulein Müller suggested that it was in just suchweather as this that a well brought up young lady, a young lady with_Vernunft_ and _Anstand_, should devote herself to the improvement ofher mind. 

'Let us read German this _abscheulich_ afternoon, ' said the Fräulein. 'Suppose we go on with the "Sorrows of Werther. "'

'Werther was a fool, ' cried Mary; 'any book but that. '

'Will you choose your own book?'

'Let me read Heine. '

Fräulein looked doubtful. There were things in Heine--an all-pervadingtone--which rendered him hardly an appropriate poet for 'the youngperson. ' But Fräulein compromised the matter by letting Mary read AttaTroll, the exact bearing of which neither of them understood. 

'How beautifully Mr. Hammond read Heine that morning!' said Mary, breaking off suddenly from a perfectly automatic reading. 

'You did not hear him, did you? You were not there, ' said the Fräulein. 

'I was not _there_, but I heard him. I--I was sitting on the bank amongthe pine trees. '

'Why did you not come and sit with us? It would have been more ladylikethan to hide yourself behind the trees. '

Mary blushed crimson. 

'I had been in the kennels with Maulevrier; I was not fit to be seen, 'she said. 

'Hardly a ladylike admission, ' replied the Fräulein, who felt that withLady Mary her chief duty was to reprove. 

CHAPTER XV. 

'OF ALL MEN ELSE I HAVE AVOIDED THEE. '

It was afternoon. The white hills yonder and all the length of thevalley were touched here and there with gleams of wintry sunlight, andLady Maulevrier was taking her solitary walk in the terrace in front ofher house, a stately figure wrapped in a furred mantle, tall, erect, moving with measured pace up and down the smooth gravel path. Now andthen at the end of the walk the dowager stopped for a minute or so, andstood as if in deep thought, with her eyes dreamily contemplating thelandscape. An intense melancholy shadowed her face, as she thus gazedwith brooding eyes on the naked monotony of those wintry hills. So hadshe looked in many and many a winter, and it seemed to her that her lifewas of a piece with those bleak hills, where in the dismal winter timenothing living trod. She stood gazing at the sinking sun, a fiery ballshining at the end of a long gallery of crag and rock, like a lamp atthe end of a corridor; and as she gazed the red round orb droppedsuddenly behind the edge of a crag, as if she had been an enchantressand had dismissed it with a wave of her wand. 

'O Lord, how long, how long?' she said. 'How many times have I seen thatsun go down from this spot, in winter and summer, in spring and autumn!And now that the one being I loved and cared for is far away, I feel allthe weariness and emptiness of my life. '

As she turned to resume her walk she heard the muffled sound of wheelsin the road below, that road which was completely hidden by foliage insummer, but which was now visible here and there between the leaflesstrees. A carriage with a pair of horses was coming along the road fromAmbleside. 

Lady Maulevrier stood and watched until the carriage drew up at thelodge gate, and then, when the gate had been opened, slowly ascended thewinding drive to the house. 

She expected no visitor; indeed, there was no one likely to come to herfrom the direction of Ambleside. Her heart began to beat heavily, withthe apprehension of coming evil. What kind of evil she knew not. Badnews about her granddaughter, perhaps, or about Maulevrier. And yet thatcould hardly be. Evil tidings of that kind would have reached her bytelegram. 

Perhaps it was Maulevrier himself. His movements were generally erratic. 

Lady Maulevrier hurried back to the house. She went through theconservatory, where the warm whiteness of azalia, and spirea, and arumlilies contrasted curiously with the cold white snow out of doors, tothe hall, where a stranger was standing talking to the butler. 

He was a man of foreign appearance, wearing a cloak lined with sables, and a sable cap, which he removed as Lady Maulevrier approached. He wasthin and small, with a clear olive complexion, olive inclining to palebronze, sleek raven hair, and black almond-shaped eyes. At the firstglance Lady Maulevrier knew that he was an Oriental. Her heart sankwithin her, and seemed to grow chill as death at sight of him. Anythingassociated with India was horrible to her. 

The stranger came forward to meet her, bowing deferentially. He hadthose lithe, gliding movements which she remembered of old, when she hadseen princes and dignitaries of the East creeping shoeless to herhusband's feet. 

'Will your ladyship do me the honour to grant me an interview?' he saidin very good English. 'I have travelled from London expressly for thatprivilege. '

'Then I fear you have wasted your time, sir, whatever your mission maybe, ' the dowager answered, haughtily. 'However, I am willing to hearanything you may have to say, if you will be good enough to come thisway. '

She moved towards the library, the butler preceding her to open thedoor, and the stranger followed her into the spacious room, where coalsand logs were heaped high upon the wide dog stove, deeply recessedbeneath the old English mantelpiece. 

It was one of the handsomest rooms of the house, furnished with oakbookcases about seven feet high, above which vases of Oriental ware andvaried colouring stood boldly out against the dark oak wall. Richlybound books in infinite variety testified to the wealth and taste of theowner; while one side of the room was absorbed by a wide Gothic window, beyond which appeared the panorama of lake and mountain, beautiful inevery season. A tawny velvet curtain divided this room from thedrawing-room; but there was also a strong oak door behind the curtain, which was generally closed in cold weather. 

Lady Maulevrier went over to this door, and took the precaution to drawthe bolt, before she seated herself in her arm-chair by the hearth. Shehad her own particular chair in all the rooms she occupied--a chairwhich was sacred as a throne. 

She drew off her sealskin gloves, and motioned with a slender white handto the stranger to be seated. 

'To whom have I the honour of speaking?' she asked, looking; him throughand through with an unflinching gaze, as she would have looked at Deathhimself, had the grim skeleton figure come to beckon her. 

He handed her a visiting card on which was engraved--

'Louis Asoph, Rajah of Bisnagar. '

'If my memory does not deceive me as to the history of modern India, theterritory from which you take your title has been absorbed into theEnglish dominion?' said Lady Maulevrier. 

'It was trafficked away forty-three years ago, stolen, filched from myfather! but so long as I have power to think and to act I will maintainmy claim to that land; yes, if only by the empty mockery of a name on avisiting card. It is a duty I owe to myself as a man, which I owe stillmore to my murdered father. '

'Have you come all the way from London, and in such weather, only totell me this story?'

She had twisted his card between her fingers as she listened to him, andnow, with an action at once careless and contemptuous, she flung it uponthe burning logs. Slight as the action was it was eloquent of scorn forthe man. 

'No, Lady Maulevrier, my mention of this story, with which you are nodoubt perfectly familiar, is only a preliminary. I have come to claim myown, and to appeal to you as a woman of honour to do me justice. Nay, Iwill say as a woman of common honesty; since there is no nice point ofhonour in question, only the plain laws of mine and thine, which Ibelieve are the same among all nations and creeds. I come to you, LadyMaulevrier, to ask you to restore to me the wealth which your husbandstole from my father. '

'You come to my house, to me, an old woman, helpless, defenceless, inthe absence of my grandson, the present Earl, to insult me, and insultthe dead, ' said Lady Maulevrier, white as statuary marble, and as coldand calm. 'You come to rake up old lies, and to fling them in the faceof a solitary woman, old enough to be your mother. Do you think that isa noble thing to do? Even in your barbarous Eastern code of morals andmanners is _that_ the act of a gentleman?'

'We are no barbarians in the East, Lady Maulevrier. I come from thecradle of civilisation, the original fount of learning. We werescholars and gentleman, priests and soldiers, two thousand years beforeyour British ancestors ran wild in their woods, and sacrificed to theirunknown gods or rocky altars reeking with human blood! I know the errandupon which I have come is not a pleasant one, either for you or for me;but I come to you strong in the right of a son to claim the heritagewhich was stolen from him by an infamous mother and her more infamousparamour----'

'I will not hear another word!' cried Lady Maulevrier, starting to herfeet, livid with passion. 'Do not dare to pronounce that name in myhearing--the name of that abominable woman who brought disgrace anddishonour upon my husband and his race. '

'And who brought your husband the wealth of my murdered father, 'answered the Indian, defiantly. 'Do not ignore that fact, LadyMaulevrier. What has become of that fortune--two hundred thousand poundsin money and jewels. It was known to have passed into Lord Maulevrier'spossession after my father was put away by his paid instruments. 

'How dare you bring that vile charge against the dead?'

'There are men living in India who know the truth of that charge: menwho were at Bisnagar when my father, sick and heartbroken, was shut upin his deserted harem, hemmed in by spies and traitors, men with murderin their faces. There are those who know tint he was strangled by one ofthose wretches, that a grave was dug for him under the marble floor ofhis zenana, a grave in which his bones were found less than a year ago, in my presence, and fitly entombed at my bidding. He was said to havedisappeared of his own free will--to have left his palace under cover ofnight, and sought refuge from possible treachery in another province;but there were those, and not a few, who knew the real history of hisdisappearance--who knew, and at the time were ready to testify in anycourt of justice, that he had been got rid of by the Ranee's agents, andat Lord Maulevrier's instigation, and that his possessions in money andjewels had been conveyed in the palankins that carried the Ranee and herwomen to his lordship's summer retreat near Madras. The Ranee died atthat retreat six months after her husband's murder, not withoutsuspicion of poison, and the wealth which she carried with her when sheleft Bisnagar passed into his lordship's possession. Had your husbandlived, Lady Maulevrier, this story must have been brought to light. There were too many people in Madras interested in sifting the facts. There must have been a public inquiry. It was a happy thing for you andyour race that Lord Maulevrier died before that inquiry had beeninstituted, and that many animosities died with him. Lucky too for youthat I was a helpless infant at the time, and that the Mahrattaadventurer to whom my father's territory had been transferred in theshuffling of cards at the end of the war was deeply concerned in hushingup the story. '

'And pray, why have you nursed your wrath in all these years? Why doyou intrude on me after nearly half a century, with this legend ofrapine and murder?'

'Because for nearly half a century I have been kept in profoundignorance of my father's fate--in ignorance of my race. LordMaulevrier's jealousy banished me from my mother's arms shortly after myfather's death. I was sent to the South of France under the care of anayah. My first memories are of a monastery near Marseilles, where I wasreared and educated by a Jesuit community, where I was baptised andbrought up in the Roman Catholic faith. By the influence of the JesuitFathers I was placed in a house of commerce at Marseilles. Funds toprovide for my education and establishment in life, under very modestconditions, were sent periodically by an agent at Madras. It was knownthat I was of East Indian birth, but little more was known about me. Itwas only when years had gone by and I was a merchant on my own accountand could afford to go to India on a voyage of discovery--yes, as much avoyage of discovery as that of Vasco de Gama or of Drake--that I gotfrom the Madras agent the clue which enabled me, at the cost of infinitepatience and infinite labour, to unravel the mystery of my birth. Thereis no need to enter now upon the details of that story. I haveoverwhelming documentary evidence--a cloud of witnesses--to convince themost sceptical as to who and what I am. The documents are some of themin my valise, at your ladyship's service. Others are at my hotel inLondon, ready for the inspection of your ladyship's lawyers. I do notthink you will desire to invite a public inquiry, or force me to recovermy birthright in a court of justice. I believe that you will take abroader and nobler view of the case, and that you will restore to thewronged and abandoned son the fortune stolen from his murdered father. '

'How dare you come to me with this tissue of lies? How dare you look mein the face and charge my dead husband with treachery and dishonour? Ibelieve neither in your story nor in you, and I defy you to the proof ofthis vile charge against the dead!'

'In other words you mean that you will keep the money and jewels whichLord Maulevrier stole from my father?'

'I deny the fact that any such jewels or money ever passed into hislordship's possession. That vile woman, your mother, whose infamy cast adark cloud over Lord Maulevrier's honour, may have robbed her husband, may have emptied the public treasury. But not a rupee or a jewelbelonging to her ever came into my possession. I will not bear theburden of her crimes. Her existence spoiled my life--banished me fromIndia, a widow in all but the name, and more desolate than many widows. '

'Lord Maulevrier was known to leave India carrying with him two largechests--supposed to contain books--but actually containing treasure. Aman who was in the Governor's confidence, and who had been thego-between in his intrigues, confessed on his death-bed that he hadassisted in removing the treasure. Now, Lady Maulevrier, since yourhusband died immediately after his arrival in England, and before hecould have had any opportunity of converting or making away with thevaluables so appropriated, it stands to reason that those valuables musthave passed into your possession, and it is from your honour and goodfeeling that I claim their restitution. If you deny the claim soadvanced, there remains but one course open to me, and that is to makemy wrongs public, and claim my right from the law of the land. '

'And do you suppose that any English judge or English jury would believeso wild a story--or countenance so vile an accusation against thedefenceless?' demanded Lady Maulevrier, standing up before him, tall, stately, with flashing eye and scornful lip, the image of prouddefiance. 'Bring forward your claim, produce your documents, yourwitnesses, your death-bed confessions. I defy you to injure my deadhusband or me by your wild lies, your foul charges! Go to an Englishlawyer, and see what an English law court will do for you--and yourclaim. I will hear no more of either. '

She rang the bell once, twice, thrice, with passionate hand, and aservant flew to answer that impatient summons. 

'Show this gentlemen to his carriage, ' she said, imperiously. 

The gentleman who called himself Louis Asoph bowed, and retired withoutanother word. 

As the door closed upon him, Lady Maulevrier stood, with clenched handsand frowning brow, staring into vacancy. Her right arm was outstretched, as if she would have waved the intruder away. Suddenly, a strangenumbness crept over that uplifted arm, and it fell to her side. From hershoulder down to her foot, that proud form grew cold and feelingless anddead, and she, who had so long carried herself as a queen among women, sank in a senseless heap upon the floor. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

'HER FACE RESIGNED TO BLISS OR BALE. '

Lady Mary and the Fräulein had been sitting in the drawing-room all thistime waiting for Lady Maulevrier to come to tea. They heard her come infrom the garden; and then the footman told them that she was in thelibrary with a stranger. Not even the muffled sound of voices penetratedthe heavy velvet curtain and the thick oak door. It was only by the loudringing of the bell and the sound of footsteps in the hall that LadyMary knew of the guest's departure. She went to the door between thetwo rooms, and was surprised to find it bolted. 

'Grandmamma, won't you come to tea?' she asked timidly, knocking on theoaken panel, but there was no reply. 

She knocked again, and louder. Still no reply. 

'Perhaps her ladyship is going to take tea in her own room, ' she said, afraid to be officious. 

Attendance upon her grandmother at afternoon tea had been one ofLesbia's particular duties; but Mary felt that she was an unwelcomesubstitute for Lesbia. She wanted to get a little nearer hergrandmother's heart if she could; but she knew that her attentions wereendured rather than liked. 

She went into the hall, where the footman on duty was staring at thelight snowflakes dancing past the window, perhaps wishing he were asnowflake himself, and enjoying himself in that white whirligig. 

'Is her ladyship having tea in the morning-room?' asked Mary. 

The footman gave a little start, as if awakened out of a kind of trance. The sheer vacuity of his mind might naturally slide into mesmeric sleep. 

He told Lady Mary that her ladyship had not left the library, and Marywent in timidly, wondering why her grandmother had not joined them inthe drawing-room when the stranger was gone. 

The sky was dark outside the wide windows, white hills and valleysshrouded in the shades of night. The library was only lighted by theglow of the logs on the hearth, and in that ruddy light the spaciousroom looked empty. Mary was turning to go away, thinking the footman hadbeen mistaken, when her eye suddenly lighted upon a dark figure lying onthe ground. And then she heard an awful stertorous breathing, and knewthat her grandmother was lying there, stricken and helpless. 

Mary shrieked aloud, with a cry that pierced curtains and doors, andbrought Fräulein and half-a-dozen servants to her help. One of the menbrought a lamp, and among them they lifted the smitten figure. Oh, God!how ghastly the face looked in the lamplight!--the features drawn to oneside, the skin livid. 

'Her ladyship has had a stroke, ' said the butler. 

'Is she dying?' faltered Mary, white as ashes. 'Oh, grandmother, deargrandmother, don't look at us like that!'

One of the servants rushed off to the stables to send for the doctor. Ofcourse, being an indoor man, he no more thought of going out himselfinto the snowy night on such an errand than Noah thought of going out ofthe ark to explore the face of the waters in person. 

They carried Lady Maulevrier to her bed and laid her there, like afigure carved out of stone. She was not unconscious. Her eyes wereopen, and she moaned every now and then as if in bodily or mental pain. Once she tried to speak, but had no power to shape a syllable aright, and ended with a shuddering sigh. Once she lifted her left arm and wavedit in the air, as if waving some one off in fear or anger. The rightarm, indeed the whole of the right side, was lifeless, motionless as astone. It was a piteous sight to see the beautiful features drawn anddistorted, the lips so accustomed to command mouthing the brokensyllables of an unknown tongue. Lady Mary sat beside the bed withclasped hands, praying dumbly, with her eyes fixed on her grandmother'saltered face. 

Mr. Horton came, as soon as his stout mountain pony could bring him. Hedid not seem surprised at her ladyship's condition, and accepted thesituation with professional calmness. 

'A marked case of hemiplegia, ' he said, when he had observed thesymptoms. 

'Will she die?' asked Mary. 

'Oh, dear, no! She will want great care for a little while, but we shallbring her round easily. A splendid constitution, a noble frame; but Ithink she has overworked her brain a little, reading Huxley and Darwin, and the German physiologists upon whom Huxley and Darwin have builtthemselves. Metaphysics too. Schopenhauer, and the rest of them. Awonderful woman! Very few brains could hold what hers has had pouredinto it in the last thirty years. The conducting nerves between thebrain and the spinal marrow have been overworked: too much activity, tooconstant a strain. Even the rails and sleepers on the railroad wear out, don't you know, if there's excessive traffic. '

Mr. Horton had known Mary from her childhood, had given her Gregory'spowder, and seen her safely through measles and other infantineailments, so he was quite at home with her, and at Fellside generally. Lady Maulevrier had given him a good deal of her confidence during thosethirty years in which he had practised as his father's partner andsuccessor at Grasmere. He used to tell people that he owed the best partof his education to her ladyship, who condescended to talk to him of thenew books she read, and generally gave him a volume to put in his pocketwhen he was leaving her. 

'Don't be downhearted, Lady Mary, ' he said; 'I shall come in two orthree times a day and see how things are going on, and if I see theslightest difficulty in the case I'll telegraph for Jenner. '

Mary and the Fräulein sat up with the invalid all that night. LadyMaulevrier's maid was also in attendance, and one of the menservantsslept in his clothes on a couch in the corridor, ready for anyemergency. But the night passed peacefully, the patient slept a gooddeal, and next day there was evident improvement. The stroke which hadprostrated the body, which reduced the vigorous, active frame to anawful statue--like stillness--a quietude as of death of itself--had notoverclouded the intellect. Lady Maulevrier lay on her bed in herluxurious room, with wide Tudor windows commanding half the circle ofthe hills, and was still the ruling spirit of the house, albeitpowerless to move that slender hand, the lightest wave of which had beenas potent to command in her little world as royal sign-manual or sceptrein the great world outside. 

Now there remained only one thing unimpaired by that awful shock whichhad laid the stately frame low, and that was the will and sovereignforce of the woman's nature. Voice was altered, speech was confused anddifficult; but the strength of will, the supreme power of mind, seemedundiminished. 

When Lady Maulevrier was asked if Lesbia should be telegraphed for, shereplied no, not unless she was in danger of sudden death. 

'I should like to see her before I go, ' she said, labouring to pronouncethe words. 

'Dear grandmother, ' said Mary, tenderly, 'Mr. Horton says there is nodanger. '

'Then do not send for her; do not even tell her what has happened; notyet. '

'But she will miss your letters. '

'True. You must write twice a week at my dictation. You must tell herthat I have hurt my hand, that I am well but cannot use a pen. I wouldnot spoil her pleasure for the world. '

'Dear grandmother, how unselfish you are! And Maulevrier, shall he besent for? He is not so far away, ' said Mary, hoping her grandmotherwould say yes. 

What a relief, what an unspeakable solace Maulevrier's presence would bein that dreary house, smitten to a sudden and awful stillness, as if bythe Angel of Death!

'No, I do not want Maulevrier!' answered her ladyship impatiently. 

'May I sit here and read to you, grandmother?' Mary asked, timidly. 'Mr. Horton said you were to be kept very quiet, and that we were not to letyou talk, or talk much to you, but that we might read to you if youlike. '

'I do not wish to be read to. I have my thoughts for company, ' said LadyMaulevrier. 

Mary felt that this implied a wish to be alone. She bent over theinvalid's pillow and kissed the pale cheek, feeling as if she weretaking a liberty in venturing so much. She would hardly have done it hadLesbia been at home; but she had a feeling that in Lesbia's absence LadyMaulevrier must want somebody's love--even hers. And then she creptaway, leaving Halcott the maid in attendance, sitting at her work at thewindow furthest from the bed. 

'Alone with my thoughts, ' mused Lady Maulevrier, looking out at thepanorama of wintry hills, white, ghost-like against an iron sky. 'Pleasant thoughts, truly! Walled in by the hills--walled in and hemmedround for ever. This place has always felt like a grave: and now I knowthat it _is_ my grave. '

Fräulein, and Lady Mary, and the maid Halcott, a sedate personage offorty summers, had all been instructed by the doctor that LadyMaulevrier was to be kept profoundly quiet. She must not talk much, since speech was likely to be a painful effort with her for some littletime; she must not be talked to much by anyone, least of all must she bespoken to upon any agitating topic. Life must be made as smooth and easyfor her as for a new-born infant. No rough breath from the outer worldmust come near her. She was to see no one but her maid and hergranddaughter. Mr. Horton, a plain family man, took it for granted thatthe granddaughter was dear to her heart, and likely to exercise asoothing influence. Thus it happened that although Lady Maulevrier askedrepeatedly that James Steadman should be brought to her, she was notallowed to see him. She whose will had been paramount in that house, whose word had been law, was now treated as a little child, while thewill was still as strong, the mind as keen as ever. 

'She would talk to him of business, ' said Mr. Horton, when he was toldof her ladyship's desire to see Steadman, 'and that cannot be allowed, not for some little time at least. '

'She is very angry with us for refusing to obey her, ' said Lady Mary. 

'Naturally, but it is for her own welfare she is disobeyed. She can havenothing to say to Steadman which will not keep till she is better. Thisestablishment goes by clockwork. '

Mary wished it was a little less like clockwork. Since Lady Maulevrierhad been lying upstairs--the voice which had once ruled over the housemuffled almost to dumbness--the monotony of life at Fellside had seemedall the more oppressive. The servants crept about with stealthier tread. Mary dared not touch either piano or billiard balls, and was naturallyseized with a longing to touch both. The house had a darkened-look, asif the shadow of doom overhung it. 

During this regimen of perfect quiet Lady Maulevrier was not allowed tosee the newspapers; and Mary was warned that in reading to hergrandmother she was to avoid all exciting topics. Thus it happened thatthe account of a terrible collision between the Scotch express and aluggage train, a little way beyond Preston, an accident in which sevenpeople were killed and about thirty seriously hurt, was not made knownto her ladyship; and yet that fact would have been of intense interestand significance to her, since one of those passengers whose injurieswere fatal bore the name of Louis Asoph. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

'AND THE SPRING COMES SLOWLY UP THIS WAY. '

The wintry weeks glided smoothly by in a dull monotony, and now LadyMaulevrier, still helpless, still compelled to lie on her bed or herinvalid couch, motionless as marble, had at least recovered her power ofspeech, was allowed to read and to talk, and to hear what was going onin that metropolitan world which she seemed unlikely ever to beholdagain. 

Lady Lesbia was still at Cannes, whence she wrote of her pleasures andher triumphs, of flowers and sapphire sea, and azure sky, of all thingswhich were not in the grey bleak mountain world that hemmed in Fellside. She was meeting many of the people whom she was to meet again nextseason in the London world. She had made an informal _début_ in a veryselect circle, a circle in which everybody was more or less _chic_, or_chien_, or _zinc_, and she was tasting all the sweets of success. Butin none of her letters was there any mention of Lord Hartfield. He wasnot in the little great world by the blue tideless sea. 

There was no talk of Lesbia's return. She was to stay till the carnival;she was to stay till the week before Easter. Lady Kirkbank insisted uponit; and both Lesbia and Lady Kirkbank upbraided Lady Maulevrier for hercruelty in not joining them at Cannes. 

So Lady Maulevrier had to resign herself to that solitude which hadbecome almost the habit of her life, and to the society of Mary and theFräulein. Mary was eager to be of use, to sit with her grandmother, toread to her, to write for her. The warm young heart was deeply moved bythe spectacle of this stately woman stricken into helplessness, chainedto her couch, immured within four walls. To Mary, who so loved the hillsand the streams, the sun and the wind, this imprisonment seemedunspeakable woe. In her pity for such a martyrdom she would have doneanything to give pleasure or solace to her grandmother. Unhappily therewas very little Mary could do to increase the invalid's sum of pleasure. Lady Maulevrier was a woman of strong feeling, not capable of lovingmany people. She had concentrated her affection upon Lesbia: and shecould not open her heart to Mary all at once because Lesbia was out ofthe way. 

'If I had a dog I loved, and he were to die, I would never have anotherin his place, ' Lady Maulevrier said once; and that speech was thekeynote of her character. 

She was very courteous to Mary, and seemed grateful for her attentions;but she did not cultivate the girl's society. Mary wrote all her lettersin a fine bold hand, and with a rapid pen; but when the letter-writingwas over Lady Maulevrier always dismissed her. 

'My dear, you want to be out in the air, riding your pony, orscampering about with your dogs, ' she said, kindly. 'It would be acruelty to keep you indoors. '

'No, indeed, dear grandmother, I should like to stay. May I stop andread to you?'

'No, thank you, Mary. I hate being read to. I like to devour a book. Reading aloud is such slow work. 

'But I am afraid you must sometimes feel lonely, ' faltered Mary. 

'Lonely, ' echoed the dowager, with a sigh. 'I have been lonely for thelast forty years--I have been lonely all my life. Those I loved nevergave me back love for love--never--not even your sister. See how lightlyshe cuts the link that bound her to me. How happy she is amongstrangers! Yes, there was one who loved me truly, and fate parted us. Does fate part all true lovers, I wonder?'

'You parted Lesbia and Mr. Hammond, ' said Mary, impetuously. 'I am surethey loved each other truly. '

'The old and the worldly-wise are Fate, Mary, ' answered the dowager, notangry at this daring reproach. 'I know your sister; and I know she isnot the kind of woman to be happy in an ignoble life--to bear povertyand deprivation. If it had been you, now, whom Mr. Hammond had chosen, Imight have taken the subject into my consideration. '

Mary flamed crimson. 

'Mr. Hammond never gave me a thought, ' she said, 'unless it was to thinkme contemptible. He is worlds too good for such a Tomboy. Maulevriertold him about the fox-hunt, and they both laughed at me--at least Ihave no doubt Mr. Hammond laughed, though I was too much ashamed to lookat him. '

'Poor Mary, you are beginning to find out that a young lady ought to beladylike, ' said Lady Maulevrier; 'and now, my dear, you may go. I wasonly joking with you. Mr. Hammond would be no match for anygranddaughter of mine. He is nobody, and has neither friends norinterest. If he had gone into the church Maulevrier could have helpedhim; but I daresay his ideas are too broad for the church; and he willhave to starve at the bar, where nobody can help him. I hope you willbear this in mind, Mary, if Maulevrier should ever bring him hereagain. '

'He is never likely to come back again. He suffered too much; he wastreated too badly in this house. '

'Lady Mary, be good enough to remember to whom you are speaking, ' saidher ladyship, with a frown. 'And now please go, and tell some one tosend Steadman to me. '

Mary retired without a word, gave Lady Maulevrier's message to a footmanin the corridor, slipped off to her room, put on her sealskin hat andjacket, took her staff and went out for a long ramble. The hills andvalleys were still white. It had been a long, cold winter, and springwas still far off--February had only just begun. 

Lady Maulevrier's couch had been wheeled into the morning-room--thatluxurious room which was furnished with all things needful to her quietlife, her books, her favourite colours, her favourite flowers, everydetail studiously arranged for her pleasure and comfort. She was wheeledinto this room every day at noon. When the day was bright and sunny hercouch was placed near the window: and when the day was dull and grey thecouch was drawn close to the low hearth, which flashed and glitteredwith brightly coloured tiles and artistic brass. 

To-day the sky was dull, and the velvet couch stood beside the hearth. Halcott sat at work in the adjoining bed-chamber, and came in every nowand then to replenish the fire: a footman was always on duty in thecorridor. A spring bell stood among the elegant trifles upon herladyship's table; and the lightest touch of her left hand upon the bellbrought her attendants to her side. She resolutely refused to have anyone sitting with her all day long. Solitude was a necessity of herbeing, she told Mr. Horton, when he recommended that she should havesome one always in attendance upon her. 

As the weeks wore on her features had been restored to their proud, calmbeauty, her articulation was almost as clear as of old: yet, now andthen, there would be a sudden faltering, the tongue and lips wouldrefuse their office, or she would forget a word, or use a wrong wordunconsciously. But there was no recovery of power or movement on thatside of the body which had been stricken. The paralysed limbs were stillmotionless, lifeless as marble; and it was clear that Mr. Horton hadbegun to lose heart about his patient. There was nothing obscure in thecase, but the patient's importance made the treatment a serious matter, and the surgeon begged to be allowed to summon Sir William Jenner. 

This, however, Lady Maulevrier refused. 

'I don't want any fuss made about me, ' she said. 'I am content to trustmyself to your skill, and I beg that no other doctor may be summoned. '

Mr. Horton understood his patient's feelings on this point. She had asense of humiliation in her helplessness, and, like some wounded animalthat crawls to its covert to die, she would fain have hidden her miseryfrom the eye of strangers. She had allowed no one, not even Maulevrier, to be informed of the nature of her illness. 

'It will be time enough for him to know all about me when he comeshere, ' she said. 'I shall be obliged to see him whenever he does come. '

Maulevrier had spent Christmas and New Year in Paris, Mr. Hammond stillhis companion. Her ladyship commented upon this with a touch of scorn. 

'Mr. Hammond is like the Umbra you were reading about the other day inLord Lytton's "Last Days of Pompeii, "' she said to Mary. 'It must bevery nice for him to go about the world with a friend who franks himeverywhere. '

'But we don't know that Maulevrier franks him, ' protested Mary, blushing. 'We have no right to suppose that Mr. Hammond does not pay hisown expenses. '

'My dear child, is it possible for a young man who has no private meansto go gadding about the world on equal terms with a spendthrift likeMaulevrier--to pay for Moors in Scotland and apartments at the Bristol?'

'But they are not staying at the Bristol, ' exclaimed Mary. 

'They are staying at an old-established French hotel on the left side ofthe Seine. They are going about amongst the students and the workmen, dining at popular restaurants, hearing people talk. Maulevrier says itis delightfully amusing--ever so much better than the beaten track oflife in Anglo-American Paris. '

'I daresay they are leading a Bohemian life, and will get into troublebefore they have done, ' said her ladyship, gloomily. 

'Maulevrier is as wild as a hawk. '

'He is the dearest boy in the world, ' exclaimed Mary. 

She was deeply grateful for her brother's condescension in writing her aletter of two pages long, letting her into the secrets of his life. Shefelt as if Mr. Hammond were ever so much nearer to her now she knewwhere he was, and how he was amusing himself. 

'Hammond is such a queer fellow, ' wrote Maulevrier, 'the strangestthings interest him. He sits and talks to the workmen for hours; hepokes his nose into all sorts of places--hospitals, workshops, poverty-stricken dens--and people are always civil to him. He is whatLesbia calls _sympatico_. Ah! what a mistake Lesbia and my grandmothermade when they rejected Hammond! What a pearl above price they threwaway! But, you see, neither my lady nor Lesbia could appreciate a gem, unless it was richly set. '

And now Lady Maulevrier lay on her couch by the fire, waiting for JamesSteadman. She had seen him several times since the day of her seizure, but never alone. There was an idea that Steadman must necessarily talkto her of business matters, or cause her mind to trouble itself aboutbusiness matters; so there had been a well-intentioned conspiracy in thehouse to keep him out of her way; but now she was much better, and herdesire to see Steadman need no longer be thwarted. 

He came at her bidding, and stood a little way within the door, tall, erect, square-shouldered, resolute-looking, with a quiet force ofcharacter expressed in every feature. He was very much the same man thathe had been forty years ago, when he went with her ladyship toSouthampton, and accompanied his master and mistress on that tediousjourney which was destined to be Lord Maulevrier's last earthlypilgrimage. Time had done little to Steadman in those forty years, except to whiten his hair and beard, and imprint some thoughtful linesupon his sagacious forehead. Time had done something for him mentally, insomuch as he had read a great many books and cultivated his mind inthe monotonous quiet of Fellside. Altogether he was a superior man forthe passage of those forty years. 

He had married within the time, choosing for himself the buxom daughterof a lodgekeeper, whose wife had long been laid at rest in Grasmerechurchyard. The buxom girl had grown into a bulky matron, but she was acolourless personage, and her existence made hardly any difference inJames Steadman's life. She had brought him no children, and theirfireside was lonely; but Steadman seemed to be one of thoseself-contained personages to whom a solitary life is no affliction. 

'I hope I see you in better health, my lady, ' he said, standing straightand square, like a soldier on parade. 

'I am better, thank you, Steadman; better, but a poor lifeless logchained to this sofa. I sent for you because the time has come when Imust talk to you upon a matter of business. You heard, I suppose, that astranger called upon me just before I had my attack?'

'Yes, my lady. '

'Did you hear who and what he was?'

'Only that he was a foreigner, my lady. '

'He is of Indian birth. He claims to be the son of the Ranee ofBisnagar. '

'He could do you no harm, my lady, if he were twenty times her son. '

'I hope not. Now, I want to ask you a question. Among those trunks andcases and packages of Lord Maulevrier's which were sent here by heavycoach, after they were landed at Southampton, do you remember two casesof books?'

'There are two large cases among the luggage, my lady; very heavy cases, iron clamped. I should not be surprised if they were full of books. '

'Have they never been opened?'

'Not to my knowledge. '

'Are they locked?'

'Yes, my lady. There are two padlocks on each chest. '

'And are the keys in your possession?'

'No, my lady. '

'Where are the cases?'

'In the Oak Room, with the rest of the Indian luggage. '

'Let them remain there. No doubt those cases contain the books of whichI have been told. You have not heard that the person calling himselfRajah of Bisnagar has been here since my illness, have you?'

'No, my lady; I am sure he has not been here. '

Lady Maulevrier gave him a scrutinising look. 

'He might have come, and my people might have kept the knowledge fromme, out of consideration for my infirmity, ' she said. 'I should be veryangry if it were so. I should hate to be treated like a child. '

'You shall not be so treated, my lady, while I am in this house; but Iknow there is no member of the household who would presume so to treatyou. '

'They might do it out of kindness; but I should loathe such kindness, 'said Lady Maulevrier, impatiently. 'Though I have been smitten down, though I lie here like a log, I have a mind to think and to plan; and Iam not afraid to meet danger, face to face. Are you telling me thetruth, Steadman? Have there been no visits concealed from me, no letterskept from me since I have been ill?'

'I am telling you nothing but the truth, my lady. No letter has beenkept from you; no visitor has been to this house whose coming you havenot been told of. '

'Then I am content, ' said her ladyship, with a sigh of relief. 

After this there followed some conversation upon business matters. JamesSteadman was trusted with the entire management of the dowager's income, the investment of her savings. His honesty was above all suspicion. Hewas a man of simple habits, his wants few. He had saved money in everyyear of his service; and for a man of his station was rich enough to beunassailable by the tempter. 

He had reconciled his mind to the monotonous course of life at Fellsidein the beginning of things; and, as the years glided smoothly by, hischaracter and wants and inclinations had, as it were, moulded themselvesto fit that life. He had easy duties, a comfortable home, supremeauthority in the household. He was looked up to and made much of in thevillage whenever he condescended to appear there; and by the rareness ofhis visits to the Inn or the Reading-room, and his unwillingness toaccept hospitality from the tradesmen of Grasmere and Ambleside, hemaintained his dignity and exaggerated his importance. He had his booksand his newspapers, his evening leisure, which no one ever dared todisturb. He had the old wing of the house for his exclusive occupation;and no one ventured to intrude upon him in his privacy. There was a bellin the corridor which communicated with his rooms, and by this bell hewas always summoned. There were servants who had been ten years atFellside, and who had never crossed the threshold of the red cloth doorwhich was the only communication between the new house and the old one. Steadman's wife performed all household duties of cooking and cleaningin the south wing, where she and her husband took all their meals, andlived entirely apart from the other servants, an exclusiveness which wassecretly resented by the establishment. 

'Mr. Steadman may be a very superior man, ' said the butler 'and I knowthat in his own estimation the Premier isn't in it compared with him;but I never was fond of people who set themselves upon pinnacles, andI'm not fond of the Steadmans. '

'Mrs. Steadman's plain and homely enough, ' replied the housekeeper, 'andI know she'd like to be more sociable, and drop into my room for a cupof tea now and then; but Steadman do so keep her under his thumb: andbecause he's a misanthrope she's obliged to sit and mope alone. '

If Steadman wanted to drive, there was a dogcart and horse at hisdisposal; but he did not often leave Fellside. He seemed in his humbleway to model his life upon Lady Maulevrier's secluded habits. It wasgrowing dusk when Steadman left his mistress, and she lay for some timelooking at the landscape over which twilight shadows were stealing, andthinking of her own life. Over that life, too, the shadows of eveningwere creeping. She had began to realise the fact that she was an oldwoman; that for her all personal interest in life was nearly over. Shehad never felt her age while her activity was unimpaired. She had beenobliged to remind herself very often that the afternoon and evening oflife had slipped away unawares in that tranquil retirement, and that thenight was at hand. 

For her the close of earthly life meant actual night. No new dawn, nomysterious after-life shone upon her with magical gleams of an unknownlight upon the other side of the dark river. She had accepted theMaterialist's bitter and barren creed, and had taught herself that thislittle life was all. She had learned to scorn the idea of a greatArtificer outside the universe, a mighty spirit riding amidst theclouds, and ruling the course of nature and the fate of man. She hadschooled herself to think that the idea of a blind, unconscious Nature, working automatically through infinite time and space, was ever so muchgrander than the old-world notion of a personal God, a Being of infinitepower and inexhaustible beneficence, mighty to devise and direct theuniverse, with knowledge reaching to the farthest confines of space, with ear to listen to the prayer of His lowest creatures. Her beliefstopped short even of the Deist's faith in an Almighty Will. She saw increation nothing but the inevitable development of material laws; and itseemed to her that there was quite as much hope of a heavenly worldafter death for the infusoria in the pool as for man in his pride andpower. 

She read her Bible as diligently as she read her Shakespeare, and thewords of the Royal Preacher in some measure embodied her own drearycreed. And now, in the darkening winter day, she watched the gloomyshadows creep over the rugged breast of Nabb Scar, and she thought howthere was a time for all things, and that her day of hope and ambitionwas past. 

Of late years she had lived for Lesbia, looking forward to the day whenshe was to introduce this beloved grandchild to the great world ofLondon; and now that hope was gone for ever. 

What could a helpless cripple do for a fashionable beauty? What goodwould it be for her to be conveyed to London, and to lie on a couch inMayfair, while Lesbia rode in the Row and went to three or four partiesevery night with a more active chaperon?

She had hoped to go everywhere with her darling, to glory in all hersuccesses, to shield her from all possibility of failure. And now Lesbiamust stand or fall alone. 

It was a hard thing; but perhaps the hardest part of it was that Lesbiaseemed so very well able to get on without her. The girl wrote in thehighest spirits; and although her letters were most affectionatelyworded, they were all about self. That note was dominant in everystrain. Her triumphs, her admirers, her bonnets, her gowns. She had hadmore money from her grandmother, and more gowns from Paris. 

'You have no idea how the people dress in this place, ' she wrote. 'Ishould have been quite out in the cold without my three new frocks fromWorth. The little Princess bonnets I wear are the rage. Worthrecommended me to adopt special flowers and colours; so I have wornnothing but primroses since I have been here, and my little primrosebonnets are to be seen everywhere, sometimes on hideous old women. LadyKirkbank hopes you will be able to go to London directly after Easter. She says I must be presented at the May drawing-room--that isimperative. People have begun to talk about me; and unless I make my_début_ while their interest is fresh I shall be a failure. There is anAmerican beauty here, and I believe she and I are considered rivals, andyoung men lay wagers about us, as to which will look best at a ball, ora regatta, what colours we shall wear, and so on. It is immense fun. Ionly wish you were here to enjoy it. The American girl is a mostinsolent person, but I have had the pleasure of crushing her on severaloccasions in the calmest way. In the description of the concert in lastweek's newspaper I was called _l'Anglais de marbre_. I certainly had thedecency to hold my tongue while Faure was singing. Miss Bolsover's voicewas heard ever so many times above the music. According to our Englishideas she has most revolting manners, and the money she spends on herclothes would make your hair stand on end. Now do, dearest grandmother, make all your arrangements for beginning the campaign directly afterEaster. You must take a house in the very choicest quarter--LadyKirkbank suggests Grosvenor-place--and it _must_ be a large house, forof course you will give a ball. Lady K. Says we might have LordPorlock's house--poor Lady Porlock and her baby died a few weeks ago, and he has gone to Sweden quite broken-hearted. It is one of the newhouses, exquisitely furnished, and Lady K. Thinks you might have it fora song. Will you get Steadman to write to his lordship's steward, andsee what can be done?

'I hope the dear hand is better. You have never told me how you hurtit. It is very sweet of Mary to write me such long letters, and quite apleasant surprise to find she can spell; but I want to see your own dearhand once more. '

CHAPTER XVIII. 

'AND COME AGEN BE IT BY NIGHT OR DAY. '

Those winter months were unutterably dreary for Lady Mary Haselden. Shefelt weighed down by a sense of death and woe near at hand. The horrorof that dreadful moment in which she found her grandmother lyingsenseless on the ground, the terror of that distorted countenance, thosestarting eyes, that stertorous breathing, was not easily banished from avivid girlish imagination; seeing how few distractions there were todivert Mary's thoughts, and how the sun sank and rose again upon thesame inevitable surroundings, to the same monotonous routine. 

Her grandmother was kinder than she had been in days gone by, lessinclined to find fault; but Mary knew that her society gave LadyMaulevrier very little pleasure, that she could do hardly anythingtowards filling the gap made by Lesbia's absence. There was no one toscold her, no one to quarrel with her. Fräulein Müller lectured hermildly from time to time; but that stout German was too lazy to put anyforce or fire into her lectures. Her reproofs were like the fall ofwaterdrops on a stone, and infinite ages would have been needed to causeany positive impression. 

February came to an end without sign or token from the outer world todisturb the even tenor of life at Fellside. Mary read, and read, andread, till she felt she was made up of the contents of books, crammedwith other people's ideas. She read history, or natural science, ortravels, or German poetry in the morning, and novels or English poetryin the evening. She had pledged herself to devote her morning indoorhours to instructive literature, and to accomplish some portion of studyin every day. She was carrying on her education on parole, as beforestated; and she was too honourable to do less than was expected fromher. 

March came in with its most leonine aspect, howling and blustering;north-east winds shrieking along the gorges and wailing from height toheight. 

'I wonder the lion and the lamb are not blown into the lake, ' said Mary, looking at Helm Crag from the library window. 

She scampered about the gardens in the very teeth of those bitterblasts, and took her shivering terriers for runs on the green slopes ofthe Fell. The snow had gradually melted from the tides of the lowermostrange of hills, but the mountain peaks were still white and ghostly, the ground was still hard and slippery in the early mornings. Mary hadto take her walks alone in this bleak weather. Fräulein had a convenientbronchial affection which forbade her to venture so much as the point ofher nose outside the house in an east wind, and which justified her inoccasionally taking her breakfast in bed. She spent her days for themost part in her arm-chair, drawn close to the fireplace, which shestill insisted upon calling the oven, knitting diligently, or readingthe _Rundschau_. Even music, which had once been her strong point, wasneglected in this trying weather. It was such a cold journey from theoven to the piano. 

Mary played a good deal in her desultory manner, now that she had thedrawing-room all to herself, and no fear of Lady Maulevrier's criticalear or Lesbia's superior smile. The Fräulein was pleased to hear herpupil ramble on with her favourite bits from Raff, and Hensel, andSchubert, and Mendelssohn, and Mozart, and was very well content to lether play just what she liked, and to escape the trouble of training herto that exquisite perfection into which Lady Lesbia had been drilled. Lesbia was not a genius, and the training process had been quite as hardfor the governess as for the pupil. 

Thus the slow days wore on till the first week in March, and on onebleak bitter afternoon, when Fräulein Müller stuck to the oven even alittle closer than usual, Mary felt she must go out, in the face of theeast wind, which was tossing the leafless branches in the valley belowuntil the trees looked like an angry crowd, hurling its arms in the air, fighting, struggling, writhing. She must leave that dreary house for alittle while, were it even to be lashed and bruised and broken by thatfierce wind. So she told Fräulein that she really must have herconstitutional; and after a feeble remonstrance Fräulein let her go, andsubsided luxuriously into the pillowed depth of her arm-chair. 

There had been a hard frost, and all the mountain ways were perilous, soMary set out upon a steady tramp along the road leading towards theLangdales. The wind seemed to assail her from every side, but she hadaccustomed herself to defy the elements, and she only hugged hersealskin jacket closer to her, and quickened her pace, chirruping andwhistling to Ahab and Ariadne, the two fox-terriers which she hadselected for the privilege of a walk. 

The terriers raced along the road, and Mary, seeing that she had theroad all to herself, raced after them. A light snow-shower, largefeathery flakes flying wide apart, fell from the steel-grey sky; butMary minded the snow no more than she minded the wind. She raced on, theterriers scampering, rushing, flying before her, until, just where theroad took a curve, she almost ran into a horse, which was stepping alongat a tremendous pace, with a light, high dogcart behind him. 

'Hi!' cried the driver, 'where are you coming, young woman? Have younever seen a horse till to-day?'

Some one beside the driver leapt out, and ran to see if Mary was hurt. The horse had swerved to one side, reared a little, and then spun on fora few yards, leaving her standing in the middle of the road. 

'Why, it's Molly!' cried the driver, who was no less distinguished awhip than Lord Maulevrier, and who had recognised the terriers. 

'I hope you are not hurt, ' said the gentleman who had alighted, Maulevrier's friend and shadow, John Hammond. 

Mary was covered with confusion by her exploit, and could hardly answerMr. Hammond's very simple question. 

She looked up at him piteously, trying to speak, and he took alarm ather scared expression. 

'I am sure you are hurt, ' he said earnestly, 'the horse must have struckyou, or the shaft perhaps, which was worse. Is it your shoulder that ishurt, or your chest? Lean on me, if you feel faint or giddy. Maulevrier, you had better drive your sister home, and get her looked after. '

'Indeed, I am not hurt; not the least little bit, ' gasped Mary, who hadrecovered her senses by this time. 'I was only frightened, and it wassuch a surprise to see you and Maulevrier. '

A surprise--yes--a surprise which had set her heart throbbing soviolently as to render her speechless. Had horse or shaft-point struckher ever so, she would have hardly been more tremulous than she felt atthis moment. Never had she hoped to see him again. He had set his allupon one cast--loved, wooed, and lost her sister. Why should he evercome again? What was there at Fellside worth coming for? And then sheremembered what her grandmother thought of him. He was a hanger-on, asponge, a led captain. He was Maulevrier's Umbra, and must go where hispatron went. It was a hard thing so to think of him, and Mary's heartsank at the thought that Lady Maulevrier's worldly wisdom might havereckoned aright. 

'It was very foolish of me to run into the horse, ' said Mary, while Mr. Hammond stood waiting for her to recover herself. 

'It was very foolish of Maulevrier to run into you. If he didn't driveat such a break-neck pace it wouldn't have happened. '

Umbra was very plain-spoken, at any rate. 

'There's rank ingratitude, ' cried Maulevrier, who had turned back, andwas looking down at them from his elevated perch. 'After my coming allthe way round by Langdale to oblige you with a view of Elterwater. Molly's all safe and sound. She wouldn't have minded if I'd run overher. Come along, child, get up beside me, Hammond will take the backseat. '

This was easier said than done, for the back of the dogcart was piledwith Gladstone bags, fishing rods, and hat-boxes; but Umbra was readyto oblige. He handed Mary up to the seat by the driver, and clambered upat the back, when he hooked himself on somehow among the luggage. 

'Dear Maulevrier, how delicious of you to come!' said Mary, when theywere rattling on towards Fellside; 'I hope you are going to stay forages. '

'Well, I dare say, if you make yourself very agreeable, I may stay tillafter Easter. '

Mary's countenance fell. 

'Easter is in three weeks, ' she said, despondingly. 

'And isn't three weeks an age, at such a place as Fellside? I don't knowthat I should have come at all on this side of the August sports, onlyas the grandmother was ill, I thought it a duty to come and see her. Afellow mayn't care much for ancestors when they're well, you know; butwhen a poor old lady is down on her luck, her people ought to look afterher. So, here I am; and as I knew I should be moped to death here----'

'Thank you for the compliment, ' said Mary. 

'I brought Hammond along with me. Of course, I knew Lesbia was safe outof the way, ' added Maulevrier in an undertone. 

'It is very obliging of Mr. Hammond always to go where you wish, 'returned Mary, who could not help a bitter feeling when she rememberedher grandmother's cruel suggestion. 'Has he no tastes or inclinations ofhis own?'

'Yes, he has, plenty of them, and much loftier tastes than mine, I cantell you. But he's kind enough to let me hang on to him, and to put upwith my frivolity. There never were two men more different than he and Iare; and I suppose that's why we get on so well together. When we werein Paris he was always up to his eyes in serious work--lectures, publiclibraries, workmen's syndicates, Mary Anne, the International--heavenknows what, making himself master of the political situation in France;while I was _rigolant_ and _chaloupant_ at the Bal Bullier. '

It was generous of Maulevrier to speak of his hanger-on thus; and nodoubt the society of a well-informed earnest young man was a great goodfor Maulevrier, a good far above the price of those pounds, shillings, and pence which the Earl might spend for his dependent's benefit; butwhen a girl of Mary's ardent temper has made a hero of a man, it gallsher to think that her hero's dignity should be sacrificed, his honourimpeached, were it by the merest tittle. 

Maulevrier made a good many inquiries about his grandmother, and seemedreally full of kindness and sympathy; but it was with a feeling ofprofound awe, nay, of involuntary reluctance and shrinking, that hepresently entered her ladyship's sitting-room, ushered in by Mary, whohad been to her grandmother beforehand to announce the grandson'sarrival. 

The young man had hardly ever been in a sick room before. He halfexpected to see Lady Maulevrier in bed, with a crowd of medicine bottlesand a cut orange on a table by her side, and a sick nurse of theancient-crone species cowering over the fire. It was an infinite reliefto him to find his grandmother lying on a sofa by the fire in her prettymorning room. A little tea-table was drawn close up to her sofa, and shewas taking her afternoon tea. It was rather painful to see her liftingher tea-cup slowly and carefully with her left hand, but that was all. The dark eyes still flashed with the old eagle glance, the lines of thelips were as proud and firm as ever. All sign of contraction ordistortion had passed away. In hours of calm her ladyship's beauty wasunimpaired; but with any strong emotion there came a convulsive workingof the features, and the face was momentarily drawn and distorted, as ithad been at the time of the seizure. 

Maulevrier's presence had not an unduly agitating effect on herladyship. She received him with tranquil graciousness, and thanked himfor his coming. 

'I hope you have spent your winter profitably in Paris, ' she said. 'There is a great deal to be learnt there if you go into the rightcircles. '

Maulevrier told her that he had found much to learn, and that he hadgone into circles where almost everything was new to him. Whereupon hisgrandmother questioned him about certain noble families in the FaubourgSaint Germain who had been known to her in her own day of power, andwhose movements she had observed from a distance since that time; buthere she found her grandson dark. He had not happened to meet any of thepeople she spoke about: the plain truth being that he had livedaltogether as a Bohemian, and had not used one of the letters ofintroduction that had been given to him. 

'Your friend Mr. Hammond is with you, I am told, ' said Lady Maulevrier, not altogether with delight. 

'Yes, I made him come; but he is quite safe. He will bolt like a shot atthe least hint of Lesbia's return. He doesn't want to meet that younglady again, I can assure you. '

'Pray don't talk in that injured tone. Mr. Hammond is a gentlemanlikeperson, very well informed, very agreeable. I have never denied that. But you could not expect me to allow my granddaughter to throw herselfaway upon the first adventurer who made her an offer. '

'Hammond is not an adventurer. '

'Very well, I will not call him so, if the term offends you. But Mr. Hammond is--Mr. Hammond, and I cannot allow Lesbia to marry Mr. Hammondor Mr. Anybody, and I am very sorry you have brought him here again. There is Mary, a silly, romantic girl. I am very much afraid he has madean impression upon her. She colours absurdly when she talks of him, andflew into a passion with me the other day when I ventured to hint thathe is not a Rothschild, and that his society must be expensive to you. '

'His society does not cost me anything. Hammond is the soul ofindependence. He worked as a blacksmith in Canada for three months, justto see what life was like in a wild district. There never was such afellow to rough it. And as for Molly, well, now, really, if he happenedto take a fancy to her, and if she happened to like him, I wouldn't boshthe business, if I were you, grandmother. Take my word for it, Mollymight do worse. '

'Of course. She might marry a chimney sweep. There is no answering for agirl of her erratic nature. She is silly enough and romantic enough foranything; but I shall not countenance her if she wants to throw herselfaway on a person without prospects or connections; and I look to you, Maulevrier, to take care of her, now that I am a wretched log chained tothis room. '

'You may rely upon me, grandmother, Molly shall come to no harm, if Ican help it. '

'Thank you, ' said her ladyship, touching her bell twice. 

The two clear silvery strokes were a summons for Halcott, the maid, whoappeared immediately. 

'Tell Mrs. Power to get his lordship's room ready immediately, and togive Mr. Hammond the room he had last summer, ' said Lady Maulevrier, with a sigh of resignation. 

While Maulevrier was with his grandmother John Hammond was smoking asolitary cigar on the terrace, contemplating the mountain landscape inits cold March greyness, and wondering very much to find himself againat Fellside. He had gone forth from that house full of passionateindignation, shaking off the dust from his feet, sternly resolved neveragain to cross the threshold of that fateful cave, where he had met hiscold-hearted Circe. And now, because Circe was safe out of the way, hehad come back to the cavern; and he was feeling all the pain that a manfeels who beholds again the scene of a great past sorrow. 

Was this the old love and the old pain again, he wondered, or was itonly the sharp thrust of a bitter memory? He had believed himself curedof his useless love--a great and noble love, wasted on a smaller naturethan his own. He had thought that because his eyes were opened, and heunderstood the character of the girl he loved, his cure must needs becomplete. Yet now, face to face with the well-remembered landscape, looking down upon that dull grey lake which he had seen smiling in thesunshine, he began to doubt the completeness of his cure. He recalledthe lovely face, the graceful form, the sweet, low voice--the perfectionof gracious womanhood, manner, dress, movements, tones, smiles, allfaultless; and in the absence of that one figure, it seemed to him as ifhe had come back to a tenantless, dismantled house, where there wasnothing that made life worth living. 

The red sun went down--a fierce and lurid face that seemed to scowlthrough the grey--and Mr. Hammond felt that it was time to arousehimself from gloomy meditation and go in and dress for dinner. Maulevrier's valet was to arrive by the coach with the heavier part ofthe luggage, and Maulevrier's valet did that very small portion ofvaleting which was ever required by Mr. Hammond. A man who has worked ata forge in the backwoods is not likely to be finicking in his ways, ordependent upon servants for looking after his raiment. 

Despite Mr. Hammond's gloomy memories of past joys and disillusions, hecontrived to make himself very agreeable, by-and-by, at dinner, and inthe drawing-room after dinner, and the evening was altogether gay andsprightly. Maulevrier was in high spirits, full of his Parisianexperiences, and talking slang as glibly as a student of the QuartierLatin. He would talk nothing but French, protesting that he had almostforgotten his native tongue, and his French was the language ofLarchey's Dictionary of Argot, in which nothing is called by its rightname. Mary was enchanted with this new vocabulary, and wanted to haveevery word explained to her; but Maulevrier confessed that there was agood deal that was unexplainable. 

The evening was much livelier than those summer evenings when thedowager and Lady Lesbia were present. There was something less ofrefinement, perhaps, and Fräulein remonstrated now and then about somesmall violation of the unwritten laws of 'Anstand, ' but there was moremirth. Maulevrier felt for the first time as if he were master atFellside. They all went to the billiard room soon after dinner, andFräulein and Mary sat by the fire looking on, while the two young menplayed. In such an evening there was no time for bitter memories: andJohn Hammond was surprised to find how little he had missed thatenchantress whose absence had made the house seem desolate to him whenhe re-entered it. 

He was tired with his journey and the varying emotions of the day, forit was not without strong emotion that he had consented to return toFellside--and he slept soundly for the earlier part of the night. But hehad trained himself long ago to do with a very moderate portion ofsleep, and he was up and dressed while the dawn was still slowlycreeping along the edges of the hills. He went quietly down to the hall, took one of the bamboos from a collection of canes and mountain sticks, and set out upon a morning ramble over the snowy slopes. The snowshowers of yesterday had only sprinkled the greensward upon the lowerground, but in the upper regions the winter snows still lingered, givingan Alpine character to the landscape. 

John Hammond was too experienced a mountaineer to be deterred by alittle snow. He went up Silver Howe, and from the rugged breast of themountain saw the sun leap up from amidst a chaos of hill and crag, inall his majesty, while the grey mists of night slowly floated up fromthe valley that had lain hidden below them, and Grasmere Lake sparkledand flashed in the light of the newly-risen sun. 

The church clock was striking eight as Hammond came at a brisk pace downto the valley. There was still an hour before breakfast, so he took acircuitous path to Fellside, and descended upon the house from the Fell, as he had done that summer morning when he saw James Steadman saunteringabout in his garden. 

Within about a quarter of a mile of Lady Maulevrier's shrubberies Mr. Hammond encountered a pedestrian, who, like himself, was evidentlytaking a constitutional ramble in the morning air, but on a much lessextended scale, for this person did not look capable of going farafield. 

He was an old man, something under middle height, but looking as if hehad once been taller; for his shoulders were much bent, and his head wassunk on his chest. His whole form looked wasted and shrunken, and JohnHammond thought he had never seen so old a man--or at any rate any manwho was so deeply marked with all the signs of extreme age; and yet inthe backwoods of America he had met ancient settlers who rememberedFranklin, and who had been boys when the battle of Bunker's Hill wasfresh in the memory of their fathers and mothers. 

The little old man was clad in a thick grey overcoat of some shaggy kindof cloth which looked like homespun. He wore a felt hat, and carried athick oak stick, and there was nothing in his appearance to indicatethat he belonged to any higher grade than that of the shepherds andguides with whom Hammond had made himself familiar during his previousvisit. And yet there was something distinctive about the man, Hammondthought, something wild and uncanny, which made him unlike any of thosehale and hearty-looking dalesmen on whom old age sate so lightly. No, John Hammond could not fancy this man, with his pallid countenance andpale crafty eyes, to be of the same race as those rugged andhonest-looking descendants of the Norsemen. 

Perhaps it was the man's exceeding age, for John Hammond made up hismind that he must be a centenarian, which gave him so strange and unholyan air. He had the aspect of a man who had been buried and brought backto life again. 

So might look one of those Indian Fakirs who have the power to suspend lifeby some mysterious process, and to lie in the darkness of the grave for agiven period, and then at their own will to resume the functions of theliving. His long white hair fell upon the collar of his grey coat, andwould have given him a patriarchal appearance had the face possessed thedignity of age: but it was a countenance without dignity, a face deeplyscored with the lines of evil passions and guilty memories--the face ofthe vulture, with a touch of the ferret--altogether a most unpleasantface, Mr. Hammond thought. 

And yet there was a kind of fascination about that bent and shrunkenfigure, those feeble movements, and shuffling gait. John Hammond turnedto look after the old man when he had passed him, and stood to watch himas he went slowly up the Fell, plant his crutch stick upon the groundbefore every footstep, as if it were a third leg, and more serviceablethan either of the other two. 

Mr. Hammond watched him for two or three minutes, but, as the old man'smovements had an automatic regularity, the occupation soon palled, andhe turned and walked toward Fellside. A few yards nearer the grounds hemet James Steadman, walking briskly, and smoking his morning pipe. 

'You are out early this morning, ' said Hammond, by way of civility. 

'I am always pretty early, sir. I like a mouthful of morning air. '

'So do I. By-the-bye, can you tell me anything about a queer-looking oldman I passed just now a little higher up the Fell? Such an old, old man, with long white hair. '

'Yes, sir. I believe I know him. '

'Who is he? Does he live in Grasmere?'

Steadman looked puzzled. 

'Well, you see, sir, your description might apply to a good many; but ifit's the man I think you mean he lives in one of the cottages behind thechurch. Old Barlow, they call him. '

'There can't be two such men--he must be at least a century old. If anyone told me he were a hundred and twenty I shouldn't be inclined todoubt the fact. I never saw such a shrivelled, wrinkled visage, bloodless, too, as if the poor old wretch never felt your fresh mountainair upon his hollow cheeks. A dreadful face. It will haunt me for amonth. '

'It must be old Barlow, ' replied Steadman. 'Good day, sir. '

He walked on with his swinging step, and at such a pace that he was upthe side of the Fell and close upon old Barlow's heels when Hammondturned to look after him five minutes later. 

'There's a man who shows few traces of age, at any rate, ' thoughtHammond. 'Yet her ladyship told me that he is over seventy. '

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE OLD MAN ON THE FELL. 

Having made up his mind to stay at Fellside until after Easter, Maulevrier settled down very quietly--for him. He rode a good deal, fished a little, looked after his dogs, played billiards, made a devoutappearance in the big square pew at St. Oswald's on Sunday mornings, andbehaved altogether as a reformed character. Even his grandmother wasfain to admit that Maulevrier was improved, and that Mr. Hammond'sinfluence upon him must be exercised for good and not for evil. 

'I plunged awfully last year, and the year before that, ' saidMaulevrier, sitting at tea in her ladyship's morning room one afternoonabout a week after his return, when she had expressed her graciousdesire that the two young men should take tea with her. 

Mary was in charge of the tea-pot and brass kettle, and looked asradiant and as fresh as a summer morning. A regular Gainsborough girl, Hammond called her, when he praised her to her brother; a true Englishbeauty, unsophisticated, a little rustic, but full of youthfulsweetness. 

'You see, I didn't know what a racing stable meant, ' continuedMaulevrier, mildly apologetic--'in fact, I thought it was an easy wayfor a nobleman to make as good a living as your City swells, with theirsoft goods or their Brummagem ware, a respectable trade for a gentlemanto engage in. And it was only when I was half ruined that I began tounderstand the business; and as soon as I did understand it I made up mymind to get out of it; and I am happy to say that I sold the very lastof my stud in February, and Tony Lumpkin is his own man again. So youmay welcome the prodigal grandson, and order the fatted calf to beslain, grandmother!'

Lady Maulevrier stretched out her left hand to him, and the young manbent over it and kissed it affectionately. He felt really touched by hermisfortunes, and was fonder of her than he had ever been before. She hadbeen somewhat hard with him in his boyhood, but she had always cared forhis dignity and protected his interests: and, after all, she was a nobleold woman, a grandmother of whom a man might be justly proud. He thoughtof the painted harridans, the bare-shouldered skeletons, whom some ofhis young friends were obliged to own in the same capacity, and he wasthankful that he could reverence his father's mother. 

'That is the best news I have heard for a long time, Maulevrier, ' saidher ladyship graciously; 'better medicine for my nerves than any of Mr. Horton's preparations. If Mr. Hammond's advice has influenced you to getrid of your stable I am deeply grateful to Mr. Hammond. '

Hammond smiled as he sipped his tea, sitting close to Mary's tray, readyto fly to her assistance on the instant should the brazen kettle becometroublesome. It had a threatening way of hissing and bubbling over itsspirit lamp. 

'Oh, you have no idea what a fellow Hammond is to lecture, ' answeredMaulevrier. 'He is a tremendous Radical, and he thinks that every youngman in my position ought to be a reformer, and devote the greater partof his time and trouble to turning out the dirty corners of the world, upsetting those poor dear families who like to pig together in one room, ordering all the children off to school, marrying the fathers andmothers, thrusting himself between free labour and free beer, andinterfering with the liberty of the subject in every direction. '

'All that may sound like Radicalism, but I think it is the trueConservatism, and that every young man ought to do as much, if he wantsthis timeworn old country to maintain its power and prosperity, 'answered Lady Maulevrier, with an approving glance at John Hammond'sthoughtful face. 

'Right you are, grandmother, ' returned Maulevrier, 'and I believeHammond calls himself a Conservative, and means to vote with theConservatives. '

Means to vote! An idle phrase, surely, thought her ladyship, where theyoung man's chance of getting into Parliament was so remote. 

That afternoon tea in Lady Maulevrier's room was almost as cheerful asthe tea-drinkings in the drawing-room, unrestrained by her ladyship'spresence. She was pleased with her grandson's conduct, and was thereforeinclined to be friendly to his friend. She could see an improvement inMary, too. The girl was more feminine, more subdued, graver, sweeter;more like that ideal woman of Wordsworth's, whose image embodies allthat is purest and fairest in womanhood. 

Mary had not forgotten that unlucky story about the fox-hunt, and eversince Hammond's return she had been as it were on her best behaviour, refraining from her races with the terriers, and holding herself alooffrom Maulevrier's masculine pursuits. She sheltered herself a good dealunder the Fräulein's substantial wing, and took care never to intrudeherself upon the amusements of her brother and his friend. She was notone of those young women who think a brother's presence an excuse for aperpetual _tête-à-tête_ with a young man. Yet when Maulevrier came inquest of her, and entreated her to join them in a ramble, she was nottoo prudish to refuse the pleasure she so thoroughly enjoyed. Butafternoon tea was her privileged hour--the time at which she wore herprettiest frock, and forgot to regret her inferiority to Lesbia in allthe graces of womanhood. 

One afternoon, when they had all three walked to Easedale Tarn, and werecoming back by the side of the force, picking their way among the greystones and the narrow threads of silvery water, it suddenly occurred toHammond to ask Mary about that queer old man he had seen on the Fellnearly a fortnight before. He had often thought of making the inquirywhen he was away from Mary, but had always forgotten the thing when hewas with her. Indeed, Mary had a wonderful knack of making him forgeteverything but herself. 

'You seem to know every creature in Grasmere, down to the two-year-oldbabies, ' said Hammond, Mary having just stopped to converse with aninfantine group, straggling and struggling over the boulders. 'Pray, doyou happen to know a man called Barlow, a very old man?'

'Old Sam Barlow, ' exclaimed Mary; 'why, of course I know him. '

She said it as if he were a near relative, and the question palpablyabsurd. 

'He is an old man, a hundred, at least, I should think, ' said Hammond. 

'Poor old Sam, not much on the wrong side of eighty. I go to see himevery week, and take him his week's tobacco, poor old dear. It is hisonly comfort. '

'Is it?' asked Hammond. 'I should have doubted his having so humanisinga taste as tobacco. He looks too evil a creature ever to have yielded tothe softening influence of a pipe. '

'An evil creature! What, old Sam? Why he is the most genial old thing, and as cheery--loves to hear the newspaper read to him--the murders andrailway accidents. He doesn't care for politics. Everybody likes old SamBarlow. '

'I fancy the Grasmere idea of reverend and amiable age must be strictlylocal. I can only say that I never saw a more unholy countenance. '

'You must have been dreaming when you saw him, ' said Mary. 'Where didyou meet him?'

'On the Fell, about a quarter of a mile from the shrubbery gate. '

'_Did_ you? I shouldn't have thought he could have got so far. I've agood mind to take you to see him, this very afternoon, before we gohome. '

'Do, ' exclaimed Hammond, 'I should like it immensely. I thought him ahateful-looking old person; but there was something so thoroughlyuncanny about him that he exercised an absolute fascination upon me: hemagnetised me, I think, as the green-eyed cat magnetises the bird. Ihave been positively longing to see him again. He is a kind of humanmonster, and I hope some one will have a big bottle made ready for himand preserve him in spirits when he dies. '

'What a horrid idea! No, sir, dear old Barlow shall lie beside theRotha, under the trees Wordsworth planted. He is such a man asWordsworth would have loved. '

Mr. Hammond shrugged his shoulders, and said no more. Mary's littlevehement ways, her enthusiasm, her love of that valley, which might becalled her native place, albeit her eyes had opened upon heaven's lightfar away, her humility, were all very delightful in their way. She wasnot a perfect beauty, like Lesbia; but she was a fresh, pure-mindedEnglish girl, frank as the day, and if he had had a brother he wouldhave recommended that brother to choose just such a girl for his wife. 

Mr. Samuel Barlow occupied a little old cottage, which seemed to consistchiefly of a gable end and a chimney stack, in that cluster of dwellingsbehind St. Oswald's church, which was once known as the Kirk Town. Visitors went downstairs to get to Mr. Barlow's ground-floor, for theinfluence of time and advancing civilisation had raised the pathway infront of Mr. Barlow's cottage until his parlour had become of acellar-like aspect. Yet it was a very nice little parlour when one gotdown to it, and it enjoyed winter and summer a perpetual twilight, sincethe light that crept through the leaded casement was tempered by ascreen of flowerpots, which were old Barlow's particular care. Therewere no finer geraniums in all Grasmere than Barlow's, no biggercarnations or picotees, asters or arums. 

It was about five o'clock in the March afternoon, when Mary ushered JohnHammond into Mr. Barlow's dwelling, and, in the dim glow of a cheerylittle fire and the faint light that filtered through the screen ofgeranium leaves, the visitor looked for a moment or so doubtfully at theowner of the cottage. But only for a moment. Those bright blue eyes andapple cheeks, that benevolent expression, bore no likeness to thestrange old man he had seen on the Fell. Mr. Barlow was toothless andnut-cracker like of outline; he was thin and shrunken, and bent with theburden of long years, but his healthy visage had none of those deeplines, those cross markings and hollows which made the pallidcountenance of that other old man as ghastly as would be the abstractidea of life's last stage embodied by the bitter pencil of a Hogarth. 

'I have brought a gentleman from London to see you, Sam, ' said Mary. 'Hefancied he met you on the Fell the other morning. '

Barlow rose and quavered a cheery welcome, but protested against theidea of his having got so far as the Fell. 

'With my blessed rheumatics, you know it isn't in me, Lady Mary. I shallnever get no further than the churchyard; but I likes to sit on the wallhard by Wordsworth's tomb in a warm afternoon, and to see the folks passover the bridge; and I can potter about looking after my flowers, I can. But it would be a dull life, now the poor old missus is gone and thebairns all out at service, if it wasn't for some one dropping in to havea chat, or read me a bit of the news sometimes. And there isn't anybodyin Grasmere, gentle or simple, that's kinder to me than you, Lady Mary. Lord bless you, I do look forward to my newspaper. Any more of themdreadful smashes?'

'No, Sam, thank Heaven, there have been no railway accidents. '

'Ah, we shall have 'em in August and September, ' said the old man, cheerily. 'They're bound to come then. There's a time for all things, as Solomon says. When the season comes t'smashes all coom. And no moreof these mysterious murders, I suppose, which baffle t'police and keepme awake o' nights thinking of 'em. '

'Surely you do not take delight in murder, Mr. Barlow?' said Hammond. 

'No, sir, I do not wish my fellow-creatures to mak' awa' wi' each other;but if there is a murder going in the papers I like to get the benefitof it. I like to sit in front of my fire of an evening and wonder aboutit while I smoke my pipe, and fancy I can see the murderer hiding in agarret in an out-of-the-way alley, or as a stowaway on board a gertship, or as a miner deep down in a coalpit, and never thinking that eventhere t'police can track him. Did you ever hear tell o' Mr. De Quincey, sir?'

'I believe I have read every line he ever wrote. '

'Ah, you should have heard him talk about murders. It would have madeyou dream queer dreams, just as he did. He lived for years in the whitecottage that Wordsworth once lived in, just behind the street yonder--anice, neat, lile gentleman, in a houseful of books. I've had many a talkwith him when I was a young man. '

'And how old may you he now, Mr. Barlow?'

'Getting on for eighty four, sir. '

'But you are not the oldest man in Grasmere, I should say, by twentyyears?'

'I don't think there's many much older than me, sir. '

'The man I saw on the Fell looked at least a hundred. I wish you couldtell me who he is; I feel a morbid curiosity about him. '

He went on to describe the old man in the grey coat, as minutely as hecould, dwelling on every characteristic of that singular-looking oldperson; but Samuel Barlow could not identify the description with anyone in Grasmere. Yet a man of that age, seen walking on the hill-side ateight in the morning, could hardly have come from far afield. 

CHAPTER XX. 

LADY MAULEVRIER'S LETTER-BAG. 

Although Maulevrier had assured his grandmother that John Hammond wouldtake flight at the first warning of Lesbia's return, Lady Maulevrier'sdread of any meeting between her granddaughter and that ineligible loverdetermined her in making such arrangements as should banish Lesbia fromFellside, so long as there seemed the slightest danger of such ameeting. She knew that Lesbia had loved her fortuneless suitor; and shedid not know that the wound was cured, even by a season in thelittle-great world of Cannes. Now that she, the ruler of thathousehold, was a helpless captive in her own apartments, she felt thatLesbia at Fellside would be her own mistress, and hemmed round with thedangers that beset richly-dowered beauty and inexperienced youth. 

John Hammond might be playing a very deep game, perhaps assisted byMaulevrier. He might ostensibly leave Fellside before Lesbia's return, yet lurk in the neighbourhood, and contrive to meet her every day. IfMaulevrier encouraged this folly, they might be married and over theborder, before her ladyship--fettered, impotent as she was--couldinterfere. 

Lady Maulevrier felt that Georgie Kirkbank was her strong rock. So longas Lesbia was under that astute veteran's wing there could be no danger. In that embodied essence of worldliness and diplomacy, there was anever-present defence from all temptations that spring from romance andyouthful impulses. It was a bitter thing, perhaps, to steep a young andpure soul in such an atmosphere, to harden a fresh young nature in thefiery crucible of fashionable life; but Lady Maulevrier believed thatthe end would sanctify the means. Lesbia, once married to a worthy man, such a man as Lord Hartfield, for instance, would soon rise to a higherlevel than that Belgravian swamp over which the malarian vapours offalsehood, and slander, and self-seeking, and prurient imaginings hangdense and thick. She would rise to the loftier table-land of that reallygreat world which governs and admonishes the ruck of mankind by examplesof noble deeds and noble thoughts; the world of statesmen, and soldiers, and thinkers, and reformers; the salt wherewithal society is salted. 

But while Lesbia was treading the tortuous mazes of fashion, it was wellfor her to be guided and guarded by such an old campaigner as LadyKirkbank, a woman who, in the language of her friends, 'knew the ropes. '

Lesbia's last letter had been to the effect that she was to go back toLondon with the Kirkbanks directly after Easter, and that directly theyarrived she would set off with her maid for Fellside, to spend a week ora fortnight with her dearest grandmother, before going back to ArlingtonStreet for the May campaign. 

'And then, dearest, I hope you will make up your mind to spend theseason in London, ' wrote Lesbia. 'I shall expect to hear that you havesecured Lord Porlock's house. How dreadfully slow your poor dear hand isto recover! I am afraid Horton is not treating the case cleverly. Why doyou not send for Mr. Erichsen? It is a shock to my nerves every time Ireceive a letter in Mary's masculine hand, instead of in your lovelyItalian penmanship. Strange--isn't it?--how much better the women ofyour time write than the girls of the present day! Lady Kirkbankreceives letters from stylish girls in a hand that would disgrace ahousemaid. '

Lady Maulevrier allowed a post to go by before she answered this letter, while she deliberated upon the best and wisest manner of arranging hergranddaughter's future. It was an agony to her not to be able to writewith her own hand, to be obliged to so shape every sentence that Marymight learn nothing which she ought not to know. It was impossible withsuch an amanuensis to write confidentially to Lady Kirkbank. The lettersto Lesbia were of less consequence; for Lesbia, albeit so intenselybeloved, was not in her grandmother's confidence, least of all aboutthose schemes and dreams which concerned her own fate. 

However, the letters had to be written, so Mary was told to open herdesk and begin. 

The letter to Lesbia ran thus:--

 'My dearest Child, 'This is a world in which our brightest day-dreams generally end in mere dreaming. For years past I have cherished the hope of presenting you to your sovereign, to whom I was presented six and forty years ago, when she was so fair and girlish a creature that she seemed to me more like a queen in a fairy tale than the actual ruler of a great country. I have beguiled my monotonous days with thoughts of the time when I should return to the great world, full of pride and delight in showing old friends what a sweet flower I had reared in my mountain home; but, alas, Lesbia, it may not be. 

 'Fate has willed otherwise. The maimed hand does not recover, although Horton is very clever, and thoroughly understands my case. I am not ill, I am not in danger; so you need feel no anxiety about me; but I am a cripple; and I am likely to remain a cripple for months; so the idea of a London season this year is hopeless. 

 'Now, as you have in a manner made your _début_ at Cannes, it would never do to bury you here for another year. You complained of the dullness last summer; but you would find Fellside much duller now that you have tasted the elixir of life. No, my dear love, it will be well for you to be presented, as Lady Kirkbank proposes, at the first drawing-room after Easter; and Lady Kirkbank will have to present you. She will be pleased to do this, I know, for her letters are full of enthusiasm about you. And, after all, I do not think you will lose by the exchange. Clever as I think myself, I fear I should find myself sorely at fault in the society of to-day. All things are changed: opinions, manners, creeds, morals even. Acts that were crimes in my day are now venial errors--opinions that were scandalous are now the mark of "advanced thought. " I should be too formal for this easy-going age, should be ridiculed as old-fashioned and narrow-minded, should put you to the blush a dozen times a day by my prejudices and opinions. 

 'It is very good of you to think of travelling so long a distance to see me; and I should love to look at your sweet face, and hear you describe your new experiences; but I could not allow you to travel with only the protection of a maid; and there are many reasons why I think it better to defer the meeting till the end of the season, when Lady Kirkbank will bring my treasure back to me, eager to tell me the history of all the hearts she has broken. '

The dowager's letter to Lady Kirkbank was brief and business-like. Shecould only hope that her old friend Georgie, whose acuteness she knew ofold, would divine her feelings and her wishes, without being explicitlytold what they were. 

 'My dear Georgie, 'I am too ill to leave this house; indeed I doubt if I shall ever leave it till I am taken away in my coffin; but please say nothing to alarm Lesbia. Indeed, there is no ground for fear, as I am not dangerously ill, and may drag out an imprisonment of long years before the coffin comes to fetch me. There are reasons, which you will understand, why Lesbia should not come here till after the season; so please keep her in Arlington Street, and occupy her mind as much as you can with the preparations for her first campaign. I give you _carte blanche_. If Carson is still in business I should like her to make my girl's gowns; but you must please yourself in this matter, as it is quite possible that Carson is a little behind the times. 

 'I must ask you to present my darling, and to deal with her exactly as if she were a daughter of your own. I think you know all my views and hopes about her; and I feel that I can trust to your friendship in this my day of need. The dream of my life has been to launch her myself, and direct her every step in the mazes of town life; but that dream is over. I have kept age and infirmity at a distance, have even forgotten that the years were going by; and now I find myself an old woman all at once, and my golden dream has vanished. '

Lady Kirkbank's reply came by return of post, and happily this gushingepistle had not to be submitted to Mary's eye. 

 'My dearest Di, 'My heart positively bleeds for you. What is the matter with your hand, that you talk of being a life-long prisoner to your room? Pray send for Paget or Erichsen, and have yourself put right at once. No doubt that local simpleton is making a mess of your case. Perhaps while he is dabbing with lint and lotions the real remedy is the knife. I am sure amputation would be less melancholy than the despondent state of feeling which you are now suffering. If any limb of mine went wrong, I should say to the surgeon, "Cut it off, and patch up the stump in your best style; I give you a fortnight, and at the end of that time I expect to be going to parties again. " Life is not long enough for dawdling surgery. 

 'As regards Lesbia, I can only say that I adore her, and I am enchanted at the idea that I am to run her myself. I intend her to be _the_ beauty of the season--not _one of the loveliest debutantes_, or any rot of that kind--but just the girl whom everybody will be crazy about. There shall be a mob wherever she appears, Di, I promise you that. There is no one in London who can work a thing of that kind better than your humble servant. And when once the girl is the talk of the town, all the rest is easy. She can choose for herself among the very best men in society. Offers will pour in as thickly as circulars from undertakers and mourning warehouses after a death. 

 'Lesbia is so cool-headed and sensible that I have not the least doubt of her success. With an impulsive or romantic girl there is always the fear of a _fiasco_. But this sweet child of yours has been well brought up, and knows her own value. She behaved like a queen here, where I need not tell you society is just a little mixed; though, of course, we only cultivate our own set. Your heart would swell with pride if you could see the way she puts down men who are not quite good style; and the ease with which she crushes those odious American girls, with their fine complexions and loud manners. 

 'Be assured that I shall guard her as the apple of my eye, and that the detrimental who circumvents me will be a very Satan of schemers. 

 'I can but smile at your mention of Carson, whose gowns used to fit us so well in our girlish days, and whose bills seem moderate compared with the exorbitant accounts I get now. 

 'Carson has long been forgotten, my dear soul, gone with the snows of last year. A long procession of fashionable French dressmakers has passed across the stage since her time, like the phantom kings in Macbeth; and now the last rage is to have our gowns made by an Englishman who works for the Princess, and who gives himself most insufferable airs, or an Irishwoman who is employed by all the best actresses. It is to the latter, Kate Kearney, I shall entrust our sweet Lesbia's toilettes. '

The same post brought a loving letter from Lesbia, full of regret at notbeing allowed to go down to Fellside, and yet full of delight at theprospect of her first season. 

 'Lady Kirkbank and I have been discussing my court dress, ' she wrote, 'and we have decided upon a white cut-velvet train, with a border of ostrich feathers, over a satin petticoat embroidered with seed pearl. It will be expensive, but we know you will not mind that. Lady Kirkbank takes the idea from the costume Buckingham wore at the Louvre the first time he met Anne of Austria. Isn't that clever of her? She is not a deep thinker like you; is horribly ignorant of science, metaphysics, poetry even. She asked me one day who Plato was, and whether he took his name from the battle of Platoea; and she says she never could understand why people make a fuss about Shakespeare; but she has read all the secret histories and memoirs that ever were written, and knows all the ins and outs of court life and high life for the last three hundred years; and there is not a person in the peerage whose family history she has not at her fingers' ends, except my grandfather. When I asked her to tell me all about Lord Maulevrier and his achievements as Governor of Madras, she had not a word to say. So, perhaps, she draws upon her invention a little in talking about other people, and felt herself restrained when she came to speak of my grandfather. '

This passage in Lesbia's letter affected Lady Maulevrier as if ascorpion had wriggled from underneath the sheet of paper. She folded theletter, and laid it in the satin-lined box on her table, with a deepsigh. 

'Yes, she is in the world now, and she will ask questions. I have neverwarned her against pronouncing her grandfather's name. There are somewho will not be so kind as Georgie Kirkbank; some, perhaps, who willdelight in humiliating her, and who will tell her the worst that can betold. My only hope is that she will make a great marriage, and speedily. Once the wife of a man with a high place in the world, worldlings willbe too wise to wound her by telling her that her grandfather was anunconvicted felon. '

The die was cast. Lady Maulevrier might dread the hazard of eviltongues, of slanderous memories; but she could not recall her consent toLesbia's _début_. The girl was already launched; she had been seen andadmired. The next stage in her career must be to be wooed and won by aworthy wooer. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

ON THE DARK BROW OF HELVELLYN. 

While these plans were being settled, and while Lesbia's future was theall-absorbing subject of Lady Maulevrier's thoughts, Mary contrived tobe happier than she had ever been in her life before. It was happinessthat grew and strengthened with every day; and yet there was no obviousreason for this deep joy. Her life ran in the same familiar groove. Shewalked and rode on the old pathways; she rowed on the lake she had knownfrom babyhood; she visited her cottagers, and taught in the villageschool, just the same as of old. The change was only that she was nolonger alone; and of late the solitude of her life, the ever-presentconsciousness that nobody shared her pleasures or sympathised with herupon any point, had weighed upon her like an actual burden. Now she hadMaulevrier, who was always kind, who understood and shared almost allher tastes, and Maulevrier's friend, who, although not given to sayingsmooth things, seemed warmly interested in her pursuits and opinions. Heencouraged her to talk, although he generally took the opposite side inevery argument; and she no longer felt oppressed or irritated by theidea that he despised her. 

Indeed, although he never flattered or even praised her, Mr. Hammond lether see that he liked her society. She had gone out of her way to avoidhim, very fearful lest he should think her bold or masculine; but he hadtaken pains to frustrate all her efforts in that direction; he hadrefused to go upon excursions which she could not share. 'Lady Mary mustcome with us, ' he said, when they were planning a morning's ramble. Thusit happened that Mary was his guide and companion in all his walks, androamed with him bamboo in hand, over every one of those mountainouspaths she knew and loved so well. Distance was as nothing tothem--sometimes a boat helped them, and they went over wintry Windermereto climb the picturesque heights above Bowness. Sometimes they tookponies, and a groom, and left their steeds to perform the wilder part ofthe way on foot. In this wise John Hammond saw all that was to be seenwithin a day's journey of Grasmere, except the top of Helvellyn. Maulevrier had shirked the expedition, had always put off Mary and Mr. Hammond when they proposed it. The season was not advanced enough--therugged pathway by the Tongue Ghyll would be as slippery as glass--nopony could get up there in such weather. 

'We have not had any frost to speak of for the last fortnight, ' pleadedMary, who was particularly anxious to do the honours of Helvellyn, asthe real lion of the neighbourhood. 

'What a simpleton you are, Molly!' cried Maulevrier. 'Do you supposebecause there is no frost in your grandmother's garden--and if you wereto ask Staples about his peaches he would tell you a very differentstory--that there's a tropical atmosphere on Dolly Waggon Pike? Why, I'dwager the ice on Grisdale Tarn is thick enough for skating. Helvellynwon't run away, child. You and Hammond can dance the HighlandSchottische on Striding Edge in June, if you like. '

'Mr. Hammond won't be here in June, ' said Mary. 

'Who knows?--the train service is pretty fair between London andWindermere. Hammond and I would think nothing of putting ourselves inthe mail on a Friday night, and coming down to spend Saturday and Sundaywith you--if you are good. '

There came a sunny morning soon after Easter which seemed mild enoughfor June; and when Hammond suggested that this was the very day forHelvellyn, Maulevrier had not a word to say against the truth of thatproposition. The weather had been exceptionally warm for the last week, and they had played tennis and sat in the garden just as if it had beenactually summer. Patches of snow might still linger on the crests of thehills--but the approach to those bleak heights could hardly be glacial. 

Mary clasped her hands delightedly. 

'Dear old Maulevrier!' she exclaimed, 'you are always good to me. Andnow I shall be able to show you the Red Tarn, the highest pool of waterin England, ' she said, turning to Hammond. 'And you will see Windermerewinding like a silvery serpent between the hills, and Grasmere shininglike a jewel in the depth of the valley, and the sea glittering like aline of white light between the edges of earth and heaven, and the darkScotch hills like couchant lions far away to the north. '

'That is to say these things are all supposed to be on view from the topof the mountain; but as a peculiar and altogether exceptional state ofthe atmosphere is essential to their being seen, I need not tell youthat they are rarely visible, ' said Maulevrier. 'You are talking to oldmountaineers, Molly. Hammond has done Cotapaxi and had his littleclamber on the equatorial Andes, and I--well, child, I have done myRighi, and I have always found the boasted panorama enveloped in densefog. '

'It won't be foggy to-day, ' said Mary. 'Shall we do the whole thing onfoot, or shall I order the ponies?'

Mr. Hammond inquired the distance up and down, and being told that itinvolved only a matter of eight miles, decided upon walking. 

'I'll walk, and lead your pony, ' he said to Mary, but Mary declaredherself quite capable of going on foot, so the ponies were dispensedwith as a possible encumbrance. 

This was planned and discussed in the garden before breakfast. Fräuleinwas told that Mary was going for a long walk with her brother and Mr. Hammond; a walk which might last over the usual luncheon hour; soFräulein was not to wait luncheon. Mary went to her grandmother's roomto pay her duty visit. There were no letters for her to write thatmorning, so she was perfectly free. 

The three pedestrians started an hour after breakfast, in light marchingorder. The two young men wore their Argyleshire shootingclothes--homespun knickerbockers and jackets, thick-ribbed hose knittedby Highland lasses in Inverness. They carried a couple of hunting flasksfilled with claret, and a couple of sandwich boxes, and that was all. Mary wore her substantial tailor-gown of olive tweed, and a little toqueto match, with a silver mounted grouse-claw for her only ornament. 

It was a delicious morning, the air fresh and sweet, the sun comfortablywarm, a little too warm, perhaps, presently, when they had trodden thenarrow path by the Tongue Ghyll, and were beginning to wind slowlyupwards over rough boulders and last year's bracken, tough and brown andtangled, towards that rugged wall of earth and stone tufted with rankgrasses, which calls itself Dolly Waggon Pike. Here they all came to astand-still, and wiped the dews of honest labour from their foreheads;and here Maulevrier flung himself down upon a big boulder, with thesoles of his stout shooting boots in running water, and took out hiscigar case. 

'How do you like it?' he asked his friend, when he had lighted hiscigarette. 'I hope you are enjoying yourself. '

'I never was happier in my life, ' answered Hammond. 

He was standing on higher ground, with Mary at his elbow, pointing outand expatiating upon the details of the prospect. There were thelakes--Grasmere, a disk of shining blue; Rydal, a patch of silver; andWindermere winding amidst a labyrinth of wooded hills. 

'Aren't you tired?' asked Maulevrier. 

'Not a whit. '

'Oh, I forgot you had done Cotapaxi, or as much of Cotapaxi as livingmortal ever has done. That makes a difference. I am going home. '

'Oh, Maulevrier!' exclaimed Mary, piteously. 

'I am going home. You two can go to the top. You are both hardenedmountaineers, and I am not in it with either of you. When I rashlyconsented to a pedestrian ascent of Helvellyn I had forgotten what thegentleman was like; and as to Dolly Waggon I had actually forgotten herexistence. But now I see the lady--as steep as the side of a house, andas stony--no, naught but herself can be her parallel in stoniness. No, Molly, I will go no further. '

'But we shall go down on the other side, ' urged Mary. 'It is a littlesteeper on the Cumberland side, but not nearly so far. '

'A little steeper! I Can anything be steeper than Dolly Waggon? Yes, youare right. It is steeper on the Cumberland side. I remember coming downa sheer descent, like an exaggerated sugar-loaf; but I was on a pony, and it was the brute's look-out. I will not go down the Cumberland sideon my own legs. No, Molly, not even for you. But if you and Hammond wantto go to the top, there is nothing to prevent you. He is a skilledmountaineer. I'll trust you with him. '

Mary blushed, and made no reply. Of all things in the world she leastwanted to abandon the expedition. Yet to climb Helvellyn alone with herbrother's friend would no doubt be a terrible violation of those laws ofmaidenly propriety which Fräulein was always expounding. If Mary were todo this thing, which she longed to do, she must hazard a lecture fromher governess, and probably a biting reproof from her grandmother. 

'Will you trust yourself with me, Lady Mary?' asked Hammond, looking ather with a gaze so earnest--so much more earnest than the occasionrequired--that her blushes deepened and her eyelids fell. 'I have done agood deal of climbing in my day, and I am not afraid of anythingHelvellyn can do to me. I promise to take great care of you if you willcome. '

How could she refuse? How could she for one moment pretend that she didnot trust him, that her heart did not yearn to go with him. She wouldhave climbed the shingly steep of Cotapaxi with him--or crossed thegreat Sahara with him--and feared nothing. Her trust in him wasinfinite--as infinite as her reverence and love. 

'I am afraid Fräulein would make a fuss, ' she faltered, after a pause. 

'Hang Fräulein, ' cried Maulevrier, puffing at his cigarette, and kickingabout the stones in the clear running water. 'I'll square it withFräulein. I'll give her a pint of fiz with her lunch, and make her seeeverything in a rosy hue. The good soul is fond of her Heidseck. Youwill be back by afternoon tea. Why should there be any fuss about thematter? Hammond wants to see the Red Tarn, and you are dying to show himthe way. Go, and joy go with you both. Climbing a stony hill is a formof pleasure to which I have not yet risen. I shall stroll home at myleisure, and spend the afternoon on the billiard-room sofa readingMudie's last contribution to the comforts of home. '

'What a Sybarite, ' said Hammond. 'Come, Lady Mary, we mustn't loiter, ifwe are to be back at Fellside by five o'clock. '

Mary looked at her brother doubtfully, and he gave her a little nodwhich seemed to say, 'Go, by all means;' so she dug the end of her staffinto Dolly's rugged breast, and mounted cheerily, stepping lightly fromboulder to boulder. 

The sun was not so warm as it had been ten minutes ago, when Maulevrierflung himself down to rest. The sky had clouded over a little, and acooler wind was blowing across the breast of the hill. Fairfield yonder, that long smooth slope of verdure which a little while ago lookedemerald green in the sunlight, now wore a soft and shadowy hue. All theworld was greyer and dimmer in a moment, as it were, and Coniston Lakein its distant valley disappeared beneath a veil of mist, while theshimmering sea-line upon the verge of the horizon melted and vanishedamong the clouds that overhung it. The weather changes very quickly inthis part of the world. Sharp drops of rain came spitting at Hammond andMary as they climbed the crest of the Pike, and stopped, somewhatbreathless, to look back at Maulevrier. He was trudging blithely downthe winding way, and seemed to have done wonders while they had beendoing very little. 

'How fast he is going!' said Mary. 

'Easy is the descent of Avernus. He is going down-hill, and we are goingupwards. That makes all the difference in life, you see, ' answeredHammond. 

Mary looked at him with divine compassion. She thought that for him thehill of life would be harder than Helvellyn. He was brave, honest, clever; but her grandmother had impressed upon her that moderncivilisation hardly has room for a young man who wants to get on in theworld, without either fortune or powerful connexions. He had better goto Australia and keep sheep, than attempt the impossible at home. 

The rain was a passing shower, hardly worth speaking of, but the gloryof the day was over. The sky was grey, and there were dark cloudscreeping up from the sea-line. Silvery Windermere had taken a leadenhue; and now they turned their last fond look upon the Westmorelandvalley, and set their faces steadily towards Cumberland, and the finegrassy plateau on the top of the hill. 

All this was not done in a flash. It took them some time to scaleDolly's stubborn breast, and it took them another hour to reach SeatSandal; and by the time they came to the iron gate in the fence, whichat this point divides the two counties, the atmosphere had thickenedominously, and dark wreaths of fog were floating about and around them, whirled here and there by a boisterous wind which shrieked and roared atthem with savage fury, as if it were the voice of some Titan monarch ofthe mountain protesting against this intrusion upon his domain. 

'I'm afraid you won't see the Scottish hills, ' shouted Mary, holding onher little cloth hat. 

She was obliged to shout at the top of her voice, though she was closeto Mr. Hammond's elbow, for that shrill screaming wind would havedrowned the voice of a stentor. 

'Never mind the view, ' replied Hammond in the same fortissimo, 'but Ireally wish I hadn't brought you up here. If this fog should get anyworse, it may be dangerous. '

'The fog is sure to get worse, ' said Mary, in a brief lull of thehurly-burly, 'but there is no danger. I know every inch of the hill, andI am not a bit afraid. I can guide you, if you will trust me. '

'My bravest of girls, ' he exclaimed, looking down at her. 'Trust you!Yes, I would trust my life to you--my soul--my honour--secure in yourpurity and good faith. '

Never had eyes of living man or woman looked down upon her with suchtenderness, such fervent love. She looked up at him; looked with eyeswhich, at first bewildered, then grew bold, and lost themselves, as itwere, in the dark grey depths of the eyes they met. The savage wind, hustling and howling, blew her nearer to him, as a reed is blown againsta rock. Dark grey mists were rising round them like a sea; but had thatever-thickening, ever-darkening vapour been the sea itself, and deathinevitable, Mary Haselden would have hardly cared. For in this momentthe one precious gift for which her soul had long been yearning had beenfreely given to her. She knew all at once, that she was fondly loved bythat one man whom she had chosen for her idol and her hero. 

What matter that he was fortuneless, a nobody, with but the poorestchances of success in the world? What if he must needs, only to win thebare means of existence, go to Australia and keep sheep, or to the BedRiver valley and grow corn? What if he must labour, as the peasantslaboured on the sides of this rude hill? Gladly would she go with him toa strange country, and keep his log cabin, and work for him, and sharehis toilsome life, rough or smooth. No loss of social rank could lessenher pride in him, her belief in him. 

They were standing side by side a little way from the edge of the sheerdescent, below which the Bed Tarn showed black in a basin scooped out ofthe naked hill, like water held in the hollow of a giant's hand. 

'Look, ' cried Mary, pointing downward, 'you must see the Red Tarn, thehighest water in England?'

But just at this moment there came a blast which shook even Hammond'sstrong frame, and with a cry of fear he snatched Mary in his arms andcarried her away from the edge of the hill. He folded her in his armsand held her there, thirty yards away from the precipice, safelysheltered against his breast, while the wind raved round them, blowingher hair from the broad, white brow, and showing him that noble foreheadin all its power and beauty; while the darkness deepened round them sothat they could see hardly anything except each other's eyes. 

'My love, my own dear love, ' he murmured fondly; 'I will trust you withmy life. Will you accept the trust? I am hardly worthy; for less than ayear ago I offered myself to your sister, and I thought she was the onlywoman in this wide world who could make me happy. And when she refusedme I was in despair, Mary; and I left Fellside in the full belief that Ihad done with life and happiness. And then I came back, only to obligeMaulevrier, and determined to be utterly miserable at Fellside. I wasmiserable for the first two hours. Memories of dead and gone joys anddisappointed hopes were very bitter. And I tried honestly to keep up myfeeling of wretchedness for the first few days. But it was no use, Molly. There was a genial spirit in the place, a laughing fairy whowould not let me be sad; and I found myself becoming most unromanticallyhappy, eating my breakfast with a hearty appetite, thinking my cup ofafternoon tea nectar for love of the dear hand that gave it. And so, andso, till the new love, the purer and better love, grew and grew into amighty tree, which was as an oak to an orchid, compared with thatpassion flower of earlier growth. Mary, will you trust your life to me, as I trust mine to you. I say to you almost in the words I spoke lastyear to Lesbia, ' and here his tone grew grave almost to solemnity, 'trust me, and I will make your life free from the shadow of care--trustme, for I have a brave spirit and a strong arm to fight the battle oflife--trust me, and I will win for you the position you have a right tooccupy--trust me, and you shall never repent your trust. '

She looked up at him with eyes which told of infinite faith, child-like, unquestioning faith. 

'I will trust you in all things, and for ever, ' she said. 'I am notafraid to face evil fortune. I do not care how poor you are--how hardour lives may be--if--if you are sure you love me. '

'Sure! There is not a beat of my heart or a thought of my mind that doesnot belong to you. I am yours to the very depths of my soul. My innocentlove, my clear-eyed, clear-souled angel! I have studied you and watchedyou and thought of you, and sounded the depths of your lovely nature, and the result is that you are for me earth's one woman. I will have noother, Mary, no other love, no other wife. '

'Lady Maulevrier will be dreadfully angry, ' faltered Mary. 

'Are you afraid of her anger?'

'No; I am afraid of nothing, for your sake. '

He lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed it reverently, and there wasa touch of chivalry in that reverential kiss. His eyes clouded withtears as he looked down into the trustful face. The fog had darkened toa denser blackness, and it was almost as if they were engulfed in suddennight. 

'If we are never to find our way down the hill; if this were to be thelast hour of our lives, Mary, would you be content?'

'Quite content, ' she answered, simply. 'I think I have lived longenough, if you really love me--if you are not making fun. '

'What, Molly, do you still doubt? Is it strange that I love you?'

'Very strange. I am so different from Lesbia. '

'Yes, very different, and the difference is your highest charm. And now, love, we had better go down whichever side of the hill is easiest, forthis fog is rather appalling. I forgive the wind, because it blew youagainst my heart just now, and that is where I want you to dwell forever!'

'Don't be frightened, ' said Mary. 'I know every step of the way. '

So, leaning on her lover, and yet guiding him, slowly, step by step, groping their way through the darkness, Lady Mary led Mr. Hammond downthe winding track along which the ponies and the guides travel so oftenin the summer season. And soon they began to descend out of that canopyof fog which enveloped the brow of Helvellyn, and to see the whole worldsmiling beneath them, a world of green pastures and sheepfolds, with awhite homestead here and there amidst the fields, looking so human andso comfortable after that gloomy mountain top, round which the tempesthowled so outrageously. Beyond those pastures stretched the dark watersof Thirlmere, looking like a broad river. 

The descent was passing steep, but Hammond's strong arm and steadysteps made Mary's progress very easy, while she had in no wiseexaggerated her familiarity with the windings and twistings of thetrack. Yet as they had need to travel very slowly so long as the fogstill surrounded them, the journey downward lasted a considerable time, and it was past five when they arrived at the little roadside inn at thefoot of the hill. 

Here Mr. Hammond insisted that Mary should rest at least long enough totake a cup of tea. She was very white and tired. She had been profoundlyagitated, and looked on the point of fainting, although she protestedthat she was quite ready to walk on. 

'You are not going to walk another step, ' said Hammond. 'While you aretaking your tea I will get you a carriage. '

'Indeed, I had rather hurry on at once, ' urged Mary. 'We are so latealready. '

'You will get home all the sooner if you obey me. It is your duty toobey me now, ' said Hammond, in a lowered voice. 

She smiled at him, but it was a weak, wan little smile, for that descentin the wind and the fog had quite exhausted her. Mr. Hammond took herinto a snug little parlour where there was a cheerful fire, and saw hercomfortably seated in an arm chair by the hearth, before he went to lookafter a carriage. 

There was no such thing as a conveyance to be had, but the Windermerecoach would pass in about half an hour, and for this they must wait. Itwould take them back to Grasmere sooner than they could get there onfoot, in Mary's exhausted condition. 

The tea-tray was brought in presently, and Hammond poured out the teaand waited upon Lady Mary. It was a reversal of the usual formula but itwas very pleasant to Mary to sit with her feet on the low brass fenderand be waited upon by her lover. That fog on the brow of Helvellyn--thatpiercing wind--had chilled her to the bone, and there was unspeakablecomfort in the glow and warmth of the fire, in the refreshment of a goodcup of tea. 

'Mary, you are my own property now, remember, ' said Hammond, watchingher tenderly as she sipped her tea. 

She glanced up at him shyly, now and then, with eyes full of innocentwonder. It was so strange to her, as strange as sweet, to know that heloved her; such a marvellous thing that she had pledged herself to behis wife. 

'You are my very own--mine to guard and cherish, mine to think and workfor, ' he went on, 'and you will have to trust me, sweet one, even if thebeginning of things is not altogether free from trouble. '

'I am not afraid of trouble. '

'Bravely spoken! First and foremost, then, you will have to announceyour engagement to Lady Maulevrier. She will take it ill, no doubt; willdo her utmost to persuade you to give me up. Have you courage andresolution, do you think, to stand against her arguments? Can you holdto your purpose bravely, and cry, no surrender?'

'There shall be no surrender, ' answered Mary, 'I promise you that. Nodoubt grandmother will be very angry. But she has never cared for mevery much. It will not hurt her for me to make a bad match, as it wouldhave done in Lesbia's case. She has had no day-dreams--no grand ambitionabout me!'

'So much the better, my wayside flower! When you have said all that issweet and dutiful to her, and have let her know at the same time thatyou mean to be my wife, come weal come woe, I will see her, and willhave my say. I will not promise her a grand career for my darling: but Iwill pledge myself that nothing of that kind which the world callsevil--no penury, or shabbiness of surroundings--shall ever touch MaryHaselden after she is Mary Hammond. I can promise at least so much asthat. '

'It is more than enough, ' said Mary. 'I have told you that I wouldgladly share poverty with you. '

'Sweet! it is good of you to say as much, but I would not take you atyour word. You don't know what poverty is. '

'Do you think I am a coward, or self-indulgent? You are wrong, Jack. MayI call you Jack, as Maulevrier does?'

'May you?'

The question evoked such a gush of tenderness that he was fain to kneelbeside her chair and kiss the little hand holding the cup, before heconsidered he had answered properly. 

'You are wrong, Jack. I do know what poverty means. I have studied theways of the poor, tried to console them, and help them a little in theirtroubles; and I know there is no pain that want of money can bring whichI would not share willingly with you. Do you suppose my happiness isdependent on a fine house and powdered footmen? I should like to go tothe Red River with you, and wear cotton gowns, and tuck up my sleevesand clean our cottage. '

'Very pretty sport, dear, for a summer day; but my Mary shall have asweeter life, and shall occasionally walk in silk attire. '

That tea-drinking by the fireside in the inn parlour was the mostdelicious thing within John Hammond's experience. Mary was a bewitchingcompound of earnestness and simplicity, so humble, so confiding, soperplexed and astounded at her own bliss. 

'Confess, now, in the summer, when you were in love with Lesbia, youthought me a horrid kind of girl, ' she said, presently, when they werestanding side by side at the window, waiting for the coach. 

'Never, Mary. My crime is to have thought very little about you in thosedays. I was so dazzled by Lesbia's beauty, so charmed by heraccomplishments and girlish graces, that I forgot to take notice ofanything else in the world. If I thought of you at all it was asanother Maulevrier--a younger Maulevrier in petticoats, very gay, andgood-humoured, and nice. '

'But when you saw me rushing about with the terriers--I must have seemedutterly horrid. '

'Why, dearest There is nothing essentially horrible in terriers, or in abright lively girl running races with them. You made a very prettypicture in the sunlight, with your hat hanging on your shoulder, andyour curly brown hair and dancing hazel eyes. If I had not been deep inlove with Lesbia's peerless complexion and Grecian features, I shouldhave looked below the surface of that Gainsborough picture, anddiscovered what treasures of goodness, and courage, and truth and puritythose frank brown eyes and that wide forehead betokened. I was sowing mywild oats last summer, Mary, and they brought me a crop of sorrow But Iam wiser now--wiser and happier. 

'But if you were to see Lesbia again would not the old love revive?'

'The old love is dead, Mary. There is nothing left of it but a handfulof ashes, which I scatter thus to the four winds, ' with a wave of hishand towards the open casement. 'The new love absorbs and masters mybeing. If Lesbia were to re-appear at Fellside this evening, I couldoffer her my hand in all brotherly frankness, and ask her to accept meas a brother. Here comes the coach. We shall be at Fellside just in timefor dinner. '

CHAPTER XXII. 

WISER THAN LESBIA. 

Lady Mary and Mr. Hammond were back at Fellside at a quarter beforeeight, by which time the stars were shining on pine woods and Fell. Theymanaged to be in the drawing-room when dinner was announced, after thehastiest of toilets; yet her lover thought Mary had never lookedprettier than she looked that night, in her limp white cashmere gown, and with her brown hair brushed into a largo loose knot on the top ofher head. There had been great uneasiness about them at Fellside whenevening began to draw in, and the expected hour of their return had goneby. Scouts had been sent in quest of them, but in the wrong direction. 

'I did not think you would be such idiots as to come down the north sideof the hill in a tempest, ' said Maulevrier; 'we could see the cloudsracing over the crest of Seat Sandal, and knew it was blowing prettyhard up there, though it was calm enough down here. '

'Blowing pretty hard;' echoed Hammond, 'I don't think I was ever out ina worse gale; and yet I have been across the Bay of Biscay when thewaves struck the side of the steamer like battering rams, and when thewhole surface of the sea was white with seething foam. '

'It was a most imprudent thing to go up Helvellyn in such weather, ' saidFräulein Müller, shaking her head gloomily as she ate her fish. 

Mary felt that the Fräulein's manner boded ill. There was a stormbrewing. A scolding was inevitable. Mary felt quite capable of doingbattle with the Fräulein; but her feelings were altogether differentwhen she thought of facing that stern old lady upstairs, and of theconfession she had to make. It was not that her courage faltered. So faras resolutions went she was as firm as a rock. But she felt that therewas a terrible ordeal to be gone through; and it seemed a mockery to besitting there and pretending to eat her dinner and take things lightly, with that ordeal before her. 

'We did not go up the hill in bad weather, Miss Müller, ' said Mr. Hammond. 'The sun was shining and the sky was blue when we started. Wecould not foresee darkness and storm at the top of the hill. That wasthe fortune of war. '

'I am very sorry Lady Mary had not more good sense, ' replied Fräuleinwith unabated gloom; but on this Maulevrier took up the cudgels. 

'If there was any want of sense in the business, that's my look-out, Fräulein, ' he said, glaring angrily at the governess. 'It was I whoadvised Hammond and Lady Mary to climb the hill. And here they are, safeand sound after their journey I see no reason why there should be anyfuss about it. '

'People have different ways of looking at things, replied Fräulein, plodding steadily on with her dinner. Mary rose directly the dessert hadbeen handed round, and marched out of the room: like a warrior going toa battle in which the chances of defeat were strong. Fräulein Müllershuffled after her. 

'Will you be kind enough to go to her ladyship's room at once, LadyMary, ' she said. 'She wants to speak to you. '

'And I want to speak to her, ' said Mary. 

She ran quickly upstairs and arrived in the morning room, a little outof breath. The room was lighted by one low moderator lamp, under a darkred velvet shade, and there was the glow of the wood fire, which gave amore cheerful light than the lamp. Lady Maulevrier was lying on hercouch in a loose brocade tea-gown, with old Brussels collar and ruffles. She was as well dressed in her day of affliction and helplessness as shehad been in her day of strength; for she knew the value of surroundings, and that her stateliness and power were in some manner dependent ondetails of this kind. The one hand which she could use glittered withdiamonds, as she waved it with a little imperious gesture towards thechair on which she desired Lady Mary to seat herself; and Mary sat downmeekly, knowing that this chair represented the felon's dock. 

'Mary, ' began her grandmother, with freezing gravity, 'I have beensurprised and shocked by your conduct to-day. Yes, surprised at suchconduct even in you. '

'I do not think I have done anything very wrong, grandmother. '

'Not wrong! You have done nothing wrong? You have done somethingabsolutely outrageous. You, my granddaughter, well born, well bred, reared under my roof, to go up Helvellyn and lose yourself in a fogalone with a young man. You could hardly have done worse if you were aCockney tourist, ' concluded her ladyship, with ineffable disgust. 

'I could not help the fog, ' said Mary, quietly. The battle had to befought, and she was not going to flinch. 'I had no intention of going upHelvellyn alone with Mr. Hammond. Maulevrier was to have gone with us;but when we got to Dolly Waggon he was tired, and would not go anyfurther. He told me to go on with Mr. Hammond. '

'_He_ told you! Maulevrier!--a young man who has spent some of the besthours of his youth in the company of jockeys and trainers--who hasn'tthe faintest idea of the fitness of things. You allow Maulevrier to beyour guide in a matter in which your own instinct should have guidedyou--your womanly instinct! But you have always been an unwomanly girl. You have put me to shame many a time by your hoydenish tricks; but Ibore with you, believing that your madcap follies were at leastharmless. To-day you have gone a step too far, and have been guilty ofabsolute impropriety, which I shall be very slow to pardon. '

'Perhaps you will be still more angry when you know all, grandmother, 'said Mary. 

Lady Maulevrier flashed her dark eyes at the girl with a look whichwould have almost killed a nervous subject; but Mary faced hersteadfastly, very pale, but as resolute as her ladyship. 

'When I know all! What more is there for me to know?'

'Only that while we were on the top of Helvellyn, in the fog and thewind, Mr. Hammond asked me to be his wife. '

'I am not surprised to hear it, ' retorted her ladyship, with a harshlaugh. 'A girl who could act so boldly and flirtingly was a natural markfor an adventurer. Mr. Hammond no doubt has been told that you will havea little money by-and-by, and thinks he might do worse than marry you. And seeing how you have flung yourself at his head, he naturallyconcludes that you will not be too proud to accept your sister'sleavings. '

'There is nothing gained by making cruel speeches, grandmother, ' saidMary, firmly. 'I have promised to be John Hammond's wife, and there isnothing you nor anyone else can say which will make me alter my mind. Iwish to act dutifully to you, if I can, and I hope you will be good tome and consent to this marriage. But if you will not consent, I shallmarry him all the same. I shall be full of sorrow at having to disobeyyou, but I have promised, and I will keep my promise. '

'You will act in open rebellion against me--against the kinswoman whohas reared you, and educated you, and cared for you in all these years!'

'But you have never loved me, ' answered Mary, sadly. 'Perhaps if you hadgiven me some portion of that affection which you lavished on my sisterI might be willing to sacrifice this now deep love for your sake--to laydown my broken heart as a sacrifice on the altar of gratitude. But younever loved me. You have tolerated me, endured my presence as adisagreeable necessity of your life, because I am my father's daughter. You and Lesbia have been all the world to each other; and I have stoodaloof, outside your charmed circle, almost a stranger to you. Can youwonder, grandmother, recalling this, that I am unwilling to surrenderthe love that has been given me to-day--the true heart of a brave andgood man!'

Lady Maulevrier looked at her for some moments in scornful wonderment;looked at her with a slow, deliberate smile. 

'Poor child!' she said; 'poor ignorant, inexperienced baby! For what aWill-o-the-wisp are you ready to sacrifice my regard, and all theprivileges of your position as my granddaughter! No doubt this Mr. Hammond has said all manner of fine things to you; but can you be weakenough to believe that he who half a year ago was sighing and dying atthe feet of your sister can have one spark of genuine regard for you?The thing is not in nature; it is an obvious absurdity. But it is easyenough to understand that Mr. Hammond without a penny in his pocket, andwith his way to make in the world, would be very glad to secure LadyMary Haselden and her five hundred a year, and to have Lord Maulevrierfor his brother in-law?'

'Have I really five hundred a year? Shall I have five hundred a yearwhen I marry?' asked Mary, suddenly radiant. 

'Yes; if you marry with your brother's consent. '

'I am so glad--for his sake. He could hardly starve if I had fivehundred a year. He need not be obliged to emigrate. '

'Has he been offering you the prospect of emigration as an additionalinducement?'

'Oh, no, he does not say that he is very poor, but since you say he ispenniless I thought we might be obliged to emigrate. But as I have fivehundred a year--'

'You will stay at home, and set up a lodging-house, I suppose, ' sneeredLady Maulevrier. 

'I will do anything my husband pleases. We can live in a humble way insome quiet part of London, while Mr. Hammond works at literature orpolitics. I am not afraid of poverty or trouble, I am willing to endureboth for his sake. '

'You are a fool!' said her grandmother sternly. 'And I have nothing moreto say to you. Go away, and send Maulevrier to me. '

Mary did not obey immediately. She went over to her grandmother's couchand knelt by her side, and kissed the poor maimed hand which lay on thevelvet cushion. 

'Dear grandmother, ' she said gently. 'I am very sorry to rebel againstyou. But this is a question of life or death with me. I am not likeLesbia. I cannot barter love and truth for worldly advantage--for prideof race. Do not think me so weak or so vain as to be won by a few finespeeches from an adventurer. Mr. Hammond is no adventurer, he has madeno fine speeches--but, I will tell you a secret, grandmother. I haveliked and admired him from the first time he came here. I have looked upto him and reverenced him; and I must be a very foolish girl if myjudgment is so poor that I can respect a worthless man. '

'You _are_ a very foolish girl, ' answered Lady Maulevrier, more kindlythan she had spoken before, 'but you have been very good and dutiful tome since I have been ill, and I don't wish to forget that. I never saidthat Mr. Hammond was worthless; but I say that he is no fit husband foryou. If you were as yielding and obedient as Lesbia it would be all thebetter for you; for then I should provide for your establishment in lifein a becoming manner. But as you are wilful, and bent upon taking yourown way--well--my dear, you must take the consequence; and when you area struggling wife and mother, old before your time, weighed down withthe weary burden of petty cares, do not say, "My grandmother might havesaved me from this martyrdom. "'

'I will run the risk, grandmother. I will be answerable for my ownfate. '

'So be it, Mary. And now send Maulevrier to me. '

Mary went down to the billiard room, where she found her brother and herlover engaged in a hundred game. 

'Take my cue and beat him if you can, Molly, ' said Maulevrier, when hehad heard Mary's message. 'I'm fifteen ahead of him, for he has beenfalling asleep over his shots. I suppose I am going to get a lecture. '

'I don't think so, ' said Mary. 

'Well, my dearest, how did you fare in the encounter?' asked Hammond, directly Maulevrier was gone. 

'Oh, it was dreadful! I made the most rebellious speeches to poorgrandmother, and then I remembered her affliction, and I asked her toforgive me, and just at the last she was ever so much kinder, and Ithink that she will let me marry you, now she knows I have made up mymind to be your wife--in spite of Fate. '

'My bravest and best. '

'And do you know, Jack'--she blushed tremendously as she uttered thisfamiliar name--'I have made a discovery!'

'Indeed!'

'I find that I am to have five hundred a year when I am married. It isnot much. But I suppose it will help, won't it? We can't exactly starveif we have five hundred a year. Let me see. It is more than a pound aday. A sovereign ought to go a long way in a small house; and, ofcourse, we shall begin in a very wee house, like De Quincey's cottageover there, only in London. '

'Yes, dear, there are plenty of such cottages in London. In Mayfair, forinstance, or Belgravia. '

'Now, you are laughing at my rustic ignorance. But the five hundredpounds will be a help, won't it?'

'Yes, dear, a great help. '

'I'm so glad. '

She had chalked her cue while she was talking, but after taking her aim, she dropped her arm irresolutely. 

'Do you know I'm afraid I can't play to-night, ' she said. 

'Helvellyn and the fog and the wind have quite spoilt my nerve. Shall wego to the drawing-room, and see if Fräulein has recovered from hergloomy fit?'

'I would rather stay here, where we are free to talk; but I'll dowhatever you like best. '

Mary preferred the drawing-room. It was very sweet to be alone with herlover, but she was weighed down with confusion in his presence. Thenovelty, the wonderment of her position overpowered her. She yearned forthe shelter of Fräulein Müller's wing, albeit the company of that mostprosaic person was certain death to romance. 

Miss Müller was in her accustomed seat by the fire, knitting hercustomary muffler. She had appropriated Lady Maulevrier's place, much toMary's disgust. It irked the girl to see that stout, clumsy figure inthe chair which had been filled by her grandmother's imperial form. Thevery room seemed vulgarised by the change. 

Fräulein looked up with a surprised air when Mary and Hammond enteredtogether, the girl smiling and happy. She had expected that Mary wouldhave left her ladyship's room in tears, and would have retired to herown apartment to hide her swollen eyelids and humiliated aspect. Buthere she was, after the fiery ordeal of an interview with her offendedgrandmother, not in the least crestfallen. 

'Are we not to have any tea to-night?' asked Mary, looking round theroom. 

'I think you are unconscious of the progress of time, Lady Mary, 'answered Fräulein, stiffly. 'The tea has been brought in and taken outagain. '

'Then it must be brought again, if Lady Mary wants some, ' said Hammond, ringing the bell in the coolest manner. 

Fräulein felt that things were coming to a pretty pass, if Maulevrier'shumble friend was going to give orders in the house. Quiet andcommonplace as the Hanoverian was, she had her ambition, and that was tograsp the household sceptre which Lady Maulevrier must needs in somewise resign, now that she was a prisoner to her rooms. But so farFräulein had met with but small success in this endeavour. Herladyship's authority still ruled the house. Her ladyship's keenintellect took cognisance even of trifles: and it was only in the mostinsignificant details that Fräulein felt herself a power. 

'Well, your ladyship, what's the row?' said Maulevrier marching into hisgrandmother's room with a free and easy air. He was prepared for askirmish, and he meant to take the bull by the horns. 

'I suppose you know what has happened to-day?' said her ladyship. 

'Molly and Hammond's expedition, yes, of course. I went part of the waywith them, but I was out of training, got pumped out after a couple ofmiles, and wasn't such a fool as to go to the top. '

'Do you know that Mr. Hammond made Mary an offer, while they were on thehill, and that she accepted him?'

'A queer place for a proposal, wasn't it? The wind blowing great gunsall the time. I should have chosen a more tranquil spot. '

'Maulevrier, cannot you be serious? Do you forget that this business ofto-day must affect your sister's welfare for the rest of her life?'

'No, I do not. I will be as serious as a judge after he has put on theblack cap, ' said Maulevrier, seating himself near his grandmother'scouch, and altering his tone altogether. 'Seriously I am very glad thatHammond has asked Mary to be his wife, and still more glad that she istremendously in love with him. I told you some time ago not to put yourspoke in that wheel. There could not be a happier or a better marriagefor Mary. '

'You must have rather a poor opinion, of your sister's attractions, personal or otherwise, if you consider a penniless young man--of nofamily--good enough for her. '

'I do not consider my sister a piece of merchandise to be sold to thehighest bidder. Granted that Hammond is poor and a nobody. He is anhonourable man, highly gifted, brave as a lion, and he is my dearestfriend. Can you wonder that I rejoice at my sister's having won him forher adoring lover?'

'Can he really care for her, after having loved Lesbia?'

'That was the desire of the eye, this is the love of the heart. I knowthat he loves Mary ever so much better than he loved Lesbia. I canassure your ladyship that I am not such a fool as I look. I am very fondof my sister Mary, and I have not been blind to her interests. I tellyou on my honour that she ought to be very happy as John Hammond'swife. '

'I am obliged to believe what you say about his character, ' said LadyMaulevrier. 'And I am willing to admit that the husband's character hasa great deal to do with the wife's happiness, from a moral point ofview; but still there are material questions to be considered. Has yourfriend any means of supporting a wife?'

'Yes, he has means; quite sufficient means for Mary's views, which arevery simple. '

'You mean to say he would keep her in decent poverty? Cannot you beexplicit, Maulevrier, and say what means the man has, whether an incomeor none? If you cannot tell me I must question Mr. Hammond himself. '

'Pray do not do that, ' exclaimed her grandson urgently. 'Do not take allthe flavour of romance out of Molly's love story, by going into pounds, shillings, and pence. She is very young. You would hardly wish her tomarry immediately?'

'Not for the next year, at the very least. '

'Then why enter upon this sordid question of ways and means. MakeHammond and Mary happy by consenting to their engagement, and trust therest to Providence, and to me. Take my word for it, Hammond is not abeggar, and he is a man likely to make his mark in the world. If a yearhence his income is not enough to allow of his marrying, I will doubleMary's allowance out of my own purse. Hammond's friendship has steadiedme, and saved me a good deal more than five hundred a year. '

'I can quite believe that. I believe Mr. Hammond is a worthy man, andthat his influence has been very good for you; but that does not makehim a good match for Mary. However, you seem to have settled thebusiness among you, and I suppose I must submit. You had better alldrink tea with me to morrow afternoon; and I will receive your friend asMary's future husband. '

'That is the best and kindest of grandmothers. '

'But I should like to know more of his antecedents and his relations. '

'His antecedents are altogether creditable. He took honours at theUniversity; he has been liked and respected everywhere. He is an orphan, and it is better not to talk to him of his family. He is sensitive onthat point, like most men who stand alone in the world. '

'Well, I will hold my peace. You have taken this business into yourhands, Maulevrier; and you must be responsible for the result. '

Maulevrier left his grandmother soon after this, and went downstairs, whistling for very joyousness. Finding the billiard-room deserted herepaired to the drawing-room, where he found Mary playing scraps ofmelody to her lover at the shadowy end of the room, while Fräulein satby the fire weaving her web as steadily as one of the Fatal Sisters, andwith a brow prophetic of evil. 

Maulevrier crept up to the piano, and came stealthily behind the lovers. 

'Bless you, my children, ' he said, hovering over them with outspreadhands. 'I am the dove coming back to the ark. I am the bearer of happytidings. Lady Maulevrier consents to your acquiring the legal right tomake each other miserable for the rest of your lives. '

'God bless you, Maulevrier, ' said Hammond, clasping him by the hand. 

'Only as this sister of mine is hardly out of the nursery you will haveto wait for her at least a year. So says the dowager, whose word is likethe law of the Modes and Persians, and altereth not. '

'I would wait for her twice seven years, as Jacob waited, and toil forher, as Jacob toiled, ' answered Hammond, 'but I should like to call hermy own to-morrow, if it were possible. '

Nothing could be happier or gayer than the tea-drinking in LadyMaulevrier's room on the following afternoon. Her ladyship having oncegiven way upon a point knew how to make her concession gracefully. Sheextended her hand to Mr. Hammond as frankly as if he had been her ownparticular choice. 

'I cannot refuse my granddaughter to her brother's dearest friend, ' shesaid, 'but I think you are two most imprudent young people. '

'Providence takes care of imprudent lovers, just as it does of the birdsin their nests, ' answered Hammond, smiling. 

'Just as much and no more, I fear. Providence does not keep off the cator the tax-gatherer. '

'Birds must take care of their nests, and husbands must work for theirhomes, ' argued Hammond. 'Heaven gives sweet air and sunlight, and abeautiful world to live in. '

'I think, ' said Lady Maulevrier, looking at him critically, 'you arejust the kind of person who ought to emigrate. You have ideas that woulddo for the Bush or the Yosemite Valley, but which are too primitive foran over-crowded country. '

'No, Lady Maulevrier, I am not going to steal your granddaughter. Whenshe is my wife she shall live within call. I know she loves her nativeland, and I don't think either of us would care to put an ocean betweenus and rugged old Helvellyn. '

'Of course having made idiots of yourselves up there in the fog and thestorm you are going to worship the mountain for ever afterwards, ' saidher ladyship laughing. 

Never had she seemed gayer or brighter. Perhaps in her heart of heartsshe rejoiced at getting Mary engaged, even to so humble a suitor asfortuneless John Hammond. Ever since the visit of the so-called Rajahshe had lived as Damocles lived, with the sword of destiny--the avengingsword--hanging over her by the finest hair. Every time she heardcarriage wheels in the drive--every time the hall-door bell rang alittle louder than usual, her heart seemed to stop beating and her wholebeing to hang suspended on a thread. If the thread were to snap, therewould come darkness and death. The blow that had paralysed one side ofher body must needs, if repeated, bring total extinction. She whobelieved in no after life saw in her maimed and wasting arm thebeginning of death. She who recognised only the life of the body feltthat one half of her was already dead. But months had gone by, and LouisAsoph had made no sign. She began to hope that his boasted documents andwitnesses were altogether mythical. And yet the engines of the law areslow to put in motion. He might be working up his case, line upon line, with some hard-headed London lawyer; arranging and marshalling hisfacts; preparing his witnesses; waiting for affidavits from India;working slowly but surely, underground like the mole; and all at once, in an hour, his case might be before the law courts. His story and thestory of Lord Maulevrier's infamy might be town talk again; as it hadbeen forty years ago, when the true story of that crime had been happilyunknown. 

Yes, with the present fear of this Louis Asoph's revelations, of a newscandal, if not a calamity, Lady Maulevrier felt that it was a goodthing to have her younger granddaughter's future in some measuresecured. John Hammond had said of himself to Lesbia that he was not thekind of man to fail, and looking at him critically to-day LadyMaulevrier saw the stamp of power and dauntless courage in hiscountenance and bearing. It is the inner mind of a man which moulds thelines of his face and figure; and a man's character may be read in theway he walks and holds himself, the action of his hand, his smile, hisfrown, his general outlook, as clearly as in any phrenologicaldevelopment. John Hammond had a noble outlook: bold, without impudenceor self-assertion; self-possessed, without vanity. Yes, assuredly a manto wrestle with difficulty, and to conquer fate. 

When that little tea-drinking was over and Maulevrier and his friendwere going away to dress for dinner, Lady Maulevrier detained Mary for aminute or two by her couch. She took her by the hand with unaccustomedtenderness. 

'My child, I congratulate you, ' she said. 'Last night I thought you afool, but I begin to think that you are wiser than Lesbia. You have wonthe heart of a noble young man. '

CHAPTER XXIII. 

'A YOUNG LAMB'S HEART AMONG THE FULL-GROWN FLOCKS. '

For three most happy days Mary rejoiced in her lover's society, Maulevrier was with them everywhere, by brookside and fell, on the lake, in the gardens, in the billiard-room, playing propriety with admirablepatience. But this could not last for ever. A man who has to win nameand fortune and a home for his young wife cannot spend all his days inthe primrose path. Fortunes and reputations are not made in dawdlingbeside a mountain stream, or watching the play of sunlight and shadow ona green hill-side; unless, indeed, one were a new Wordsworth, and eventhen fortune and renown are not quickly made. 

And again, Maulevrier, who had been a marvel of good-nature andcontentment for the last eight weeks, was beginning to be tired of thislovely Lakeland. Just when Lakeland was daily developing into newbeauty, Maulevrier began to feel an itching for London, where he had acomfortable nest in the Albany, and which was to his mind a metropolisexpressly created as a centre or starting point for Newmarket, Epsom, Ascot and Goodwood. 

So there came a morning upon which Mary had to say good-bye to those twocompanions who had so blest and gladdened her life. It was a brightsunshiny morning, and all the world looked gay; which seemed very unkindof Nature, Mary thought. And yet, even in the sadness of this parting, she had much reason to be glad. As she stood with her lover in thelibrary, in the three minutes of _tête-à-tête_ She stolen from theargus-eyed Fräulein, folded in his arms, looking up at his manly face, it seemed to her that the mere knowledge that she belonged to him andwas beloved by him ought to sustain and console her even in long yearsof severance. Yes, even if he were one of the knights of old, going tothe Holy Land on a crusade full of peril and uncertainty. Even then awoman ought to be brave, having such a lover. 

But her parting was to be only for a few months. Maulevrier promised tocome back to Fellside for the August sports, and Hammond was to comewith him. Three months--or a little more--and they were to meet again. 

Yet in spite of these arguments for courage, Mary's face blanched andher eyes grew unutterably sad as she looked up at her lover. 

'You will take care of yourself, Jack, for my sake, won't you, dear?'she murmured. 'If you should be ill while you are in London! If youshould die--'

'Life is very uncertain, love, but I don't feel like sickness or deathjust at present, ' answered Hammond cheerily. 'Indeed, I feel that thepresent is full of sweetness, and the future full of hope. Don'tsuppose, dear, that I am not grieved at this good-bye; but before weare a year older I hope the time will have come when there will be nomore farewells for you and me. I shall be a very exacting husband, Molly. I shall want to spend all the days and hours of my life with you;to have not a fancy or a pursuit in which you cannot share, or withwhich you cannot sympathise. I hope you will not grow tired of me!'

'Tired!'

Then came silence, and a long farewell kiss, and then the voice ofMaulevrier shouting in the hall, just in time to warn the lovers, beforeMiss Müller opened the door and exclaimed, 'Oh, Mr. Hammond, we have been looking for you _everywhere_. The luggageis all in the carriage, and Maulevrier says there is only just time toget to Windermere!'

In another minute or so the carriage was driving down the hill; and Marystood in the porch looking after the travellers. 

'It seems as if it is my fate to stand here and see everybody driveaway, ' she said to herself. 

And then she looked round at the lovely gardens, bright with springflowers, the trees glorious with their young, fresh foliage, and thevast panorama of hill and dale, and felt that it was a wicked thing tomurmur in the midst of such a world. And she remembered the greatunhoped-for bliss that had come to her within the last four days, andthe cloud upon her brow vanished, as she clasped her hands in child-likejoyousness. 

'God bless you, dear old Helvellyn, ' she exclaimed, looking up at thesombre crest of the mountain. 'Perhaps if it had not been for you hewould have never proposed. '

But she was obliged to dismiss this idea instantly; for to suppose JohnHammond's avowal of his love an accident, the mere impulse of a weakmoment, would be despair. Had he not told her how she had grown nearerand nearer to his heart, day by day, and hour by hour, until she hadbecome part of his life? He had told her this--he, in whom she believedas in the very spirit of truth. 

She wandered about the gardens for an hour after the carriage hadstarted for Windermere, revisiting every spot where she and her loverhad walked together within the last three days, living over again therapture of those hours, repeating to herself his words, recalling hislooks, with the fatuity of a first girlish love. And yet amidst thesilliness inseparable from love's young dream, there was a depth of truewomanly feeling, thoughtful, unselfish, forecasting a future which wasnot to travel always along the primrose path of dalliance--a future inwhich the roses were not always to be thornless. 

John Hammond was going to London to work for a position in the world, tostrive and labour among the seething mass of strugglers, all pressingonward for the same goal--independence, wealth, renown. Little as Maryknow of the world by experience, she had at least heard the wiseacrestalk; and that which she had heard was calculated to depress rather thanto inspire industrious youth. She had heard how the professions were allover-crowded: how a mighty army of young men were walking the hospitals, all intent on feeling the pulses and picking the pockets of the risinggeneration: how at the Bar men were growing old and grey before they sawtheir first brief: how competitors were elbowing and hustling each otherupon every road, thronging at every gate. And while masculine youthstrove and wrestled for places in the race, aunts and sisters andcousins were pressing into the same arena, doing their best to crowd outthe uncles and the brothers and the nephews. 

'Poor Jack, ' sighed Mary, 'at the worst we can go to the Red Rivercountry and grow corn. '

This was her favourite fancy, that she and her lover should find theirfirst dwelling in the new world, live as humbly as the peasants livedround Grasmere, and patiently wait upon fortune. And yet that would notbe happiness, unless Maulevrier were to come and stay with them everyautumn. Nothing could reconcile Mary to being separated from Maulevrierfor any lengthened period. 

There were hours in which she was more hopeful, and defied thewiseacres. Clever young men had succeeded in the past--clever men whosehair was not yet grey had come to the front in the present. Granted thatthese were the exceptional men, the fine flower of humanity. Did she notknow that John Hammond was as far above average youth as Helvellyn wasabove yonder mound in her grandmother's shrubbery?

Yes, he would succeed in literature, in politics, in whatever career hehad chosen for himself. He was a man to do the thing he set himself todo, were it ever so difficult. To doubt his success would be to doubthis truth and his honesty; for he had sworn to her he would make herlife bright and happy, and that evil days should never come to her; andhe was not the man to promise that which he was not able to perform. 

The house seemed terribly dull now that the two young men were gone. There was an oppressive silence in the rooms which had lately resoundedwith Maulevrier's frank, boyish laughter, and with his friend's deep, manly tones--a silence broken only by the click of Fräulein Müller'sneedles. 

The Fräulein was not disposed to be sympathetic or agreeable about LadyMary's engagement. Firstly, she had not been consulted about it. Thething had been done, she considered, in an underhand manner; and LadyMaulevrier, who had begun by strenuously opposing the match, had beentalked over in a way that proved the latent weakness of that greatlady's character. Secondly, Miss Müller, having herself for some reasonmissed such joys as are involved in being wooed and won, was disposed tolook sourly upon all love affairs, and to take a despondent view of allmatrimonial engagements. 

She did not say anything openly uncivil to Mary Haselden; but she letthe damsel see that she pitied her and despised her infatuatedcondition; and this was so unpleasant that Mary was fain to fall backupon the society of ponies and terriers, and to take up her pilgrim'sstaff and go wandering over the hills, carrying her happy thoughts intosolitary places, and sitting for hours in a heathery hollow, steeped ina sea of summer light, and trying to paint the mountain side and therush of the waterfall. Her sketch-book was an excuse for hours ofsolitude, for the indulgence of an endless day-dream. 

Sometimes she went among her humble friends in the Grasmere cottages, orin the villages of Great and Little Langdale; and she had now a newinterest in these visits, for she had made up her mind that it was hersolemn duty to learn housekeeping--not such housekeeping as might havebeen learnt at Fellside, supposing she had mustered the courage to askthe dignified upper-servants in that establishment to instruct her; butsuch domestic arts as are needed in the dwellings of the poor. The artof making a very little money go a great way; the art of giving grace, neatness, prettiness to the smallest rooms and the shabbiest furniture;the art of packing all the ugly appliances and baser necessities ofdaily life, the pots and kettles and brooms and pails, into thenarrowest compass, and hiding them from the aesthetic eye. Mary thoughtthat if she began by learning the homely devices of the villagers--thevery A B C of cookery and housewifery--she might gradually enlarge uponthis simple basis to suit an income of from five to seven hundred ayear. The house-mothers from whom she sought information were puzzled atthis sudden curiosity about domestic matters. They looked upon the thingas a freak of girlhood which drifted into eccentricity, from sheeridleness; yet they were not the less ready to teach Mary anything shedesired to learn. They told her those secret arts by which coppers andbrasses are made things of beauty, and meet adornment for an old oakmantelshelf. They allowed her to look on at the milking of the cow, andat the churning of the butter; and at bread making, and cake making, andpie and pudding making; and some pleasant hours were spent in theacquirement of this useful knowledge. Mary did not neglect the invalidduring this new phase of her existence. Lady Maulevrier was a lover ofroutine, and she liked her granddaughter to go to her at the same hourevery day. From eleven to twelve was the time for Mary's duty asamanuensis. Sometimes there were no letters to be written. Sometimesthere were several; but her ladyship rarely allowed the task to gobeyond the stroke of noon. At noon Mary was free, and free till fiveo'clock, when she was generally in attendance, ready to give LadyMaulevrier her afternoon tea, and sit and talk with her, and tell herany scraps of local news which she had gathered in the day. 

There were days on which her ladyship preferred to take her tea alone, and Mary was left free to follow her own devices till dinner-time. 

'I do not feel equal even to your society to-day, my dear, ' her ladyshipwould say; 'go and enjoy yourself with your dogs and your tennis;'forgetting that there was very seldom anybody on the premises with whomLady Mary could play tennis. 

But in these lonely days of Mary Haselden's life there was one crowningbliss which was almost enough to sweeten solitude, and take away thesting of separation; and that was the delight of expecting and receivingher lover's letters. Busily as Mr. Hammond must be engaged in fightingthe battle of life, he was in no way wanting in his duty as a lover. Hewrote to Mary every other day; but though his letters were long, theytold her hardly anything of himself or his occupation. He wrote aboutpictures, books, music, such things as he knew must be interesting toher; but of his own struggles not a word. 

'Poor fellow, ' thought Mary. 'He is afraid to sadden me by telling mehow hard the struggle is. '

Her own letters to her betrothed were simple outpourings of girlishlove, breathing that too flattering-sweet idolatry which an innocentgirl gives to her first lover. Mary wrote as if she herself were of theleast possible value among created things. 

With one of Mr. Hammond's earlier letters came the engagement ring; nohalf-hoop of brilliants or sapphires, rubies or emeralds, no gorgeoustriple circlet of red, white, and green; but only a massive band of deadgold, on the inside of which was engraved this posy--'For ever. '

Mary thought it the loveliest ring she had ever seen in her life. 

May was half over and the last patch of snow had vanished from the crestof Helvellyn, from Eagle's Crag and Raven's Crag, and Coniston Old Man. Spring--slow to come along these shadowy gorges--had come in realearnest now, spring that was almost summer; and Lady Maulevrier'sgardens were as lovely as dreamland. But it was an unpeopled paradise. Mary had the grounds all to herself, except at those stated times whenthe Fräulein, who was growing lazier and larger day by day in herleisurely and placid existence, took her morning and afternoonconstitutional on the terrace in front of the drawing-room, or solemnlyperambulated the shrubberies. 

On fine days Mary lived in the garden, save when she was far afieldlearning the domestic arts from the cottagers. She read French andGerman, and worked conscientiously at her intellectual education, aswell as at domestic economy. For she told herself that accomplishmentsand culture might be useful to her in her married life. She might beable to increase her husband's means by giving lessons abroad, or takingpupils at home. She was ready to do anything. She would teach thestupidest children, or scrub floors, or bake bread. There was no serviceshe would deem degrading for his sake. She meant when she married todrop her courtesy title. She would not be Lady Mary Hammond, a poorsprig of nobility, but plain Mrs. Hammond, a working man's wife. 

Lesbia's presentation was over, and had realised all Lady Kirkbank'sexpectations. The Society papers were unanimous in pronouncing LordMaulevrier's sister the prettiest _débutante_ of the season. Theypraised her classical features, the admirable poise of her head, herpeerless complexion. They described her dress at the drawing-room; theydescribed her 'frocks' in the Park and at Sandown. They expatiated onthe impression she had made at great assemblies. They hinted at evenRoyal admiration. All this, frivolous fribble though it might be, LadyMaulevrier read with delight, and she was still more gratified byLesbia's own account of her successes. But as the season advancedLesbia's letters to her grandmother grew briefer--mere hurried scrawlsdashed off while the carriage was at the door, or while her maid wasbrushing her hair. Lady Maulevrier divined, with the keen instinct oflove, that she counted for very little in Lesbia's life, now that thewhirligig of society, the fret and fever of fashion, had begun. 

One afternoon in May, at that hour when Hyde Park is fullest, and thecarriages move slowly in triple rank along the Lady's Mile, and themounted constables jog up and down with a business-like air which setsevery one on the alert for the advent of the Princess of Wales, just atthat hour when Lesbia sat in Lady Kirkbank's barouche, and distributedgracious bows and enthralling smiles to her numerous acquaintance, Maryrode slowly down the Fell, after a rambling ride on the safest and mostvenerable of mountain ponies. The pony was grey, and Mary was grey, forshe wore a neat little homespun habit made by the local tailor, and aneat little felt hat with, a ptarmigan's feather. 

All was very quiet at Fellside as she went in at the stable gate. Therewas not an underling stirring in the large old stable-yard which hadremained almost unaltered for a century and a half; for Lady Maulevrier, whilst spending thousands on the new part of the house, had deemed theexisting stables good enough for her stud. They were spacious oldstables, built as solidly as a Norman castle, and with all the virtuesand all the vices of their age. 

Mary looked round her with a sigh. The stillness of the place wasoppressive, and within doors she knew there would be the same stillness, made still more oppressive by the society of the Fräulein, who grewduller and duller every day, as it seemed to Mary. 

She took her pony into the dusky old stable, where four other poniesbegan rattling their halters in the gloom, by way of greeting. A bundleof purple tares lay ready in a corner for Mary to feed her favourites;and for the next ten minutes or so she was happily employed going fromstall to stall, and gratifying that inordinate appetite for green meatwhich seems natural to all horses. 

Not a groom or stable-boy appeared while she was in the stable; and shewas just going away, when her attention was caught by a flood ofsunshine streaming into an old disused harness-room at the end of thestable--a room with one small window facing the Fell. 

Whence could that glow of western light come? Assuredly not from thelow-latticed window which faced eastward, and was generally obscured bya screen of cobwebs. The room was only used as a storehouse for lumber, and it was nobody's business to clean the window. 

Mary looked in, curious to solve the riddle. A door which she had oftennoticed, but never seen opened, now stood wide open, and the oldquadrangular garden, which was James Steadman's particular care, smiledat her in the golden evening light. Seen thus, this little old Dutchgarden seemed to Mary the prettiest thing she had ever looked upon. There were beds of tulips and hyacinths, ranunculus, narcissus, tuberose, making a blaze of colour against the old box borders, a foothigh. The crumbling old brick walls of the outbuildings, and thatdungeon-like wall which formed the back of the new house, were clothedwith clematis and wistaria, woodbine and magnolia. All that lovinglabour could do had been done day by day for the last forty years tomake this confined space a thing of beauty. Mary went out of the darkstable into the sunny garden, and looked round her, full of admirationfor James Steadman's work. 

'If ever Jack and I can afford to have a garden, I hope we shall be ableto make it like this, ' she thought. 'It is such a comfort to know thatso small a garden can be pretty: for of course any garden we couldafford must be small. '

Lady Mary had no idea that this quadrangle was spacious as compared withthe narrow strip allotted to many a suburban villa calling itself 'aneligible residence. '

In the centre of the garden there was an old sundial, with a stone benchat the base, and, as she came upon an opening in the circular yew treehedge which environed this sundial, and from which the flower bedsradiated in a geometrical pattern, Lady Mary was surprised to see an oldman--a very old man--sitting on this bench, and basking in the low lightof the westering sun. 

His figure was shrunken and bent, and he sat with his chin resting onthe handle of a crutched stick, and his head leaning forward. His longwhite hair fell in thin straggling locks over the collar of his coat. Hehad an old-fashioned, mummyfied aspect, and Mary thought he must bevery, very old. 

Very, very old! In a flash there came back upon her the memory of JohnHammond's curiosity about a hoary and withered old man whom he had meton the Fell in the early morning. She remembered how she had taken himto see old Sam Barlow, and how he had protested that Sam in no wiseresembled the strange-looking old man of the Fell. And now here, closeto the Fell, was a face and figure which in every detail resembled thatancient stranger whom Hammond had described so graphically. 

It was very strange. Could this person be the same her lover had seentwo months ago? And, if so, had he been living at Fellside all the time;or was he only an occasional visitor of Steadman's?

While she stood for a few moments meditating thus, the old man raisedhis head and looked up at her, with eyes that burned like red-hot coalsunder his shaggy white brows. The look scared her. There was somethingawful in it, like the gaze of an evil spirit, a soul in torment, and shebegan to move away, with side-long steps, her eyes riveted on thatuncanny countenance. 

'Don't go, ' said the man, with an authoritative air, rattling his bonyfingers upon the bench. 'Sit down here by my side, and talk to me. Don'tbe frightened, child. You wouldn't, if you knew what they say of meindoors. ' He made a motion of his head towards the windows of the oldwing--'"Harmless, " they say, "quite harmless. Let him alone, he'sharmless. " A tiger with his claws cut and his teeth drawn--an old, grey-bearded tiger, ghastly and grim, but harmless--a cobra with thepoison-bag plucked out of his jaw! The venom grows again, child--thesnake's venom--but youth never comes back: Old, and helpless, andharmless!'

Again Mary tried to move away, but those evil eyes held her as if shewere a bird riveted by the gaze of a serpent. 

'Why do you shrink away?' asked the old man, frowning at her. 'Sit downhere, and let me talk to you. I am accustomed to be obeyed'

Old and feeble and shrunken as he was, there was a power in his tone ofcommand which Mary was unable to resist. She felt very sure that he wasimbecile or mad. She knew that madmen are apt to imagine themselvesgreat personages, and to take upon themselves, with a wonderful power ofimpersonation, the dignity and authority of their imaginary rank; andshe supposed that it must be thus with this strange old man. Shestruggled against her sense of terror. After all there could be no realdanger, in the broad daylight, within the precincts of her own home, within call of the household. 

She seated herself on the bench by the unknown, willing to humour him alittle; and he turned himself about slowly, as if every bone in his bodywere stiff with age, and looked at her with a deliberate scrutiny. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

'NOW NOTHING LEFT TO LOVE OR HATE. '

The old man sat looking at Mary in silence for some moments; not a greatspace of time, perhaps, as marked by the shadow on the dial behind them, but to Mary that gaze was unpleasantly prolonged. He looked at her as ifhe could read every pulsation in every fibre of her brain, and knewexactly what it meant. 

'Who are you?' he asked, at last. 

'My name is Mary Haselden. '

'Haselden, ' he repeated musingly, 'I have heard that name before. '

And then he resumed his former attitude, his chin resting on the handleof his crutch-stick, his eyes bent upon the gravel path, their unholybrightness hidden under the penthouse brows. 

'Haselden, ' he murmured, and repeated the name over and over again, slowly, dreamily, with a troubled tone, like some one trying to work outa difficult problem. 'Haselden--when? where?'

And then with a profound sigh he muttered, 'Harmless, quite harmless. You may trust him anywhere. Memory a blank, a blank, a blank, my lord!'

His head sank lower upon his breast, and again he sighed, the sigh of aspirit in torment, Mary thought. Her vivid imagination was alreadyinterested, her quick sympathies were awakened. 

She looked at him wonderingly, compassionately. So old, so infirm, andwith a mind astray; and yet there were indications in his speech andmanner that told of reason struggling against madness, like the lightbehind storm-clouds. He had tones that spoke of a keen sensitiveness topain, not the lunatic's imbecile placidity. She observed him intently, trying to make out what manner of man he was. 

He did not belong to the peasant class: of that she felt assured. Theshrunken, tapering hand had never worked at peasant's work. The profileturned towards her was delicate to effeminacy. The man's clothes wereshabby and old-fashioned, but they were a gentleman's garments, thecloth of a finer texture than she had ever seen worn by her brother. Thecoat, with its velvet collar, was of an old-world fashion. Sheremembered having seen just such a coat in an engraved portrait of Countd'Orsay, a print nearly fifty years old. No Dalesman born and bred everwore such a coat; no tailor in the Dales could have made it. 

The old man looked up after a long pause, during which Mary felt afraidto move. He looked at her again with inquiring eyes, as if her presencethere had only just become known to him. 

'Who are you?' he asked again. 

'I told you my name just now. I am Mary Haselden. '

'Haselden--that is a name I knew--once. Mary? I think my mother's namewas Mary. Yes, yes, I remember that. You have a sweet face, Mary--likemy mother's. She had brown eyes, like yours, and auburn hair. You don'trecollect her, perhaps?'

'Alas! poor maniac, ' thought Mary, 'you have lost all count of time. Fifty years to you in the confusion of your distraught brain, are but asyesterday. '

'No, of course not, of course not, ' he muttered; 'how should sherecollect my mother, who died while I was a boy? Impossible. That mustbe half a century ago. '

'Good evening to you, ' said Mary, rising with a great effort, so strongwas her feeling of being spellbound by the uncanny old man, 'I must goindoors now. '

He stretched out his withered old hand, small, semi-transparent, withthe blue veins showing darkly under the parchment-coloured skin, andgrasped Mary's arm. 

'Don't go, ' he pleaded. 'I like your face, child; I like your voice--Ilike to have you here. What do you mean by going indoors? Where do youlive?'

'There, ' said Mary, pointing to the dead wall which faced them. 'In thenew part of Fellside House. I suppose you are staying in the old partwith James Steadman. '

She had made up her mind that this crazy old man must be a relation ofSteadman's to whom he gave hospitality either with or without herladyship's consent. All powerful as Lady Maulevrier had ever been in herown house, it was just possible that now, when she was a prisoner in herown rooms, certain small liberties might be taken, even by so faithful aservant as Steadman. 

'Staying with James Steadman, ' repeated the old man in a meditativetone. 'Yes, I stay with Steadman. A good servant, a worthy person. It isonly for a little while. I shall be leaving Westmoreland next week. Andyou live in that house, do you?' pointing to the dead wall. 'Whosehouse?'

'Lady Maulevrier's. I am Lady Maulevrier's granddaughter. '

'Lady Mau-lev-rier. ' He repeated the name in syllables. 'A good name--anold title--as old as the conquest. A Norman race those Maulevriers. Andyou are Lady Maulevrier's granddaughter! You should be proud. TheMaulevriers were always a proud race. '

'Then I am no true Maulevrier, ' answered Mary gaily. 

She was beginning to feel more at her ease with the old man. He wasevidently mad, as mad as a March hare; but his madness seemed only theharmless lunacy of extreme old age. He had flashes of reason, too. Marybegan to feel a friendly interest in him. To youth in its flush of lifeand vigour there seems something so unspeakably sad and pitiable infeebleness and age--the brief weak remnant of life, the wreck of bodyand mind, sunning itself in the declining rays of a sun that is so soonto shine upon its grave. 

'What, are you not proud?' asked the old man. 

'Not at all. I have been taught to consider myself a very insignificantperson; and I am going to marry a poor man. It would not become me to beproud. '

'But you ought not to do that, ' said the old man. 'You ought not tomarry a poor man. Poverty is a bad thing, my dear. You are a prettygirl, and ought to marry a man with a handsome fortune. Poor men have nopleasure in this world--they might just as well be dead. I am poor, asyou see. You can tell by this threadbare coat'--he looked down at thesleeve from which the nap was worn in places--'I am as poor as a churchmouse. '

'But you have kind friends, I dare say, ' Mary said, soothingly. 'You arewell taken care of, I am sure. '

'Yes, I am well taken care of--very well taken care of. How long is it, I wonder--how many weeks, or months, or years, since they have takencare of me? It seems a long, long time; but it is all like a dream--along dream. Once I used to try and wake myself. I used to try andstruggle out of that weary dream. But that was ages ago. I am satisfiednow--I am quite content now--so long as the weather is warm, and I cansit out here in the sun. '

'It is growing chilly now, ' said Mary, 'and I think you ought to goindoors. I know that I must go. '

'Yes, I must go in now--I am getting shivery, ' answered the old man, meekly. 'But I want to see you again, Mary--I like your face--and I likeyour voice. It strikes a chord here, ' touching his breast, 'which haslong been silent. Let me see you again, child. When can I see youagain?'

'Do you sit here every afternoon when it is fine?'

'Yes, every day--all day long sometimes when the sun is warm. '

'Then I will come here to see you. '

'You must keep it a secret, then, ' said the old man, with a crafty look. 'If you don't they will shut me up in the house, perhaps. They don'tlike me to see people, for fear I should talk. I have heard Steadman sayso. Yet what should I talk about, heaven help me? Steadman says mymemory is quite gone, and that I am childish and harmless--childish andharmless. I have heard him say that. You'll come again, won't you, andyou'll keep it a secret?'

Mary deliberated for a few minutes. 

'I don't like secrets, ' she said, 'there is generally somethingdishonourable in them. But this would be an innocent secret, wouldn'tit? Well, I'll come to see you somehow, poor old man; and if Steadmansees me here I will make everything right with him. '

'He mustn't see you here, ' said the old man. 'If he does he will shut meup in my own rooms again, as he did once, years and years ago. '

'But you have not been here long, have you?' Mary asked, wonderingly. 

'A hundred years, at least. That's what it seems to me sometimes. Andyet there are times when it seems only a dream. Be sure you come againto-morrow. '

'Yes, I promise you to come; good-night. '

'Good-night. '

Mary went back to the stable. The door was still open, but how could shebe sure that it would be open to-morrow? There was no other access thatshe knew of to the quadrangle, except through the old part of the house, and that was at times inaccessible to her. 

She found a key--a big old rusty key--in the inside of the door, so sheshut and locked it, and put the key in her pocket. The door she supposedhad been left open by accident; at any rate this key made her mistressof the situation. If any question should arise as to her conduct shecould have an explanation with Steadman; but she had pledged her word tothe poor mad old man, and she meant to keep her promise, if possible. 

As she left the stable she saw Steadman riding towards the gate on hisgrey cob. She passed him as she went back to the house. 

Next day, and the day after that, and for many days, Mary used her key, and went into the quadrangle at sundown to sit for half an hour or sowith the strange old man, who seemed to take an intense pleasure in hercompany. The weather was growing warmer as May wore on towards June, andthis evening hour, between six and seven, was deliciously bright andbalmy. The seat by the sundial was screened on every side by the clippedyew hedge, dense and tall, surrounding the circular, gravelled space, inthe centre of which stood the old granite dial, with its octagonalpedestal and moss-grown steps. There, as in a closely-shaded arbour, Lady Mary and her old friend were alone and unobserved. The yew-treeboundary was at least eight feet high, and Mary and her companion couldhardly have been seen even from the upper windows of the low, old house. 

Mary had fallen into the habit of going for her walk or her ride at fiveo'clock every day, when she was not in attendance on Lady Maulevrier, and after her walk or ride she slipped through the stable, and joinedher ancient friend. Stables and courtyard were generally empty at thishour, the men only appearing at the sound of a big bell, which summonedthem from their snuggery when they were wanted. Most of LadyMaulevrier's servants had arrived at that respectable stage of longservice in which fidelity is counted as a substitute for hard work. 

The old man was not particularly conversational, and was apt to repeatthe same things over and over again, with a sublime unconsciousness ofbeing prosy; but he liked to hear Mary talk, and he listened withseeming intelligence. He questioned her about the world outside hiscloistered life--the wars and rumours of wars--and, although the namesof the questions and the men of the day seemed utterly strange to him, and he had to have them repeated to him again and again, he seemed totake an intelligent interest in the stirring facts of the time, andlistened intently when Mary gave him a synopsis of her last newspaperreading. 

When the news was exhausted, Mary hit upon a more childish form ofamusement, and that was to tell the story of any novel or poem she hadbeen lately reading. This was so successful that in this manner Maryrelated the stories of most of Shakespeare's plays; of Byron's Bride ofAbydos, and Corsair; of Keats's Lamia; of Tennyson's Idylls; and of aheterogenous collection of poetry and romance, in all of which storiesthe old man took a vivid interest. 

'You are better to me than the sunshine, ' he told Mary one day when shewas leaving him. 'The world grows darker when you leave me. '

Once at this parting moment he took both her hands, and drew her nearerto him, peering into her face in the clear evening light. 

'You are like my mother, ' he said. 'Yes, you are very like her. And whoelse is it that you are like? There is some one else, I know. Yes, someone else! I remember! It is a face in a picture--a picture at MaulevrierCastle. '

'What do you know of Maulevrier Castle?' asked Mary, wonderingly. 

Maulevrier was the family seat in Herefordshire, which had not beenoccupied by the elder branch for the last forty years. Lady Maulevrierhad let it during her son's minority to a younger branch of the family, a branch which had intermarried with the world of successful commerce, and was richer than the heads of the house. This occupation ofMaulevrier Castle had continued to the present time, and was likelystill to continue, Maulevrier having no desire to set up housekeeping ina feudal castle in the marches. 

'How came you to know Maulevrier Castle?' repeated Mary. 

'I was there once. There is a picture by Lely, a portrait of a LadyMaulevrier in Charles the Second's time. The face is yours, my love. Ihave heard of such hereditary faces. My mother was proud of resemblingthat portrait. '

'What did your mother know of Maulevrier Castle?'

The old man did not answer. He had lapsed into that dream-likecondition into which he often sank, when his brain was not stimulated toattention and coherency by his interest in Mary's narrations. 

Mary concluded that this man had once been a servant in the Maulevrierhousehold, perhaps at the place in Herefordshire, and that all his oldmemories ran in one grove--the house of Maulevrier. 

The freedom of her intercourse with him was undisturbed for about threeweeks; and at the end of that time she came face to face with JamesSteadman as she emerged from the circle of greenery. 

'You here, Lady Mary?' he exclaimed with an angry look. 

'Yes, I have been sitting talking to that poor old man, ' Mary answered, cheerily, concluding that Steadman's look of vexation arose from hisbeing detected in the act of harbouring a contraband relation. 'He is avery interesting character. A relation of yours, I suppose?'

'Yes, he is a relation, ' replied Steadman. 'He is very old, and his mindhas long been gone. Her ladyship is kind enough to allow me to give hima home in her house. He is quite harmless, and he is in nobody's way. '

'Of course not, poor soul. He is only a burden to himself. He talks asif his life had been very weary. Has he been long in that sad state?'

'Yes, a long time. '

Steadman's manner to Lady Mary was curt at the best of times. She hadalways stood somewhat in awe of him, as a person delegated withauthority by her grandmother, a servant who was much more than aservant. But to-day his manner was more abrupt than usual. 

'He spoke of Maulevrier Castle just now, ' said Mary, determined not tobe put down too easily. 'Was he once in service there?'

'He was. Pray how did you find your way into this garden, Lady Mary?'

'I came through the stable. As it is my grandmother's garden I suppose Idid not take an unwarrantable liberty in coming, ' said Mary, drawingherself up, and ready for battle. 

'It is Lady Maulevrier's wish that this garden should be reserved for myuse, ' answered Steadman. 'Her ladyship knows that my uncle walks here ofan afternoon, and that, owing to his age and infirmities, he can gonowhere else; and if only on that account, it is well that the gardenshould be kept private. Lunatics are rather dangerous company, LadyMary, and I advise you to give them a wide berth wherever you may meetthem. '

'I am not afraid of your uncle, ' said Mary, resolutely. 'You saidyourself just now that he is quite harmless: and I am really interestedin him, poor old creature. He likes me to sit with him a little of anafternoon and to talk to him; and if you have no objection I should liketo do so, whenever the weather is fine enough for the poor old man to beout in the garden at this hour. '

'I have a very great objection, Lady Mary, and that objection is chieflyin your interest, ' answered Steadman, firmly. 'No one who is notexperienced in the ways of lunatics can imagine the danger of anyassociation with them--their consummate craftiness, their capacity forcrime. Every madman is harmless up to a certain point--mild, inoffensive, perhaps, up to the very moment in which he commits someappalling crime. And then people cry out upon the want of prudence, thewant of common-sense which allowed such an act to be possible. No, LadyMary, I understand the benevolence of your motive, but I cannot permityou to run such a risk. '

'I am convinced that the poor old creature is perfectly harmless, ' saidMary, with suppressed indignation. 'I shall certainly ask LadyMaulevrier to speak to you on the subject. Perhaps her influence mayinduce you to be a little more considerate to your unhappy relation. '

'Lady Mary, I beg you not to say a word to Lady Maulevrier on thissubject. You will do me the greatest injury if you speak of that man. Ientreat you--'

But Mary was gone. She passed Steadman with her head held high and hereyes sparkling with anger. All that was generous, compassionate, womanlyin her nature was up in arms against her grandmother's steward. Of allother things, Mary Haselden most detested cruelty; and she could see inSteadman's opposition to her wish nothing but the most cold-heartedcruelty to a poor dependent on his charity. 

She went in at the stable door, shut and locked it, and put the key inher pocket as usual. But she had little hope that this mode of accesswould be left open to her. She knew enough of James Steadman'scharacter, from hearsay rather than from experience, to feel sure thathe would not easily give way. She was not surprised, therefore, onreturning from her ride on the following afternoon, to find the disusedharness-room half filled with trusses of straw, and the door ofcommunication completely blocked. It would be impossible for her toremove that barricade without assistance; and then, how could she besure that the door itself was not nailed up, or secured in some way?

It was a delicious sunny afternoon, and she could picture the lonely oldman sitting in his circle of greenery beside the dial, which for him hadregistered so many dreary and solitary hours, waiting for the little rayof social sunlight which her presence shed over his monotonous life. Hehad told her that she was like the sunshine to him--better thansunshine--and she had promised not to forsake him. She pictured himwaiting, with his hand clasped upon his crutch-stick, his chin restingupon his hands, his eyes poring on the ground, as she had seen him forthe first time. And as the stable clock chimed the quarters he wouldbegin to think himself abandoned, forgotten; if, indeed, he took anycount of the passage of time of which she was not sure. His mind seemedto have sunk into a condition which was between dreaming and waking, astate to which the outside world seemed only half real--a phase of beingin which there was neither past nor future, only the insufferablemonotony of an everlasting _now_. 

Pity is so near akin to love that Mary, in her deep compassion for thislonely, joyless, loveless existence, felt a regard which was almostaffection for this strange old man, whose very name was unknown to her. True that there was much in his countenance and manner which wassinister and repellant. He was a being calculated to inspire fear ratherthan love; but the fact that he had courted her presence and looked toher for consolation had touched Mary's heart, and she had becomereconciled to all that was forbidding and disagreeable in the lunaticphysiognomy. Was he not the victim of a visitation which entitled him torespect as well as to pity?

For some days Mary held her peace, remembering Steadman's vehemententreaty that she should not speak of this subject to her grandmother. She was silent, but the image of the old man haunted her at all timesand seasons. She saw him even in her dreams--those happy dreams of thegirl who loves and is beloved, and before whom the pathway of the futuresmiles like a vision of Paradise. She heard him calling to her with apiteous cry of distress, and on waking from this troubled dream shefancied that he must be dying, and that this sound in her dreams was oneof those ghostly warnings which give notice of death. She was so unhappyabout him, altogether so distressed at being compelled to break herword, that she could not prevent her thoughts from dwelling upon him, not even after she had poured out all her trouble to John Hammond in along letter, in which her garden adventures and her little skirmish withSteadman were graphically described. 

To her intense discomforture Hammond replied that he thoroughly approvedof Steadman's conduct in the matter. However agreeable Mary's societymight be to the lunatic, Mary's life was far too precious to be putwithin the possibility of peril by any such _tête-à-têtes_. If theperson was the same old man whom Hammond had seen on the Fell, he was amost sinister-looking creature, of whom any evil act might be fairlyanticipated. In a word Mr. Hammond took Steadman's view of the matter, and entreated his dearest Mary to be careful, and not to allow her warmheart to place her in circumstances of peril. 

This was most disappointing to Mary, who expected her lover to agreewith her upon every point; and if he had been at Fellside thedifference of opinion might have given rise to their first quarrel. Butas she had a few hours' leisure for reflection before the post went out, she had time to get over her anger, and to remember that promise ofobedience given, half in jest, half in earnest, at the little inn beyondDunmail Raise. So she wrote submissively enough, only with just a touchof reproach at Jack's want of compassion for a poor old man who had suchstrong claims upon everybody's pity. 

The image of the poor old man was not to be banished from her thoughts, and on that very afternoon, when her letter was dispatched, Mary went ona visit of exploration to the stables, to see if by any chance Mr. Steadman's plans for isolating his unhappy relative might becircumvented. 

She went all over the stables--into loose boxes, harness and saddlerooms, sheds for wood, and sheds for roots, but she found no dooropening into the quadrangle, save that door by which she had entered, and which was securely defended by a barricade of straw that had beendoubled by a fresh delivery of trusses since she first saw it. But whileshe was prowling about the sweet-scented stable, much disappointed atthe result of her investigations, she stumbled against a ladder whichled to an open trap-door. Mary mounted the ladder, and found herselfamidst the dusty atmosphere of a large hayloft, half in shadow, half inthe hot bright sunlight. A large shutter was open in the sloping roof, the roof that sloped towards the quadrangle, an open patch admittinglight and air. Mary, light and active as a squirrel, sprang upon a trussof hay, and in another moment had swung herself in the opening of theshutter, and was standing with her feet on the wooden ledge at thebottom of the massive frame, and her figure supported against the slopeof thick thatched roof. Perched, or half suspended, thus, she was justhigh enough to look over the top of the yew-tree hedge into the circleround the sundial. 

Yes, there was the unhappy victim of fate, and man's inhumanity to man. There sat the shrunken figure, with drooping head, and melancholyattitude--the bent shoulders of feeble old age, the patriarchal locks soappealing to pity. There he sat with eyes poring upon the ground just asshe had seen him the first time. And while she had sat with him andtalked with him he had seemed to awaken out of that dull despondency, gleams of pleasure had lighted up his wrinkled face--he had grownanimated, a sentient living instead of a corpse alive. It was very hardthat this little interval of life, these stray gleams of gladness shouldbe denied to the poor old creature, at the behest of James Steadman. 

Mary would have felt less angrily upon the subject had she believed inSteadman's supreme carefulness of her own safety; but in this she didnot believe. She looked upon the house-steward's prudence as ahypocritical pretence, an affectation of fidelity and wisdom, by whichhe contrived to gratify the evil tendencies of his own hard and cruelnature. For some reasons of his own, perhaps constrained thereto bynecessity, he had given the old man an asylum for his age and infirmity:but while thus giving him shelter he considered him a burden, and frommere perversity of mind refused him all such consolations as werepossible to his afflicted state, mewed him up as a prisoner, cut him offfrom the companionship of his fellow-men. 

Two years ago, before Mary emerged from her Tomboyhood, she would havethought very little of letting herself out of the loft window andclambering down the side of the stable, which was well furnished withthose projections in the way of gutters, drain-pipes, and century-oldivy, which make such a descent easy. Two years ago Mary's light figurewould have swung itself down among the ivy leaves, and she would havegloried in the thought of circumventing James Steadman so easily. Butnow Mary was a young lady--a young lady engaged to be married, andimpressed with the responsibilities of her position, deeply sensible ofa new dignity, for the preservation of which she was in a manneranswerable to her lover. 

'What would _he_ think of me if I went scrambling down the ivy?' sheasked herself; 'and after he has approved of Steadman's heartlessrestrictions, it would be rank rebellion against him if I were to do it. Poor old man, "Thou art so near and yet so far, " as Lesbia's song says. '

She blew a kiss on the tips of her fingers towards that sad solitaryfigure, and then dropped back into the dusty duskiness of the loft. Butalthough her new ideas upon the subject of 'Anstand'--or goodbehaviour--prevented her getting the better of Steadman by foul means, she was all the more intent upon having her own way by fair means, nowthat the impression of the old man's sadness and solitude had beenrenewed by the sight of the drooping figure by the sundial. 

She went back to the house, and walked straight to her grandmother'sroom. Lady Maulevrier's couch had been placed in front of the openwindow, from which she was watching the westward-sloping sun above thelong line of hills, dark Helvellyn, rugged Nabb Scarr, and verdantFairfield, with its two giant arms stretched out to enfold and shelterthe smiling valley. 

'Heavens! child, what an object you are;' exclaimed her ladyship, asMary drew near. 'Why, your gown is all over dust, and your hair is--whyyour hair is sprinkled with hay and clover. I thought you had learnt tobe tidy, since your engagement. What have you been doing with yourself?'

'I have been up in the hayloft, ' answered Mary, frankly; and, intent onone idea, she said impetuously, 'Dear grandmother, I want you to do me afavour--a very great favour. There is a poor old man, a relation ofSteadman's, who lives with him, out of his mind, but quite harmless, andhe is so sad and lonely, so dreadfully sad, and he likes me to sit withhim in the garden, and tell him stories, and recite verses to him, poorsoul, just as if he were a child, don't you know, and it is such apleasure to me to be a little comfort to him in his lonely wretchedlife, and James Steadman says I mustn't go near him, because he maychange at any moment into a dangerous lunatic, and do me some kind ofharm, and I am not a bit afraid, and I'm sure he won't do anything ofthe kind, and, please grandmother, tell Steadman, that I am to beallowed to go and sit with his poor old prisoner half an hour everyafternoon. '

Carried along the current of her own impetuous thoughts, Mary had talkedvery fast, and had not once looked at her grandmother while she wasspeaking. But now at the end of her speech her eyes sought LadyMaulevrier's face in gentle entreaty, and she recoiled involuntarily atthe sight she saw there. 

The classic features were distorted almost as they had been in the worstperiod of the paralytic seizure. Lady Maulevrier was ghastly pale, andher eyes glared with an awful fire as they gazed at Mary. Her wholeframe was convulsed, and she, the cripple, whose right limbs lay numbedand motionless upon the couch, made a struggling motion as she raisedherself a little with the left arm, as if, by very force of angry will, she would have lifted herself up erect before the girl who had offendedher. 

For a few moments her lips moved dumbly; and there was somethingunspeakably awful in those convulsed features, that livid countenance, and those voiceless syllables trembling upon the white dry lips. 

At last speech came. 

'Girl, you were created to torment me;' she exclaimed. 

'Dear grandmother, what harm have I done?' faltered Mary. 

'What harm? You are a spy. Your very existence is a torment and adanger. Would to God that you were married. Yes, married to achimney-sweep, even--and out of my way. '

'If that is your only difficulty, ' said Mary, haughtily, 'I dare say Mr. Hammond would be kind enough to marry me to-morrow, and take me out ofyour ladyship's way. '

Lady Maulevrier's head sank back upon her pillows, those velvet andsatin pillows, rich with delicate point lace and crewel-work adornment, the labour of Mary and Fräulein, pillows which could not bring peace tothe weary head, or deaden the tortures of memory. The pale facerecovered its wonted calm, the heavy lips drooped over the weary eyes, and for a few moments there was silence in the room. 

Then Lady Maulevrier raised her eyelids, and looked at her granddaughterimploringly, pathetically. 

'Forgive me, Mary, ' she said. 'I don't know what I was saying just now;but whatever it was, forgive and forget it. I am a wretched old woman, heart sick, heart sore, worn out by pain and weariness. There are timeswhen I am beside myself; moments when I am not much saner thanSteadman's lunatic uncle. This is one of my worst days, and you camebouncing in upon me, and tortured my nerves by your breathless torrentof words. Pray forgive me, if I said anything rude. '

'If, ' thought Mary: but she tried to be charitable, and to believe thatLady Maulevrier's attack upon her was a new phase of hysteria, so shemurmured meekly, 'There is nothing for me to forgive, grandmother, and Iam very sorry I disturbed you. '

She was going to leave the room, thinking that her absence would be arelief to the invalid, when Lady Maulevrier called her back. 

'You were asking me something--something about that old man ofSteadman's, ' she said with a weary air, half indifference, half thelassitude natural to an invalid who sinks under the burden of monotonousdays. 'What was it all about? I forget. '

Mary repeated her request, but this time in measured tones. 

'My dear, I am sure that Steadman was only properly prudent. ' answeredLady Maulevrier, 'and that it would never do for me to interfere in thismatter. It stands to reason that he must know his old kinsman'stemperament much better than you can, after your half-hour interviewswith him in the garden. Pray how long have these garden scenes beengoing on, by-the-by?' asked her ladyship, with a searching look atMary's downcast face. 

The girl had not altogether recovered from the rude shock of hergrandmother's late attack. 

'About three weeks, ' faltered Mary. 'But it is more than a week nowsince I was in the garden. It was quite by accident that I first wentthere. Perhaps I ought to explain. '

And Mary, not being gainsayed, went on to describe that first afternoonwhen she had seen the old man brooding in the sun. She drew quite apathetic picture of his joyless solitude, whilst all nature around andabout him was looking so glad in the spring sunshine. There was a longsilence, a silence of some minutes, when she had done; and LadyMaulevrier lay with lowered eyelids, deep in thought. Mary began to hopethat she had touched her grandmother's heart, and that her request wouldbe granted: but she was soon undeceived. 

'I am sorry to be obliged to refuse you a favour, Mary, but I must standby Steadman, ' said her ladyship. 'When I gave Steadman permission toshelter his aged kinsman in my house, I made it a condition that the oldman should be kept in the strictest care by himself and his wife, andthat nobody in this establishment should be troubled by him. Thiscondition has been so scrupulously adhered to that the old man'sexistence is known to no one in this house except you and me; and youhave discovered the fact only by accident. I must beg you to keep thissecret to yourself. Steadman has particular reasons for wishing toconceal the fact of his uncle's residence here. The old man is notactually a lunatic. If he were we should be violating the law by keepinghim here. He is only imbecile from extreme old age; the body hasoutlived the mind, that is all. But should any officious functionarycome down upon Fellside, this imbecility might be called madness, andthe poor old creature whom you regard so compassionately, and whose caseyou think so pitiable here, would be carried off to a pauper lunaticasylum, which I can assure you would be a much worse imprisonment thanFellside Manor. '

'Yes, indeed, grandmother, ' exclaimed Mary, whose vivid imaginationconjured up a vision of padded cells, strait-waist-coats, murderously-inclined keepers, chains, handcuffs, and bread and waterdiet, 'now I understand why the poor old soul has been kept soclose--why nobody knows of his existence. I beg Steadman's pardon withall my heart. He is a much better fellow than I thought him. '

'Steadman is a thoroughly good fellow, and as true as steel, ' said herladyship. 'No one can know that so well as the mistress he has servedfaithfully for nearly half a century. I hope, Mary, you have not beenchattering to Fräulein or any one else about your discovery. '

'No, grandmother, I have not said a word to a mortal, but----'

'Oh, there is a "but, " is there? I understand. You have not been soreticent in your letters to Mr. Hammond. '

'I tell him all that happens to me. There is very little to write aboutat Fellside; yet I contrive to send him volumes. I often wonder whatpoor girls did in the days of Miss Austen's novels, when letters cost ashilling or eighteen pence for postage, and had to be paid for by therecipient. It must have been such a terrible check upon affection. '

'And upon twaddle, ' said Lady Maulevrier. 'Well you told Mr. Hammondabout Steadman's old uncle. What did he say?'

'He thoroughly approved Steadman's conduct in forbidding me to go andsee him, ' answered Mary. 'I couldn't help thinking it rather unkind ofhim; but, of course, I feel that he must be right, ' concluded Mary, asmuch as to say that her lover was necessarily infallible. 

'I always thought Mr. Hammond a sensible young man, and I am glad tofind that his conduct does not belie my good opinion, ' said LadyMaulevrier. 'And now, my dear, you had better go and make yourselfdecent before dinner. I am very weary this afternoon, and even ourlittle talk has exhausted me. '

'Yes, dear grandmother, I am going this instant. But let me ask onequestion: What is the poor old man's name?'

'His name!' said her ladyship, looking at Mary with a puzzled air, likea person whose thoughts are far away. 'His name--oh, Steadman, Isuppose, like his nephew's; but if I ever heard the name I haveforgotten it, and I don't know whether the kinship is on the father's orthe mother's side. Steadman asked my permission to give shelter to ahelpless old relative, and I gave it. That is really all I remember. '

'Only one other question, ' pleaded Mary, who was brimful of curiosityupon this particular subject. 'Has he been at Fellside very long?'

'Oh, I really don't know; a year, or two, or three, perhaps. Life inthis house is all of a piece. I hardly keep count of time. '

'There is one thing that puzzles me very much, ' said Mary, stilllingering near her grandmother's couch, the balmy evening air caressingher as she leaned against the embrasure of the wide Tudor window, thesun drawing nearer to the edge of the hills, an orb of yellow flame, soon to change to a gigantic disk of lurid fire. 'I thought from the oldman's talk that he, too, must be an old servant in our family. He talkedof Maulevrier Castle, and said that I reminded him of a picture by Lely, a portrait of a Lady Maulevrier. 

'It is quite possible that he may have been in service there, though Ido not remember to have heard anything about it, ' answered her ladyship, carelessly. 'The Steadmans come from that part of the country, andtheirs is a hereditary service. Good-night, Mary, I am utterly weary. Look at that glorious light yonder, that mighty world of fire and flame, without which our little world would be dark and dreary. I often thinkof that speech of Macbeth's, "I 'gin to be aweary of the sun. " Therecomes a time, Mary, when even the sun is a burden. '

'Only for such a man as Macbeth, ' said Mary, 'a man steeped in crime. Who can wonder that he wanted to hide himself from the sun? But, deargrandmother, there ought to be plenty of happiness left for you, even ifyour recovery is slow to come. You are so clever, you have suchresources in your own mind and memory, and you have your grandchildren, who love you dearly, ' added Mary, tenderly. 

Her nature was so full of pity that an entirely new affection had grownup in her mind for Lady Maulevrier since that terrible evening of theparalytic stroke. 

'Yes, and whose love, as exemplified by Lesbia, is shown in a hurriedscrap of a letter scrawled once a week--a bone thrown to a hungry dog, 'said her ladyship, bitterly. 

'Lesbia is so lovely, and she is so surrounded by flatterers andadmirers, ' murmured Mary, excusingly. 

'Oh, my dear, if she had a heart she would not forget me, even in themidst of her flatterers. Good-night again, Mary. Don't try to consoleme. For some natures consolations and soothing suggestions are likeflowers thrown upon a granite tomb. They do just as much and just aslittle good to the heart that lies under the stone. Good-night. '

Mary stooped to kiss her grandmother's forehead, and found it cold asmarble. She murmured a loving good-night, and left the mistress ofFellside in her loneliness. 

A footman would come in and light the lamps, and draw the velvetcurtains, presently, and shut out the later glories of sunset. And thenthe butler himself would come and arrange the little dinner table by herladyship's couch, and would himself preside over the invalid's simpledinner, which would be served exquisitely, with all that is daintiestand most costly in Salviati glass and antique silver. Yet better thedinner of herbs, and love and peace withal, than the choicest fare orthe most perfect service. 

Before the coming of the servants and the lamps there was a pause ofsilence and loneliness, an interval during which Lady Maulevrier laygazing at the declining orb, the lower rim of which now rested on theedge of the hill. It seemed to grow larger and more dazzling as shelooked at it. 

Suddenly she clasped her left hand across her eyes, and said aloud--

'Oh, what a hateful life! Almost half a century of lies and hypocriciesand prevarications and meannesses! For what? For the glory of an emptyname; and for a fortune that may slip from my dead hand to become theprey of rogues and adventurers. Who can forecast the future?'

CHAPTER XXV. 

CARTE BLANCHE. 

Lady Kirkbank's house in Arlington Street was known to half fashionableLondon as one of the pleasantest houses in town; and it was known byrepute only, to the other half of fashionable London, as a house whosethreshold was not to be crossed by persons with any regard for their owndignity and reputation. It was not that Lady Kirkbank had ever actuallyforfeited her right to be considered an honest woman and a faithfulwife. People who talked of the lady and her set with a contemptuousshrug of the shoulders and a dubious elevation of the eyebrows wereready, when hard pushed in argument, to admit that they knew of noactual harm in Lady Kirkbank, no overt bad behaviour. 

'But--well, ' said the punctilious half of society, the Pejinks andPernickitys, the Picksomes and Unco-Goods, 'Lady Kirkbank is--LadyKirkbank; and I would not allow my girls to visit her, don't you know. ''Lady Kirkbank is received, certainly, ' said a severe dowager. 'Shegoes to very good houses. She gets tickets for the Royal enclosure. Sheis always at private views, and privileged shows of all kinds; and shecontrives to squeeze herself in at a State ball or a concert about oncein two years; but any one who can consider Lady Kirkbank good style musthave a very curious idea of what a lady ought to be. ' 'Lady Kirkbank isa warm-hearted, nice creature, ' said a diplomatist of high rank, and oneof her particular friends, 'but her manners are decidedly--continental!'

About Sir George, society, adverse or friendly, was without strongopinions. His friends, the men who shot over his Scotch moor, and filledthe spare rooms in his villa at Cannes, and loaded his drag for Sandownor Epsom, and sponged upon him all the year round, talked of him as 'aninoffensive old party, ' 'a cheery soul, ' 'a genial old boy, ' and in liketerms of approval. That half of society which did not visit in ArlingtonStreet, in whose nostrils the semi-aristocratic, semi-artistic, altogether Bohemian little dinners, the suppers after the play, thesmall hours devoted to Nap or Poker, had an odour as of sulphur, thereek of Tophet--even this half of the great world was fain to admit thatSir George was harmless. He had never had an idea beyond the realms ofsport; he had never had a will of his own outside his stable. To shootpigeons at Hurlington or Monaco, to keep half a dozen leather-platers, and attend every race from the Craven to the Leger, to hunt four days aweek, when he was allowed to spend a winter in England, and to saunterand sleep away all the hours which could not be given to sport, comprised Sir George's idea of existence. He had never troubled himselfto consider whether there might not possibly be a better way of gettingrid of one's life. He was as God had made him, and was perfectlysatisfied with himself and the universe; save at such times as when afavourite horse went lame, or his banker wrote to tell him that hisaccount was overdrawn. 

Sir George had no children; he had never had a serious care in his life. He never thought, he never read. Lady Kirkbank declared that she hadnever seen him with a book in his hands since their marriage. 

'I don't believe he would know at which end to begin, ' she said. 

What was the specific charge which the very particular people broughtagainst Lady Kirkbank? Such charges rarely _are_ specific. The idea thatthe lady belonged to the fast and furious section of society, theBohemia of the upper ten, was an idea in the air. Everybody knew it. Noone could quite adequately explain it. 

From thirty to fifty Lady Kirkbank had been known as a flirty matron. Wherever she went, a train of men went with her; men young andmiddle-aged and elderly; handsome youths from the public offices; War, Admiralty, Foreign Office, Somerset House young men; attractive men ofmature years, with grey moustachios, military, diplomatic, horsey, whatyou will, but always agreeable. At home, abroad, Lady Kirkbank was neverwithout her court; but the court was entirely masculine. In those daysthe fair Georgie did not scruple to say that she hated women, and thatgirls were her particular abomination. But as the years rolled on LadyKirkbank began to find it very difficult to muster her little court, tokeep her train in attendance upon her. 'The birds were wild, ' Sir Georgesaid. Her young adorers found their official duties more oppressive thanhitherto; her elderly swains had threatenings of gout or rheumatismwhich prevented their flocking round her as of old at race meeting orpolo match. They were loyal enough in keeping their engagements at thedinner table, for Lady Kirkbank's cook was one of the best in London;and the invited guests were rarely missing at the little suppers afteropera or play: but Georgia's box was no longer crowded with men whodropped in between the acts to see what she thought of the singer or thepiece, and her swains were no longer contented to sit behind her chairall the evening, seeing an empty corner of the stage across Georgia'sivory shoulder, and hearing the voices of invisible actors in the briefpauses of Georgie's subdued babble. 

At fifty-five, Georgina Kirkbank told herself sadly enough that her day, as a bright particular star, all-sufficient in her own radiance, wasgone. She could not live without her masculine circle, men who couldbring her all the news, the gossip of the clubs; where everything seemedto become known as quickly as if each club had its own Asmodeus, unroofing all the housetops of the West End for inspection every night. She could not live without her courtiers; and to keep them about her sheknew that she must make her house pleasant. It was not enough to givegood dinners, elegant little suppers washed down by choicest wines; shemust also provide fair faces to smile upon the feast, and bright eyes tosparkle in the subdued light of low shaded lamps, and many candlestwinkling under coloured shades. 

'I am an old woman now, ' Lady Kirkbank said to herself with a sigh, 'andmy own attractions won't keep my friends about me. _C'est trop connuça_. '

And now the house in Arlington Street in which feminine guests had beenas one in ten, opened its doors to the young and the fair. Prettywidows, lively girls, young wives who were not too absurdly devoted totheir husbands, actresses of high standing and good looks, these beganto be welcomed effusively in Arlington Street. Lady Kirkbank began tohunt for beauties to adorn her rooms, as she had hitherto hunted lionsto roar at her parties. She prided herself on being the first todiscover this or that new beauty. That lovely girl from Scotland withthe large eyes--that sweet young creature from Ireland with the longeyelashes. She was always inventing new divinities. But even thischange of plan, this more feminine line of politics failed to reconcilethe strict and the stern, the Queen Charlotte-ish elderly ladies, andthe impeccable matrons, to Lady Kirkbank and her sea. The girls who werelaunched by Lady Kirkbank never took high rank in society. When theymade good marriages it was generally to be observed that they droppedLady Kirkbank soon afterwards. It was not their fault, these ingratespleaded piteously; but Edward, or Henry, or Theodore, as the case mightbe, had a most cruel prejudice against dear Lady Kirkbank, and the youngwives were obliged to obey. 

Others there were, however, the loyal few, who having won the prizematrimonial in Lady Kirkbank's happy hunting grounds, remained true totheir friend ever afterwards, and defended her character against everyonslaught. 

When Lady Maulevrier told her grandson that she had entrusted LadyKirkbank with the duty of introducing Lesbia to society, Maulevriershrugged his shoulders and held his peace. He knew no actual harm in thematter. Lady Kirkbank's was rather a fast set; and had he been allowedto choose it was not to Lady Kirkbank that he would have delegated hisgrandmother's duty. In Maulevrier's own phrase it was 'not good enough'for Lesbia. But it was not in his power to interfere. He was not told ofthe plan until everything had been settled. The thing was accomplished;and against accomplished facts Maulevrier was the last to protest. 

His friend John Hammond had not been silent. He knew nothing of LadyKirkbank personally; but he knew the position which she held in Londonsociety, and he urged his friend strongly to enlighten Lady Maulevrieras to the kind of circle into which she was about to entrust her younggranddaughter, a girl brought up in the Arcadia of England. 

'Not for worlds would I undertake such a task, ' said Maulevrier. 'Herladyship never had any opinion of my wisdom, and this Lady Kirkbank is afriend of her own youth. She would cut up rough if I were to say a wordagainst an old friend. Besides what's the odds, if you come to think ofit? all society is fast nowadays, or at any rate all society worthliving in. And then again, Lesbia is just one of those cool-headed girlswho would keep herself head uppermost in a maelstrom. She knows on whichside her bread is buttered. Look how easily she chucked you up becauseshe did not think you good enough. She'll make use of this LadyKirkbank, who is a good soul, I am told, and will make the best match ofthe season. '

And now the season had begun, and Lady Lesbia Haselden was circulatingwith other aristocratic atoms in the social vortex, with her headapparently uppermost. 

'Old Lady K--has nobbled a real beauty, this time, ' said one of theArlington Street set to his friend as they lolled on the railings in thepark, 'a long way above any of those plain-headed ones she tried to palmoff upon us last year: the South American girl with the big eyes and acomplexion like a toad, the Forfarshire girl with freckles andunsophisticated carrots. "Those lovely Spanish eyes, " said Lady K----, "that Titianesque auburn hair!" But it didn't answer. Both the girlswere plain, and they have gone back to their native obscurity spinstersstill. But this is a real thorough-bred one--blood, form, pace, allthere. '

'Who is she?' drawled his friend. 

'Lord Maulevrier's sister, Lady Lesbia Haselden. Has money, too, Ibelieve; rich grandmother; old lady buried alive in Westmoreland; horridold miser. '

'I shouldn't mind marrying a miser's granddaughter, ' said the other. 'Sonice to know that some wretched old idiot has scraped and hoardedthrough a lifetime of deprivation and self-denial, in order that one mayspend his money when he is under the sod. '

Lady Lesbia was accepted everywhere, or almost everywhere, as the beautyof the season. There were six or seven other girls who aspired to thesame proud position, who were asserted by their own particular friendsto have won it; just as there are generally four or five horses whichclaim to be first favourites; but the betting was all in favour of LadyLesbia. 

Lady Kirkbank told her that she was turning everyone's head, and Lesbiawas quite willing to believe her. But was Lesbia's own head quite steadyin this whirlpool? That was a question which she did not take thetrouble to ask herself. 

Her heart was tranquil enough, cold as marble. No shield and safeguardso secure against the fire of new love as an old love hardly cold. Lesbia told herself that her heart was a sepulchre, an urn which held ahandful of ashes, the ashes of her passion for John Hammond. It was afire quite burned out, she thought; but that extinguished flame had leftdeath-like coldness. 

This was Lesbia's own diagnosis of her case: but the real truth was thatamong the herd of men she had met, almost all of them ready to fall downand worship her, there was not one who had caught her fancy. Her naturewas shallow enough to be passing fickle; the passion which she had takenfor love was little more than a girl's fancy; but the man who had powerto awaken that fancy as John Hammond had done had not yet appeared inLady Kirkbank's circle. 

'What a cold-hearted creature you must be, ' said Georgie. 'You don'tseem to admire any of my favourite men. '

'They are very nice, ' Lesbia answered languidly; 'but they are allalike. They say the same things--wear the same clothes--sit in the sameattitude. One would think they were all drilled in a body every morningbefore they go out. Mr. Nightshade, the actor, who came to supper theother night, is the only man I have seen who has a spark oforiginality. '

'You are right, ' answered Lady Kirkbank, 'there is an appalling samenessin men: only it is odd you should find it out so soon. I neverdiscovered it till I was an old woman. How I envy Cleopatra her Caesarand her Antony. No mistaking one of those for the other. Mary Stuarttoo, what marked varieties of character she had an opportunity ofstudying in Rizzio and Chastelard, Darnley and Bothwell. Ah, child, thatis what it is to _live_. '

'Mary is very interesting, ' sighed Lesbia; 'but I fear she was not acorrect person. '

'My love, what correct person ever is interesting? History draws a mistyhalo round a sinner of that kind, till one almost believes her a saint. I think Mary Stuart, Froude's Mary, simply perfect. '

Lesbia had begun by blushing at Lady Kirkbank's opinions; but she wasnow used to the audacity of the lady's sentiments, and the almostinfantile candour with which she gave utterance to them. Lady Kirkbankliked to make her friends laugh. It was all she could do now in order tobe admired. And there is nothing like audacity for making people laughnowadays. Lady Kirkbank was a close student of all those delightfulbooks of French memoirs which bring the tittle-tattle of the Regency andthe scandals of Louis the Fifteenth's reign so vividly before us: andshe had unconsciously founded her manners and her ways of thinking andtalking upon that easy-going but elegant age. She did not want to seembetter than women who had been so altogether charming. She fortified thefrivolity of historical Parisian manners by a dash of the Britishsporting character. She drove, shot, jumped over five-barred gates, contrived on the verge of seventy to be as active us a young woman; andshe flattered herself that the mixture of wit, audacity, sport, andgood-nature was full of fascination. 

However this might be, it is certain that a good many people liked her, chiefly perhaps because she was good-natured, and a little on account ofthat admirable cook. 

To Lesbia, who had been weary to loathing of her old life amidst thehills and waterfalls of Westmoreland, this new life was one perpetualround of pleasure. She flung herself with all her heart and mind intothe amusement of the moment; she knew neither weariness nor satiety. Toride in the park in the morning, to go to a luncheon party, a gardenparty, to drive in the park for half an hour after the garden party, torush home and dress for the fourth or fifth time, and then off to adinner, and from dinner to drum, and from drum to big ball, at whichrumour said the Prince and Princess were to be present: and so, fromeleven o'clock in the morning till four or five o'clock next morning, the giddy whirl went on: and every hour was so occupied by pleasureengagements that it was difficult to squeeze in an occasional morningfor shopping--necessary to go to the shops sometimes, or one would notknow how many things one really wants--or for an indispensable interviewwith the dressmaker. Those mornings at the shops were hardly the leastagreeable of Lesbia's hours. To a girl brought up in one perpetual_tête-à-tête_ with green hill-sides and silvery watercourses, the WestEnd shops were as gardens of Eden, as Aladdin Caves, as anything, everything that is rapturous and intoxicating. Lesbia, the clear-headed, the cold-hearted, fairly lost her senses when she went into one of thoseexquisite shops, where a confusion of brocades and satins lay about indazzling masses of richest colour, with here and there a bunch oflilies, a cluster of roses, a tortoise-shell fan, an ostrich feather, ora flounce of peerless Point d'Alençon flung carelessly athwart the sheenof a wine-dark velvet or golden-hued satin. 

Lady Maulevrier had said Lesbia was to have _carte blanche_; so Lesbiabought everything she wanted, or fancied she wanted, or that theshop-people thought she must want, or that Lady Kirkbank happened toadmire. The shop-people were so obliging, and so deeply obliged byLesbia's patronage. She was exactly the kind of customer they liked toserve. She flitted about their showrooms like a beautiful butterflyhovering over a flower-bed--her eye caught by every novelty. She neverasked the price of anything: and Lady Kirkbank informed them, inconfidence, that she was a great heiress, with a millionaire grandmotherwho indulged her every whim. Other high born young ladies, shopping uponfixed allowances, and sorely perplexed to make both ends meet, lookedwith eyes of envy upon this girl. 

And then came the visit to the dressmaker. It happened after all thatKate Kearney was not intrusted with Lady Lesbia's frocks. Miss Kearneywas the fashion, and could pick and choose her customers; and as she wasa young lady of good business aptitudes, she had a liking for readymoney, or at least half-yearly settlements; and, finding that LadyKirkbank was much more willing to give new orders than to pay oldaccounts, she had respectfully informed her ladyship that a pressure ofbusiness would prevent her executing any further demands from ArlingtonStreet, while the necessity of posting her ledger obliged her to requestthe favour of an immediate cheque. 

The little skirmish--per letter--occurred while Lady Kirkbank was atCannes, and Miss Kearney's conduct was stigmatised as insolent andungrateful, since had not she, Lady Kirkbank by the mere fact of herpatronage, given this young person her chief claim to fashion?

'I shall drop her, ' said Georgie, 'and go back to poor old Seraphine, who is worth a cartload of such Irish adventuresses. '

So to Madame Seraphine, of Clanricarde Place, Lady Lesbia was taken asa lamb to the slaughter-house. 

Seraphine had made Lady Kirkbank's clothes, off and on for the lastthirty years. Seraphine and Georgia had grown old together. LadyKirkbank was always dropping Seraphine and taking her up again, quarrelling and making friends with her. They wrote each other littlenotes, in which Lady Kirkbank called the dressmaker her _cher ange_--her_bonne chatte_, her _chère vielle sotte_--and all manner of affectionatenames--and in which Seraphine occasionally threatened the lady with thedire engines of the law, if money were not forthcoming before Saturdayevening. 

Lady Kirkbank within those thirty years had paid Seraphine manythousands; but she had never once got herself out of the dear creature'sdebt. All her payments were payments on account. A hundred pounds; orfifty--or an occasional cheque for two hundred and fifty, when SirGeorge had been lucky at Newmarket and Doncaster. But the rollingnucleus of debt went rolling on, growing bigger every year until thepayments on account needed to be larger or more numerous than of old tokeep Seraphine in good humour. 

Seraphine was a woman of genius and versatility and had more than oneart at her fingers' ends--those skinny and claw-shaped fingers, thenails whereof were not always clean. She took charge of her customer'sfigures, and made their corsets, and lectured them if they allowednature to get the upper hand. 

'If Madame's waist gets one quarter of an inch thicker it must be that Irenounce to make her gowns, ' she would tell a ponderous matron, withcool insolence, and the matron would stand abashed before the littlesallow, hooked-nosed, keen eyed Jewess, like a child before a severemother. 

'Oh, Seraphine, do you really think that I am stouter?' the customerwould ask feebly, panting in her tightened corset. 

'Is it that I think so? Why that jumps to the eyes. Madame had alwaysthat little air of Reubens, even in the flower of her youth--but now--itis a Rubens of the Fabourg du Temple. '

And horrified at the idea of her vulgarised charms the meek matron wouldconsent to encase herself in one of Seraphine's severest corsets, calledin bitterest mockery _à la santé_--at five guineas--in order that thedressmaker might measure her for a forty-guinea gown. 

'A plain satin gown, my dear, with an eighteenpenny frilling round theneck and sleeves, and not so much trimming as would go round my littlefinger. It is positive robbery, ' the matron told her friends afterwards, not the less proud of her skin-tight high shouldered sleeves and thepeerless flow of her train. 

Seraphine was an artist in complexions, and it was she who provided hermiddle-aged and elderly customers with the lilies and roses of youth. Lady Kirkbank's town complexion was superintended by Seraphine, sometimes even manipulated by those harpy-like claws. The eyebrows ofwhich Lesbia complained were only eyebrows _de province_--eyebrows _devoyage_. In London Georgie was much more particular; and Seraphine wasoften in Arlington Street with her little morocco bag of washes andcreams, and brushes and sponges, to prepare Lady Kirkbank for some greatparty, and to instruct Lady Kirkbank's maid. At such times Georgie wasall affection for the little dressmaker. 

'_Ma chatte_, you have made me positively adorable, ' she would say, peering at her reflection in the ivory hand-mirror, a dazzling image ofrouge and bismuth, carmined lips, diamonds, and frizzy yellow hair; 'Iverily believe I look under thirty--but do not you think this gown is athought too _decolletée--un peu trop de peau, hein?_'

'Not for you, Lady Kirkbank, with your fine shoulders. Shoulders are ofno age--_les épaules sont la vraie fontaine de jouvence pour les joliesfemmes. _'

'You are such a witty creature, Seraphine, Fifine. You ought to be adescendant of that wicked old Madame du Deffand. Rilboche, give Madamesome more chartreuse. '

And Lady Kirkbank and the dressmaker would chink their liqueur glassesin amity before the lady gathered up her satin train and allowed herpeerless shoulders to be muffled in a plush mantle to go down to hercarriage, fortified by that last glass of green chartreuse. 

There were always the finest chartreuse and curaçoa in a liqueur cabineton Lady Kirkbank's dressing-table. The cabinet formed a companion to thedressing-case, which contained all those creamy and rose-hued cosmetics, powders, brushes, and medicaments, which were necessary for themanufacture of Georgie's complexion. The third bottle in the liqueurcase held cognac, and this, as Rilboche the maid knew, was oftenestreplenished. Yet nobody could accuse Lady Kirkbank of intemperatehabits. The liqueur box only supplied the peg that was occasionallywanted to screw the superior mind to concert pitch. 

'One must always be at concert pitch in society, don't you know, mydear, ' said Georgie to her young protégée. 

Thus it happened that, Miss Kearney having behaved badly, Lesbia wascarried off to dear old Seraphine, and delivered over to that modernwitch, as a sacrifice tied to the horns of the altar. 

Clanricarde Place is a little nook of Queen Anne houses--genuine QueenAnne, be it understood--between Piccadilly and St. James's Palace, andhardly five minutes' walk from Arlington Street. It is a quiet little_cul de sac_ in the very heart of the fashionable world; and here of anafternoon might be seen the carriages of Madame Seraphine's customers, blocking the whole of the carriage way, and choking up the narrowentrance to the street, which widened considerably at the inner end. 

Madame Seraphine's house was at the end, a narrow house, with tallold-fashioned windows curtained with amber satin. It was a small, darkhouse, and exhaled occasional odours of garlic and main sewer: but thestaircase was a gem in old oak, and the furniture in the tripletelescopic drawing rooms, dwindling to a closet at the end, was genuineLouis Seize. 

Seraphine herself was the only shabby thing in the house--a wizenedlittle woman, with a wicked old Jewish face, and one shoulder higherthan the other, dressed in a shiny black moire gown, years after moireshad been exploded, and with a rag of old lace upon her sleek blackhair--raven black hair, and the only good thing about her appearance. 

One ornament, and one only, had Seraphine ever been guilty of wearing, and that was an old-fashioned half-hoop ring of Brazilian diamonds, brilliants of the first water. This ring she called her yard measure;and she was in the habit of using it as her Standard of purity, andcomparing it with any diamonds which her customers submitted to herinspection. For the clever little dressmaker had a feeling heart for alady in difficulties, and was in the habit of lending money on goodsecurity, and on terms that were almost reasonable as compared with theusurious rates one reads of in the newspapers. 

Lesbia's first sensation upon having this accomplished person presentedto her was one of shrinking and disgust. There was something sinister inthe sallow face, the small shrewd eyes, and long hooked nose, thecrooked figure, and claw-shaped hands. But when Madame Seraphine beganto talk about gowns, and bade her acolytes--smartly-dressed young womenwith pleasing countenances--bring forth marvels of brocade and satin, embroideries, stamped velvets, bullion fringes, and ostrich featherflouncings, Lesbia became interested, and forgot the unholy aspect ofthe high priestess. 

Lady Kirkbank and the dressmaker discussed Lesbia's charms as calmly asif she had been out of the room. 

'What do you think of her figure?' asked Lady Kirkbank. 

'One cannot criticise what does not exist, ' replied the dressmaker, inFrench. 'The young lady has no figure. She has evidently been brought upin the country. '

And then with rapid bird-like movements, and with her head on one side, Seraphine measured Lesbia's waist and bust, muttering little argoticexpressions _sotto voce_ as she did so. 

'Waist three inches too large, shoulders six inches too narrow, ' shesaid decisively, and she dictated some figures to one of the damsels, who wrote them down in an order-book. 

'What does that mean?' asked Lesbia, not at all approving of suchcavalier treatment. 

'Only that Seraphine will make your corsets the right size, ' answeredLady Kirkbank. 

'What? Three inches too small for my waist, and six too wide for myshoulders?'

'My love, you must have a figure, ' replied Lady Kirkbank, conclusively. 'It is not what you are, but what you ought to be that has to beconsidered. '

So Lesbia, the cool-headed, who was also the weak-minded, consented tohave her figure adjusted to the regulation mark of absolute beauty, asunderstood by Madame Seraphine. It was only when her complexion cameunder discussion, and Seraphine ventured to suggest that she would beall the better for a little accentuation of her eyebrows and darkeningof her lashes, that Lesbia made a stand. 

'What would my grandmother think of me if she heard I painted?' sheasked, indignantly. 

Lady Kirkbank laughed at her _naïveté_. 

'My dear child, your grandmother is just half a century behind the age, 'she said. 'I hope you are not going to allow your life in London to beregulated by an oracle at Grasmere?'

'I am not going to paint my face, ' replied Lesbia, firmly. 

'Well, perhaps you are right. The eyebrows are a little weak andundecided, Seraphine, as you say, and the lashes would be all the betterfor your famous cosmetic; but after all there is a charm in what thepainters call "sincerity, " and any little errors of detail will provethe genuineness of Lady Lesbia's beauty. One _may_ be too artistic. '

And Lady Kirkbank gave a complacent glance at her own image in one ofthe Marie Antoinette mirrors, pleased with the general effect of archedbrows, darkened eyelids, and a daisy bonnet. The fair Georgie generallyaffected field-flowers and other simplicities, which would have beenbecoming to a beauty of eighteen. 

'One is obliged to smother one's self in satin and velvet for balls anddinners, ' said Lady Kirkbank, when she discussed the great question ofgowns; 'but I know I always look my best in my cotton frock and strawhat. '

That first visit to Seraphine's den--den as terrible, did one but knowit, as that antediluvian hyena-cave at Torquay, where the threshold isworn by the bodies of beasts dragged across it, and the ground pavedwith their bones--that first visit was a serious business. Laterinterviews might be mere frivolities, half-an-hour wasted in looking atnew fashions, an order given carelessly on the spur of the moment; butupon this occasion Lady Kirkbank had to arm her young _protégée_ for thecoming campaign, and the question was to the last degree serious. 

The chaperon and the dressmaker put their heads together, looked atfashion plates, talked solemnly of Worth and his compeers, of the gownsthat were being worn by Bernhardt, and Pierson, and Croisette, and otherstars of the Parisian stage; and then Lady Kirkbank gave her orders, Lesbia listening and assenting. 

Nothing was said about prices; but Lesbia had a vague idea that some ofthe things would be rather expensive, and she ventured to ask LadyKirkbank if she were not ordering too many gowns. 

'My dear, Lady Maulevrier said you were to have _carte blanche_, 'replied Georgie, solemnly. 'Your dear grandmother is as rich as Croesus, and she is generosity itself; and how should I ever forgive myself if Iallowed you to appear in society in an inadequate style. You have totake a high place, the very highest place, Lesbia; and you must bedressed in accordance with that position. '

Lesbia said no more. After all it was Lady Kirkbank's business and nothers. See had been entrusted to Lady Kirkbank as to a person whothoroughly knew the great world, and she must submit to be governed bythe wisdom and experience of her chaperon. If the bills were heavy, thatwould be Lady Kirkbank's affair; and no doubt dear grandmother was richenough to afford anything Lesbia wanted. She had been told that she wasto take rank among heiresses. 

Lady Maulevrier had given her granddaughter some old-fashionedornaments, topaz, amethysts, turquoise--jewels that had belonged to deadand gone Talmashes and Angersthorpes--to be reset. This entailed a visitto a Bond Street jeweller, and in the dazzling glass-cases on thecounter of the Bond Street establishment Lesbia saw a good many thingswhich she felt were real necessities to her new phase of existence, andthese, with Lady Kirkbank's approval, she ordered. They were notimportant matters. Half-a-dozen gold bangles of real orientalworkmanship, three or four jewelled arrows, flies and beetles, andcaterpillars, to pin on her laces and flowers, a diamond clasp for herpearl necklace, a dear little gold hunter to wear when she rode in thepark, a diamond butterfly to light up that old-fashioned amethyst_parure_ which the jeweller was to reset with an artistic admixture ofbrilliants. 

'I am sure you would not like the effect without diamonds, ' said thejeweller. 'Your amethysts are very fine, but they are dark and heavy intone, and want a good deal of lighting-up, especially for the presentfashion of half-lighted rooms. If you will allow me to use my owndiscretion, and mix in a few brilliants, I shall be able to produce areally artistic _parure_; otherwise I would not recommend you to touchthem. The present setting is clumsy and inelegant; but I really do notknow that I could improve upon it, without an admixture of brilliants. '

'Will the diamonds add very much to the expense?' Lesbia inquired, timidly. 

'My dear child, you are perfectly safe in leaving the matter in Mr. Cabochon's hands, ' interposed Lady Kirkbank, who had particular reasonsfor wishing to be on good terms with the head of the establishment. 'Yourdear grandmother gave you the amethysts to be reset; and of course shewould wish it to be done in an artistic manner. Otherwise, as Mr. Cabochon judiciously says, why have the stones reset at all? Better wearthem in all their present hideousness. '

Of course, after this Lesbia consented to the amethysts being dealt withaccording to Mr. Cabochon's taste. 

'Which is simply perfect, ' interjected Lady Kirkbank. 

And now Lesbia's campaign began in real earnest--a life of pleasure, alife of utter selfishness and self-indulgence, which would go far topervert the strongest mind, tarnish the purest nature. To dress and beadmired--that was what Lesbia's life meant from morning till night. Shehad no higher or nobler aim. Even on Sunday mornings at the fashionablechurch, where the women sat on one side of the nave and the men on theother, where divinest music was as a pair of wings, on which theenraptured soul flew heavenward--even here Lesbia thought more of herbonnet and gloves--the _chic_ or non-_chic_ of her whole costume, thanof the service. She might kneel gracefully, with her bent head, justrevealing the ivory whiteness of a lovely throat, between the edge ofher lace frilling and the flowers in her bonnet. She might look thefairest image of devotion; but how could a woman pray whose heart was amilliner's shop, whose highest ambition was to be prettier and betterdressed than other women?

The season was six weeks old. It was Ascot week, the crowning glory ofthe year, and Lesbia and her chaperon had secured tickets for the Royalenclosure--or it may be said rather that Lesbia had secured them--forthe Master of the Royal Buckhounds might have omitted poor old LadyKirkbank's familiar name from his list if it had not been for thatlovely girl who went everywhere under the veteran's wing. 

Six weeks, and Lesbia's appearance in society had been one perpetualtriumph; but as yet nothing serious had happened. She had had no offers. Half a dozen men had tried their hardest to propose to her--had sat outdances, had waylaid her in conservatories and in back drawing-rooms, inlobbies while she waited for her carriage--had looked at her piteouslywith tenderest declarations trembling on their lips; but she hadcontrived to keep them at bay, to strike them dumb by her coldness, orconfound them by her coquetry; for all these were ineligibles, whom LadyLesbia Haselden did not want to have the trouble of refusing. 

Lady Kirkbank was in no haste to marry her _protégée_--nay, it was muchmore to her interest that Lesbia should remain single for three or fourseasons, and that she, Lady Kirkbank, might have the advantage of closeassociation with the young beauty, and the privilege of spending LadyMaulevrier's money. But she would have liked to be able to informLesbia's grandmother of some tremendous conquest--the subjugation of aworthy victim. This herd of nobodies--younger sons with courtesy titlesand empty pockets, ruined Guardsmen, briefless barristers--what was theuse of telling Lady Maulevrier about such barren victories? LadyKirkbank therefore contented herself with expatiating upon Lesbia'striumphs in a general way: how graciously the Princess spoke to her andabout her; how she had been asked to sit on the dais at the ball atMarlborough House, and had danced in the Royal quadrille. 

'Has Lesbia happened to meet Lord Hartfield?' Lady Maulevrier asked, incidentally, in one of her letters. 

No. Lord Hartfield was in London, for he had made a great speech in theLords on a question of vital interest; but he was not going intosociety, or at any rate into society of a frivolous kind. He had givenhimself up to politics, as so many young men did nowadays, which wasaltogether horrid of them. His name had appeared in the list of guestsat one or two cabinet dinners; but the world of polo matches andafternoon teas, dances and drums, private theatricals, and Orleans Housesuppers, knew him not. As a competitor on the fashionable race-course, Lord Hartfield was, in common parlance, out of the running. 

And now on this glorious June day, this Thursday of Thursdays, the AscotCup day, for the first time since Lesbia's début, Lady Kirkbank hadoccasion to smile upon an admirer whose pretensions were worthy of thehighest consideration. 

Mr. Smithson, of Park Lane, and Rood Hall, near Henley, and Formosa, Cowes, and Le Bouge, Deauville, and a good many other places toonumerous to mention, was reputed to be one of the richest commoners inEngland. He was a man of that uncertain period of life which enemiescall middle age, and friends call youth. That he would never see afive-and-thirtieth birthday again was certain; but whether he had passedthe Rubicon of forty was open to doubt. It is possible that he wasenjoying those few golden years between thirty-five and forty, which forthe wealthy bachelor constitute verily the prime and summer-tide oflife. Wisdom has come, experience has been bought, taste has beencultivated, the man has educated himself to the uttermost in the greatschool of daily life. He knows his world thoroughly, whatever that worldis, and he knows how to enjoy every gift and every advantage whichProvidence has bestowed upon him. 

Mr. Smithson was a great authority on the Stock Exchange, though he hadceased for the last three or four years to frequent the 'House, ' or tobe seen in the purlieus of Throgmorton Street. Indeed he had an air ofhardly knowing his way to the City, of being acquainted with that partof London only by hearsay. He complained that his horses shied atpassing Temple Bar. And yet a few years ago Mr. Smithson's cityoperations had been on a very extensive scale: It was in the rise andfall of commodities rather than of stocks and shares that HoraceSmithson had made his money. He had exercised occult influences upon thetrade of the great city, of the world itself, whereof that city is in amanner the keystone. Iron had risen or fallen at his beck. At the breathof his nostrils cochineal had gone up in the market at an almost magicalrate, as if the whole civilised world had become suddenly intent upondyeing its garments red, nay, as if even the naked savages of the GoldCoast and the tribes of Central Africa were bent on staining their duskyskins with the bodies of the female coccus. 

Favoured by a hint from Smithson, his particular friends followed hislead, and rushed into the markets to buy all the cochineal that could behad; to buy at any price, since the market was rising hourly. And then, all in a moment, as the sky clouds over on a summer day, there came adulness in the cochineal market, and the female coccus was being sold atan enormous sacrifice. And anon it leaked out that Mr. Smithson hadgrown tired of cochineal, and had been selling for the last week or two;and it was noised abroad that this rise and fall in cocci had broughtMr. Smithson seventy thousand pounds. 

Mr. Smithson was said to have commenced life in a very humble capacity. There were some who declared he was the very youth who stooped to pickup a pin in a Parisian banker's courtyard, after his services as clerkhad just been rejected by the firm, and who was thereupon recognised asa youth worthy of favour and taken into the banker's office. But thistouching incident of the pin was too ancient a tradition to fit Mr. Smithson, still under forty. 

Some there were who remembered him eighteen years ago as an adventurerin the great wilderness of London, penniless, friendless, aJack-of-all-trades, living as the birds of the air live, and with aslittle certainty of future maintenance. And then Mr. Smithsondisappeared for a space--he went under, as his friends called it; tore-appear fifteen years later as Smithson the millionaire. He had beenin Peru, Mexico, California. He had traded in hides, in diamonds, insilver, in stocks and shares. And now he was the great Smithson, whosevoice was the voice of an oracle, who was supposed to be able to makethe fortunes of other men by a word, or a wink, a nod, or a little lookacross the crowd, and whom all the men and women in Londonsociety--short of that exclusive circle which does _not_ open its ranksto Smithsons--were ready to cherish and admire. 

Mr. Smithson had been in Petersburg, Paris, Vienna, all over civilisedEurope during the last five weeks, whether on business or on pleasurebent, nobody knew. He affected to be an elegant idler; but it was saidby the initiated that wherever Smithson went the markets rose or fell, and hides, iron, copper, or tin, felt the influence of his presence. 

He came back to London in time for the Cup Day, and in time to falldesperately in love with Lesbia, whom he met for the first time in theRoyal enclosure. 

She was dressed in white, purest ivory white, from top to toe--radiant, dazzling, under an immense sunshade fringed with creamy marabouts. Hercomplexion--untouched by Seraphine--her dark and glossy hair, her largeviolet eyes, luminous, dark almost to blackness, were all set off andaccentuated by the absence of colour in her costume. Even the cluster ofexotics on her shoulder were of the same pure tint, gardenias and liliesof the valley. 

Mr. Smithson was formally presented to the new beauty, and received witha cool contempt which riveted his chains. He was so accustomed to be runafter by women, that it was a new sensation to meet one who was not inthe least impressed by his superior merits. 

'I don't suppose the girl knows who I am, ' he said to himself, foralthough he had a very good idea of his intrinsic worth, he knew thathis wealth ranked first among his merits. 

But on after occasions when Lesbia had been told all that could be toldto the advantage of Mr. Smithson, she accepted his homage with the sameindifference, and treated him with less favour than she accorded to theruined guardsmen and younger sons who were dying for her. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

'PROUD CAN I NEVER BE OF WHAT I HATE. '

It was a Saturday afternoon, and even in that great world which has nooccupation in life except to amuse itself, whose days are all holidays, there is a sort of exceptional flavour, a kind of extra excitement onSaturday afternoons, distinguished by polo matches at Hurlingham, justas Saturday evenings are by the production of new plays at fashionabletheatres. There was a great military polo match for this particularSaturday--Lancers against Dragoons. It was a lovely June afternoon, andHurlingham would be at its best. The cool greensward, the branchingtrees, the flowing river, would afford an unspeakable relief after theblock of carriages in Bond Street and the heated air of London, whereeven the parks felt baked and arid; and to Hurlingham Lady Kirkbankdrove directly after luncheon. 

Lesbia leaned back in the barouche listening calmly, while her chaperonexpatiated upon the wealth and possessions of Horace Smithson. It wasnow ten days since the meeting at Ascot, and Mr. Smithson had contrivedto see a great deal of Lesbia in that short time. He was invited almosteverywhere, and he had haunted her at afternoon and evening parties; hehad supped in Arlington Street after the opera; he had played cards withLesbia, and had enjoyed the felicity of winning her money. Hisadmiration was obvious, and there was a seriousness in his manner ofpursuing her which showed that, in Lady Kirkbank's unromanticphraseology, 'the man meant business. '

'Smithson is caught at last, and I am glad of it, ' said Georgie. 

'The creature is an abominable flirt, and has broken more hearts thanany man in London. He was all but the death of one of the dearest girlsI know. '

'Mr. Smithson breaks hearts!' exclaimed Lesbia, languidly. 'I should nothave thought that was in his line. Mr. Smithson is not an Adonis, norare his manners particularly fascinating. '

'My child how fresh you are! Do you suppose it is the handsome men orthe fascinating men for whom women break their hearts in society? It isthe rich men they all want to marry--men like Smithson, who can givethem diamonds, and yachts, and a hunting stud, and half a dozen finehouses. Those are the prizes--the blue ribbons of the matrimonialrace-course--men like Smithson, who pretend to admire all the prettywomen, who dangle, and dangle, and keep off other offers, and give tenguinea bouquets, and then at the end of the season are off to Hombourgor the Scotch moors, without a word. Do you think that kind of treatmentis not hard enough to break a penniless girl's heart? She sees thegolden prize within her grasp, as she believes; she thinks that she andpoverty have parted company for ever; she imagines herself mistress oftown house and country houses, yachts and stables; and then one finemorning the gentleman is off and away! Do not you think that is enoughto break a girl's heart?'

'I can imagine that girl steeped to the lips in poverty might be willingto marry Mr. Smithson's houses and yachts, ' answered Lesbia, in her lowsweet voice, with a faint sneer even amidst the sweetness, 'but, I thinkit must have been a happy release for any one to be let off thesacrifice at the last moment. '

'Poor Belle Trinder did not think so. '

'Who was Belle Trinder?'

'An Essex parson's daughter whom I took under my wing five years ago--asplendid girl, large and fair, and just a trifle coarse--not to bespoken of in the same day with you, dearest; but still a decidedlyhandsome creature. And she took remarkably well. She was a very livelygirl, "never ran mute, " Sir George used to say. Sir George was very fondof her. She amused him, poor girl, with her rather brainless rattle. '

'And Mr. Smithson admired her?'

'Followed her about everywhere, sent her whole flower gardens in the wayof bouquets and Japanese baskets, and floral _parures_ for her gowns, and opera boxes and concert tickets. Their names were always coupled. People used to call them Bel and the Dragon. The poor child made up hermind she was to be Mrs. Smithson. She used to talk of what she would dofor her own people--the poor old father, buried alive in a dampparsonage, and struggling every winter with chronic bronchitis; the fouryounger sisters pining in dulness and penury; the mother who hardly knewwhat it was to rest from the continual worries of daily life. '

'Poor things!' sighed Lesbia, gazing admiringly at the handle of herlast new sunshade. 

'Belle used to talk of what she would do for them all, ' pursued LadyKirkbank. 'Father should go every year to the villa at Monte Carlo;mother and the girls should have a month in Park Lane every season, andtheir autumn holiday at one of Mr. Smithson's country houses. I knew theworld well enough to be sure that this kind of thing would never answerwith a man like Smithson. It is only one man in a thousand--the modernArthur, the modern Quixote--who will marry a whole family. I told Belleas much, but she laughed. She felt so secure of her power over the man. "He will do anything I ask him, " she said. '

'Miss Trinder must be an extraordinary young person, ' observed Lesbia, scornfully. 'The man had not proposed, had he?'

'No; the actual proposal hung fire, but Belle thought it was a settledthing all the same. Everybody talked to her as if she were engaged toSmithson, and those poor, ignorant vicarage girls used to write her longletters of congratulation, envying her good fortune, speculating, aboutwhat she would do when she was married. The girl was too open and candidfor London society--talked too much, "gave the view before she was sureof her fox, " Sir George said. All this silly talk came to Smithson'sears, and one morning we read in the Post that Mr. Smithson had startedthe day before for Algiers, where he was to stay at the house of theEnglish Consul, and hunt lions. We waited all day, hoping for someletter of explanation, some friendly farewell which would mean _àrevoir_. But there was nothing, and then poor Belle gave way altogether. She shut herself up in her room, and went out of one hysterical fit intoanother. I never heard a girl sob so terribly. She was not fit to beseen for a week, and then she went home to her father's parsonage in theflat swampy country on the borders of Suffolk, and eat her heart, asByron calls it. And the worst of it was that she had no actualjustification for considering herself jilted. She had talked, and otherpeople had talked, and among them they had settled the business. ButSmithson had said hardly anything. He had only flirted to his heart'scontent, and had spent a few hundreds upon flowers, gloves, fans, andopera tickets, which perhaps would not have been accepted by a girl witha strong sense of her own dignity. '

'I should think not, indeed, ' interjected Lesbia. 

'But which poor Belle was only too delighted to get. '

'Miss Trinder must be very bad style, ' said Lesbia, with languid scorn, 'and Mr. Smithson is an execrable person. Did she die?'

'No, my dear, she is alive poor soul!'

'You said she broke her heart. '

'"The heart may break, yet brokenly live on, "' quoted Lady Kirkbank. 'The disappointed young women don't all die. They take to districtvisiting, or rational dressing, or china painting, or an ambulancebrigade. The lucky ones marry well-to-do widowers with large families, and so slip into a comfortable groove by the time they arefive-and-thirty. Poor Belle is still single, still buried in the dampparsonage, where she paints plates and teacups, and wears out my oldgowns, just as she is wearing out her own life, poor creature!'

'The idea of any one wanting to marry Mr. Smithson, ' said Lesbia. 'Itseems too dreadful. '

'A case of real destitution, you think. Wait till you have seenSmithson's house in Park Lane--his team, his yacht, his orchid houses inBerkshire. '

Lesbia sighed. Her knowledge of London society was only seven weeks old;and yet already the day of disenchantment had begun! She was having hereyes opened to the stern realities of life. A year ago when herappearance in the great world was still only a dream of the future, shehad pictured to herself the crowd of suitors who would come to woo, andshe had resolved to choose the worthiest. 

What would he be like, that worthiest among the wooers, that King Arthuramong her knights?

First and foremost, he would be of rank higher than her own--duke, amarquis, or one of the first and oldest among earls. Title and loftylineage were indispensable. It would be a fall, a failure, adisappointment, were she to marry a commoner, however distinguished. 

The worthy one must be noble, therefore, and of the old nobility. Hemust be young, handsome, intellectual. He must stand out from among hispeers by his gifts of mind and person. He must have won distinction inthe arena of politics or diplomacy, arms or letters. He must be'somebody. '

She had been seven weeks in society, and this modern Arthur had notappeared. So far as she had been able to discover, there was no suchperson. The dukes and marquises were mostly men of advanced years. Theyoung unmarried nobility were given over to sport, play, andfoolishness. She had heard of only one man who at all corresponded withher ideal, and he was Lord Hartfield. But Lord Hartfield had givenhimself up to politics, and was no doubt a prig. Lady Kirkbank spoke ofhim with contempt, as an intolerable person. But then Lord Hartfield wasnot in Lady Kirkbank's set. He belonged to that serious circle to whichLady Kirkbank's house appeared about as reputable a place of gatheringas a booth on a race-course. 

And now Lady Kirkbank told Lesbia that this Mr. Smithson, a nobody witha great fortune, was a man whose addresses she, the sister of LordMaulevrier, ought to welcome. Mr. Smithson, who claimed to be a linealdescendant of that Sir Michael Carrington, standard-bearer to Coeur deLion in the Holy Land, whose descendants changed their name to Smithduring the Wars of the Roses. Mr. Smithson bodily proclaimed himself ascion of this good old county family, and bore on his plate and hiscoach panels the elephant's head and the three demi-griffins of theHertfordshire Smiths, who only smiled and shrugged their shoulders whenthey were complimented upon the splendid surroundings of their cousin. Who could tell? Some lateral branch of the standard-bearer's family treemight have borne this illustrious twig. 

Lady Kirkbank and all Lady Kirkbank's friends seemed to have conspiredto teach Lesbia Haselden one lesson, and that lesson meant that moneywas the first prize in the great game of life. Money ranked beforeeverything--before titles, before noble lineage, genius, fame, beauty, courage, honour. Money was Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Mr. Smithson, whose antecedents were as cloudy as those of Aphrodite, was a greater man than a peer whose broad acres only brought him two percent. , or half of whose farms were tenantless, and his fields growingcockle instead of barley. 

Yes, one by one, Lady Lesbia's illusions were reft from her. A year agoshe had fancied beauty all-powerful, a gift which must ensure to itspossessor dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth. Rank, intellect, fame would bow down before that magical diadem. And, behold, she hadbeen shining upon London society for seven weeks, and only empty headsand empty pockets had bowed down--the frivolous, the ineligible, --andMr. Smithson. 

Another illusion which had been dispelled was Lesbia's comfortable ideaof her own expectations. Her grandmother had told her that she mighttake rank among heiresses; and she had held herself accordingly, deemingthat her place was among the wealthiest. And now, since Mr. Smithson'sappearance upon the scene, Lady Kirkbank had informed her young friendwith noble candour that Lady Maulevrier's fortune, however large itmight seem at Grasmere, would be a poor thing in London; and that LadyMaulevrier's ideas about money were as old-fashioned as her notionsabout morals. 

'Life is about six times as expensive as it was in your grandmother'stime. ' said Lady Kirkbank, as the carriage rolled softly along theshabby road between Knightsbridge and Fulham. 'It is the pace thatkills. Society, which used to jog along comfortably, like the oldBrighton stage, at ten miles an hour, now goes as fast as the Brightonexpress. In my mother's time poor Lord Byron was held up to theexecration of respectable people as the type of cynical profligacy; inmy own time people talked about Lord Waterford; but, my dear, the youngmen now are all Byrons and Waterfords, without the genius of the one orthe generosity of the other. We are all going at steeplechase rate. Social success without money is impossible. The rich Americans, thesuccessful Jews, will crowd us out unless we keep pace with them. Ah, Lesbia, my dear girl, there would be a great future before you if youcould only make up your mind to accept Mr. Smithson. '

'How do you know that he means to propose to me?' asked Lesbia, mockingly. 'Perhaps he is only going to behave as he did to MissTrinder. '

'Lady Lesbia Haselden is a very different person from a country parson'sdaughter, ' answered her chaperon; 'Smithson told me all about itafterwards. He was really taken with Belle's fine figure and goodcomplexion; but one of her particular friends told him of her foolishtalk about her sisters, and how well she meant to get them married whenshe was Mrs. Smithson. This disgusted him. He went down to Essex, reconnoitered the parsonage, saw one of the sisters hanging out cuffsand collars in the orchard--another feeding the fowls--both in shabbygowns and country-made boots; one of them with red hair and freckles. The mother was bargaining for fish with a hawker at the kitchen door. And these were the people he was expected to import into Park Lane, under ceilings painted by Leighton. These were the people he was toexhibit on board his yacht, to cart about on his drag. "I had half madeup my mind to marry the girl, but I would sooner have hung myself thanmarry her mother and sisters so I took the first train for Dover, enroute for Algiers, " said Smithson, and upon my word I could hardly blamethe man, ' concluded Lady Kirkbank. 

They were driving up the narrow avenue to the gates of Hurlingham bythis time. Lesbia shock out her frock and looked at her gloves, tan-coloured mousquetaires, reaching up to the elbow, and embroidered tomatch her frock. 

To-day she was a study in brown and gold. Brown satin petticoatembroidered with marsh marigolds; little bronze shoes, with marshmarigolds tied on the lachets; brown stockings with marsh marigoldclocks; tunic brown foulard smothered with quillings of soft brown lace;Princess bonnet of brown straw, with a wreath of marsh marigold and aneat little buckle of brown diamonds; parasol brown satin, with animmense bunch of marsh marigolds on the top; fan to match parasol. 

The seats in front of the field were nearly all full when Lady Kirkbankand Lesbia left their carriage; but their interests had been protectedby a gentleman who had turned down two chairs and sat between them onguard. This was Mr. Smithson. 

'I have been sitting here for an hour keeping your chairs, ' he said, ashe rose to greet them. 'You have no idea what work I have had, and howferociously all the women have looked at me. '

The match was going on. The Lancers were scuffling for the ball, andaffording a fine display of hog-maned ponies and close-cropped young menin ideal boots. But Lesbia cared very little about the match. She waslooking along the serried ranks of youth and beauty to see if anybody'sfrock was smarter than her own. 

No. She could see nothing she liked so well as her brown satin andbuttercups. She sat down in a perfectly contented frame of mind, pleasedwith herself and with Seraphine--pleased even with Mr. Smithson, who hadshown himself devoted by his patient attendance upon the empty chairs. 

After the match was over the two ladies and their attendant strolledabout the gardens. Other men came and fluttered round Lesbia, and womenand girls exchanged endearing smiles and pretty little words of greetingwith her, and envied her the brown frock and buttercups and Mr. Smithsonat her chariot wheel. And then they went to the lawn in front of theclub-house, which was so crowded that even Mr. Smithson found itdifficult to get a tea-table, and would hardly have succeeded so soon ashe did if it had not been for the assistance of a couple of Lesbia'sdevoted Guardsmen, who ran to and fro and badgered the waiters. 

After much skirmishing they were seated at a rustic table, the blueriver gleaming and glancing in the distance, the good old treesspreading their broad shadows over the grass, the company crowding andchattering and laughing--an animated picture of pretty faces, smartgowns, big parasols, Japanese fans. 

Lesbia poured out the tea with the prettiest air of domesticity. 

'Can you really pour out tea?' gasped a callow lieutenant, gazing uponher with goggling, enraptured eyes. 'I did not think you could doanything so earthly. '

'I can, and drink it too, ' answered Lesbia, laughing. 'I adore tea. Cream and sugar?'

'I--I beg your pardon--how many?' murmured the youth, who had losthimself in gazing, and no longer understood plain English. 

Mr. Smithson frowned at the intruder, and contrived to absorb Lesbia'sattention for the rest of the afternoon. He had a good deal more to sayfor himself than her military admirers, and was altogether more amusing. He had a little cynical air which Lesbia's recent education had taughther to enjoy. He depreciated all her female friends--abused their gownsand bonnets, and gave her to understand, between the lines, as it were, that she was the only woman in London worth thinking about. 

She looked at him curiously, wondering how Belle Trinder had been ableto resign herself to the idea of marrying him. 

He was not absolutely bad looking--but he was in all things unlike agirl's ideal lover. He was short and stout, with a pale complexion, andsunken faded eyes, as of a man who had spent the greater part of hislife by candle light, and had pored much over ledgers and bank books, share lists and prospectuses. He dressed well, or allowed himself to bedressed by the most correct of tailors--the Prince's tailor--but henever attempted to lead the fashion in his garments. He had nooriginality. Such sublime flights as that of the man who revivedcorduroy, or of that daring genius who resuscitated the half-forgottenInverness coat, were unknown to him. He could only follow the lead ofthe highest. He had small feet, of which he was intensely proud, podgywhite hands on which he wore the most exquisite rings. He changed hisrings every day, like a Roman Emperor; was reported to have summer andwinter rings--onyx and the coolest looking intaglios set in filagree forwarm weather--fiery rubies and diamonds in massive bands of dull goldfor winter. He was said to devote half-an-hour every morning to thetreatment of his nails, which were perfect. All the inkstains of hisyouth had been obliterated, and those nails which had once been bittento the quick during the throes of financial study were now things ofbeauty. 

Lady Lesbia surveyed Mr. Smithson critically, and shuddered at thethought that this person was the best substitute which the season hadyet offered her for her ideal knight. She thought of John Hammond, thetall, strong figure, straight and square; the head so proudly carried ona neck which would have graced a Greek arena. The straight, clearly-cutfeatures, the flashing eyes, bright with youth and hope and the promiseof all good things. Yes, there was indeed a man--a man in all thenobility of manhood, as God made him, an Adam before the Fall. 

Ah, if John Hammond had only possessed a quarter of Mr. Smithson'swealth how gladly would Lesbia have defied the world and married him. But to defy the world upon nothing a year was out of the question. 

'Why didn't he go on the Stock Exchange and make his fortune?' thoughtLesbia, pettishly, 'instead of talking vaguely about politics andliterature. '

She felt angry with her rejected lover for having come to herempty-handed. She had seen no man in London who was, or who seemed toher, his equal. And yet she did not repent of having rejected him. Themore she knew of the world and the more she knew of herself the moredeeply was she convinced that poverty was an evil thing, and that shewas not the right kind of person to endure it. 

She was inwardly making these comparisons as they strolled back to thecarriage, while Mr. Smithson and Lady Kirkbank talked confidentially ather side. 

'Do you know that Lady Kirkbank has promised and vowed three things foryou?' said Mr. Smithson. 

'Indeed! I thought I was past the age at which one can be compromised byother people's promises. Pray what are those three things?'

'First, that you will come to breakfast in Park Lane with Lady Kirkbanknext Wednesday morning. I say Wednesday because that will give me timeto ask some nice people to meet you; secondly, that you will honour meby occupying my box at the Lyceum some evening next week; and thirdly, that you will allow me to drive you down to the Orleans for supper afterthe play. The drive only takes an hour, and the moonlight nights aredelicious at this time of the year. '

'I am in Lady Kirkbank's hands, ' answered Lesbia, laughing. 'I am hergoods, her chattels; she takes me wherever she likes. '

'But would you refuse to do me this honour if you were a free agent?'

'I can't tell. I hardly know what it is to be a free agent. At GrasmereI did whatever my grandmother told me; in London I obey Lady Kirkbank. Iwas transferred from one master to another. Why should we breakfast inPark Lane instead of in Arlington Street? What is the use of crossingPiccadilly to eat our breakfast?'

This was a cool-headed style of treatment to which Mr. Smithson was notaccustomed, and which charmed him accordingly. Young women usually threwthemselves at his head, as it were; but here was a girl who talked tohim as indifferently as if he were a tradesman offering his wares. 

'What a dreadfully practical person you are?' he exclaimed. 'What is theuse of crossing Piccadilly? Well, in the first place, you will make meineffably happy. But perhaps that doesn't count. In the second place, Ishall be able to show you some rather good pictures of the Frenchschool--'

'I hate the French school!' interjected Lesbia. 'Tricky, flashy, chalky, shallow, smelling of the footlights and the studio. '

'Well, sink the pictures. You will meet some very charming people, belonging to that artist world which is not to be met everywhere. '

'I will go to Park Lane to meet your people, if Lady Kirkbank likes totake me, ' said Lesbia; and with this answer Mr. Smithson was bound to becontent. 

'My pet, if you had made it the study of your life how to treat that manyou could not do it better, ' said Lady Kirkbank, when they were drivingalong the dusty road between dusty hedges and dusty trees, past thatlast remnant of country which was daily being debased into London. 'Upon my word, Lesbia, I begin to think you must be a genius. '

'Did you see any gowns you liked better than mine?' asked Lesbia, reclining reposefully, with her little bronze shoes upon the oppositecushion. 

'Not one--Seraphine has surpassed herself. '

'You are always saying that. One would suppose you were a sleepingpartner in the firm. But I really think this brown and buttercups israther nice. I saw that odious American girl just now--Miss--MissMilwaukee, that mop-stick girl people raved about at Cannes. She was inpale blue and cream colour, a milk and water mixture, and lookedpositively plain. '

CHAPTER XXVII. 

LESBIA CROSSES PICCADILLY. 

Lady Kirkbank and Lady Lesbia drove across Piccadilly at eleven o'clockon Wednesday morning to breakfast with Mr. Smithson, and although Lesbiahad questioned whether it was worth while crossing Piccadilly to eatone's breakfast, she had subsequently considered it worth while orderinga new gown from Seraphine for the occasion; or, it may be, rather thatthe breakfast made a plausible excuse for a new gown, the pleasure ofordering which was one of those joys of a London life that had not yetlost their savour. 

The gown, devised especially for the early morning, was simplicityitself--rusticity, even. It was a Dresden shepherdess gown, made of asoft flowered stuff, with roses and forget-me-nots on a creamy ground. There was a great deal of creamy lace, and innumerable yards of palestazure and palest rose ribbon in the confection, and there was acoquettish little hat, the regular Dresden hat, with a wreath ofrosebuds. 

'Dresden china incarnate!' exclaimed Smithson, as he welcomed LadyLesbia on the threshold of his marble hall, under the glass marquisewhich sheltered arrivals at his door. 'Why do you make yourself solovely? I shall want to keep you in one of my Louis Seize cabinets, withthe rest of my Dresden!'

Lady Kirkbank had considered the occasion suitable for one of herfavourite cotton frocks and rustic hats--a Leghorn hat, with clusters Ofdog-roses and honeysuckle, and a trail of the same hedge-flowers tofasten her muslin fichu. 

Mr. Smithson's house in Park Lane was simply perfect. It is wonderfulwhat good use a _parvenu_ can make of his money nowadays, and how rarelyhe disgraces himself by any marked offences against good taste. Thereare so many people at hand to teach the _parvenu_ how to furnish hishouse, or how to choose his stud. If he go wrong it must be by sheerperversity, an arrogant insistence upon being governed by his ownignorant inclinations. 

Mr. Smithson was too good a tactician to go wrong in this way. He hadtaken the trouble to study the market before he went out to buy hisgoods. He knew that taste and knowledge were to be bought just as easilyas chairs and tables, and he went to the right shop. He employed aclever Scotchman, an artist in domestic furniture, to plan his house, and make drawings for the decoration and furniture of every room--andfor six months he gave himself up to the task of furnishing. 

Money was spent like water. Painters, decorators, cabinet-makers had amerry time of it. Royal Academicians were impressed into the service bylarge offers, and the final result of Mr. MacWalter's taste and Mr. Smithson's bullion was a palace in the style of the Italian Renaissance, frescoed ceilings, painted panels, a staircase of sculptured marble, asbeautiful as a dream, a conservatory as exquisite as a jewel casket byBenvenuto Cellini, a picture gallery which was the admiration of allLondon, and of the enlightened foreigner, and of the inquiring American. This was the house which Lesbia had been brought to see, and throughwhich she walked with the calmly critical air of a person who had seenso many palaces that one more or less could make no difference. 

In vain did Mr. Smithson peruse her countenance in the hope of seeingthat she was impressed by the splendour of his surroundings, and by thepower of the man who commanded such splendour. Lesbia was as cold as theItalian sculptor's Reading Girl in an alcove of Mr. Smithson's picturegallery; and the stockbroker felt very much as Aladdin might have doneif the fair Badroulbadour had shown herself indifferent to the hall ofthe jewelled windows, in that magical palace which sprang into being ina single night. 

Lesbia had been impressed by that story of poor Belle Trinder and byLady Kirkbank's broad assertion that half the young women in London wererunning after Mr. Smithson; and she had made up her mind to treat theman with supreme scorn. She did not want his houses or his yachts. Nothing could induce her to marry such a man, she told herself; but hervanity fed upon the idea of his subjugation, and her pride was gratifiedby the sense of her power over him. 

The guests were few and choice. There was Mr. Meander, the poet, one ofthe leading lights in that new sect which prides itself upon thecultivation of abstract beauty, and occasionally touches the verge ofconcrete ugliness. There were a newspaper man--the editor of afashionable journal--and a middle-aged man of letters, playwright, critic, humourist, a man whose society was in demand everywhere, and whosaid sharp things with the most supreme good-nature. The only ladieswhose society Mr. Smithson had deemed worthy the occasion were afashionable actress, with her younger sister, the younger a pretty copyof the elder, both dressed picturesquely in flowing cashmere gowns offaint sea-green, with old lace fichus, leghorn hats, and a generallimpness and simplicity of style which suited their cast of feature anddelicate colouring. Lesbia wondered to see how good an effect could beproduced by a costume which could have cost so little. Mr. Nightshade, the famous tragedian, had been also asked to grace the feast, but theearly hour made the invitation a mockery. It was not to be supposed thata man who went to bed at daybreak would get up again before the sun wasin the zenith, for the sake of Mr. Smithson's society, or Mr. Smithson'sStrasbourg pie, for the manufacture whereof a particular breed of geesewere supposed to be set apart, like sacred birds in Egypt, while aparticular vineyard in the Gironde was supposed to be devoted wholly andsolely to the production of Mr. Smithson's claret. It was a cabinetwine, like those rare vintages of the Rhineland which are reservedexclusively for German princes. 

Breakfast was served in Mr. Smithson's smallest dining-room--there werethree apartments given up to feasting, beginning with a spaciousbanqueting-room for great dinners, and dwindling down to this snuggery, which held about a dozen comfortably, with ample room and verge enoughfor the attendants. The walls were old gold silk, the curtains a tawnyvelvet of deeper tone, the cabinets and buffet of dark Italian walnut, inlaid with lapis-lazuli and amber. The fireplace was a masterpiece ofcabinet work, with high narrow shelves, and curious recesses holdingpriceless jars of Oriental enamel. The deep hearth was filled with arumlilies and azalias, like a font at Easter. 

Lady Kirkbank, who pretended to adore genius, was affectionatelyeffusive to Miss Fitzherbert, the popular actress, but she ratherignored the sister. Lesbia was less cordial, and was not enchanted atfinding that Miss Fitzherbert shone and sparkled at the breakfast tableby the gaiety of her spirits and the brightness of her conversation. There was something frank and joyous, almost to childishness, in theactress's manner, which was full of fascination; and Lesbia felt herselfat a disadvantage almost for the first time since she had been inLondon. 

The editor, the wit, the poet, the actress, had a language of their own;and Lesbia felt herself out in the cold, unable to catch the ball as itglanced past her, not quick enough to follow the wit that evoked thoseripples of silvery laughter from the two fair-haired, pale-faced girlsin sea-green cashmere. She felt as an Englishman may feel who has madehimself master of academical French, and who takes up one of Zola'snovels, or goes into artistic society, and finds that there is anotherFrench, a complete and copious language, of which he knows not a word. 

Lesbia began to think that she had a great deal to learn. She began towonder even whether, in the event of her having made rather too free useof Lady Maulevrier's _carte blanche_, it might not be well to make a newdeparture in the art of dressing, and to wear untrimmed cashmere gowns, and rags of limp lace. 

After breakfast they all went to look at Mr. Smithson's picture gallery. His pictures were, as he had told Lesbia, chiefly of the French school, and there may have been a remote period--say, in the time of good QueenCharlotte--when such pictures would hardly have been exhibited to youngladies. His pictures were Mr. Smithson's own unaided choice. Here theindividual taste of the man stood revealed. 

There were two or three Geromes; and in the place of honour at the endof the gallery there was a grand Delaroche, Anne Boleyn's last letter tothe king, the hapless girl-queen sitting at a table in her gloomy cellin the Tower, a shaft of golden light from the narrow window streamingon the fair, disordered hair, the face bleached with unutterable woe, asublime image of despair and self-abandonment. 

The larger pictures were historical, classic, grand: but the smallerpictures--the lively little bits of colour dotted in here andthere--were of that new school which Mr. Smithson affected. They were ofthat school which is called Impressionist, in which ballet dancers andjockeys, burlesque actresses, masked balls, and all the humours of theside scenes are represented with the sublime audacity of an art whichdisdains finish, and relies on _chic, fougue, chien, flou, v'lan_, theinspiration of the moment. Lesbia blushed as she looked at the balletgirls, the maskers in their scanty raiment, the _demi-mondaines_ lollingout of their opera boxes, and half out of their gowns, with false smilesand frizzled hair. And then there came the works of that other schoolwhich lavishes the finish of a Meissonier on the most meretriciouscompositions. A woman in a velvet gown warming her dainty little feet ona gilded fender, in a boudoir all aglow with colour and lamplight; acavalier in satin raiment buckling his sword-belt before a Venetianmirror; a pair of lovers kissing in a sunlit corridor; a girl in ahansom cab; a milliner's shop; and so on, and so on. 

Then came the classical subjects of the last new school. Weak imitationsof Alma Tadema. Nero admiring his mother's corpse; Claudius interruptingMessalina's marriage with her lover Silus; Clodius disguised among thewomen of Caesar's household; Pyrrha's grotto. Lady Kirkbank expatiatedupon all the pictures, and generally made unlucky guesses at thesubjects of them. Classical literature was not her strong point. 

Mr. Meander, the poet, discovered that all the beautiful heads werelike Miss Fitzherbert. 'It is the same line, ' he exclaimed, 'the line oflilies and flowing waters--the gracious ineffable upward returningripple of the true _retroussé_ nose, the divine _flou_, the lovelinesswhich has lain dormant for centuries--nay, was at one period of debasedart scorned and trampled under foot by the porcine multitude, as akin tothe pug and the turn-up, until discovered and enshrined on the altar ofthe Beautiful by the Boticelli Revivalists. '

Miss Fitzherbert simpered, and accepted these remarks as mere statementsof obvious fact. She was accustomed to hear of Boticelli and the earlyItalian painters in connection with her own charms of face and figure. 

Lesbia, whose faultless features were of the aquiline type, regarded thebard's rhapsody as insufferable twaddle, and began to think Mr. Smithsonalmost a wit when he made fun of the bard. 

Smithson was enchanted when she laughed at his jokelets, even althoughshe did not scruple to tell him that she thought his favourite picturesdetestable, and looked with the eye of indifference on a collection ofjade that was worth a small fortune. 

Mr. Meander fell into another rhapsody over those classic cups andshallow little bowls of absinthe-coloured jade. 

'Here if you like, are colour and beauty, ' he murmured, caressing one ofthe little cups with the roseate tips of his supple fingers. 'These, dearest Smithson, are worth all the rest of your collection; worthvanloads of your cloisonné enamels, your dragon-jars in blood-colour andblue. This cloudy indefinable substance, not crudely transparent nor yetdistinctly opaque, a something which touches the boundary line of twoworlds--the real and the ideal. And then the colour! Great heaven, cananything be lovelier than this shadowy tint which is neither yellow norgreen; faint, faint as the dawn of newly-awakened day? After the siegeof blood-bedabbled Delhi, Baron Rothschild sent a special agent to Indiato buy him a little jade tea-pot which had been the joy of EasternKings. Only a tea-pot. Yet Rothschild deemed it worth a voyage fromEngland to India. That is what the love of the beautiful means, in Jewor Gentile, ' concluded the bard, smiling on the company, as theygathered round the Florentine table on which the jade specimens were setout, Lady Kirkbank looking at the little cups and basins as if shethought they were going to do something, after all this fuss had beenmade about them. It seemed hardly credible that any reasonable beingcould have given thirty guineas for one of those bits of greenish-yellowclouded glass, unless the thing had some peculiar property of expansionor contraction. 

After this breakfast in Park Lane Lady Lesbia and her admirer met daily. He went to all her parties; he sat out waltzes with her, inconservatories, and on staircases; for Horace Smithson was much tooshrewd a man too enter himself in the race for dancing men, handicappedby his forty years and his fourteen stone. He contrived to amuse Lesbiaby his conversation, which was essentially mundane, depreciating peoplewhom all the rest of the world admired, or pretended to admire, tellingher of the secret springs by which the society she saw around her wasmoved. He was judicious in his revelations of hidden evil, and carefulto say nothing which should offend Lady Lesbia's modesty; yet hecontrived in a very short time to teach her that the world in which shelived was an utterly corrupt world, whose high priest was Satan; thatall lofty aspirations and noble sentiments were out of place in society;and that the worst among the people she met were the people who laid anyclaim to being better than their neighbours. 

'That's why I adore Lady Kirkbank, ' he said, confidentially. 'The dearsoul never pretends to be any better than the rest of us. She gambles, and we all know she gambles; she pegs, and we all know she pegs; and shemakes rather a boast of being up to her eyes in debt. No humbug aboutdear old Georgie. '

Lesbia had seen enough, of her chaperon by this time to know that Mr. Smithson's description of the lady was correct, and, this being so, shesupposed that the facts and traits of character which he told her aboutin other people were also true. She thus adopted the Smithsonian, orfashionable-pessimist view of society in general, and resigned herselfto the idea that the world was a very wicked world, as well as a verypleasant world, that the wickedest people were generally thepleasantest, and that it did not much matter. 

The fact that Mr. Smithson was at Lesbia Haselden's feet was obvious toeverybody. 

Lesbia, who had at first treated him with supreme hauteur, had grownmore civil as she began to understand the place he held in the world, and how much social influence goes along with unlimited wealth. She wascivil, but she had quite made up her mind that nothing could ever induceher to become Horace Smithson's wife. That offer which had hung fire inthe case of poor Belle Trinder, was not too long delayed on thisoccasion. Mr. Smithson called in Arlington Street about ten days afterthe breakfast in Park Lane, before luncheon, and before Lady Kirkbankhad left her room. He brought tickets for a _matinée d'invitation_ inBelgrave Square, at which a new and wonderful Russian pianiste was tomake a kind of semi-official _début_, before an audience of critics anddistinguished amateurs, and the elect of the musical world. They woretickets which money could not buy, and were thus a meet offering forLady Lesbia, and a plausible excuse for an early call. 

Mr. Smithson succeeded in seeing Lesbia alone, and then and there, withvery little circumlocution, asked her to be his wife. 

Her social education had advanced considerably since that summer day inthe pine-wood, when John Hammond had wooed her with passionate wooing. Mr. Smithson was a much less ardent suitor, and made his offer with theair of a man who expects to be accepted. 

Lesbia's beautiful head bent a little, like a lily on its stalk, and afaint blush deepened the pale rose tint of her complexion. Her reply wascourteous and conventional. She was flattered, she was grateful for Mr. Smithson's high opinion of her; but she was deeply grieved if anythingin her manner had given him reason to think that he was more to her thana friend, an old friend of dear Lady Kirkbank's, whom she was naturallypredisposed to like, as Lady Kirkbank's friend. 

Horace Smithson turned pale as death, but if he was angry, he gave noutterance to his angry feelings. He only asked if Lady Lesbia's answerwas final--and on being told that it was so, he dismissed the subject inthe easiest manner, and with a gentlemanlike placidity which very muchastonished the lady. 

'You say that you regard me as your friend, ' he said. 'Do not withdrawthat privilege from me because I have asked for a higher place in youresteem. Forget all I have said this morning. Be assured I shall neveroffend you by repeating it. '

'You are more than good, ' murmured Lesbia, who had expected a wildoutbreak of despair or fury, rather than this friendly calm. 

'I hope that you and Lady Kirkbank will go and hear Madame Metzikoffthis afternoon, ' pursued Mr. Smithson, returning to the subject of the_matinée_. 'The duchess's rooms are lovely; but no doubt you know them. '

Lesbia blushed, and confessed that the Duchess of Lostwithiel was one ofthose select few who were not on Lady Kirkbank's visiting list. 

'There are people Lady Kirkbank cannot get on with, ' she said. 'Perhapsshe will hardly like to go to the duchess's, as she does not visit her. '

'Oh, but this affair counts for nothing. We go to hear Metzikoff, not tobow down to the duchess. All the people in town who care for music willbe there, and you who play so divinely must enjoy fine professionalplaying. '

'I worship a really great player, ' said Lesbia, 'and if I can drag LadyKirkbank to the house of the enemy, we will be there. '

On this Mr. Smithson discreetly murmured '_au revoir_, ' took up his hatand cane, and departed, without, in Sir George's parlance, having turneda hair. 

'Refusal number one, ' he said to himself, as he went downstairs, withhis leisurely catlike pace, that velvet step by which he had graduallycrept into society. 'We may have to go through refusal number two andnumber three; but she means to have me. She is a very clever girl for acountrybred one; and she knows that it is worth her while to be LadyLesbia Smithson. '

This soliloquy may be taken to prove that Horace Smithson knew LesbiaHaselden better than she knew herself. She had refused him in all goodfaith; but even to-day, after he had left her, she fell into a day-dreamin which Mr. Smithson's houses and yachts, drags and hunters, formed theshifting pictures in a dissolving view of society; and Lesbia wonderedif there were any other young woman in London who would refuse such anoffer as that which she had quietly rejected half-an-hour ago. 

Lady Kirkbank surprised her while she was still absorbed in this dreamyreview of the position. It is just possible that the fair Georgie mayhave had notice of Mr. Smithson's morning visit, and may have kept outof the way on purpose, for she was not a person of lazy habits, and wasgenerally ready for her nine o'clock breakfast and her morning stroll inthe park, however late she might have been out overnight. 

'Mr. Smithson has been here, I understand, ' said Lady Kirkbank, settlingherself in an arm-chair by the open window, after she had kissed her_protégée_. 'Rilboche passed him on the stairs. '

'Rilboche is always passing people on the stairs, ' answered Lesbiarather pettishly. 'I think she must spend her life on the landing, listening for arrivals and departures. '

'I had a kind of vague idea that Smithson would call to-day. He was sofussy about those tickets for the Metzikoff recital. I hate pianoforterecitals, and I detest that starched old duchess, but I suppose I shallhave to take you there--or poor Smithson will be miserable, ' said LadyKirkbank, watching Lesbia keenly over the top of the newspaper. 

She expected Lesbia to confide in her, to announce herself blushingly asthe betrothed of one of the richest commoners in England. But Lesbia satgazing dreamily across the flowers in the balcony at the house over theway, and said never a word; so Lady Kirkbank's curiosity burst intospeech. 

'Well, my dear, has he proposed? There was something in his manner lastnight when he put on your wraps that made me think the crisis was near. '

'The crisis is come and is past, and Mr. Smithson and I are just as goodfriends as ever. '

'What!' screamed Lady Kirkbank. 'Do you mean to tell me that you haverefused him?'

'Certainly. You know I never meant to do anything else. Did you think Iwas like Miss Trinder, bent upon marrying town and country houses, stables and diamonds?'

'I did not think you were a fool, ' cried Lady Kirkbank, almost besideherself with vexation, for it had been borne in upon her, as theMethodists sometimes say, that if Mr. Smithson should prosper in hiswooing it would be better for her, Lady Kirkbank, who would have a claimupon his kindness ever after. 'What can be your motive in refusing oneof the very best matches of the season--or of ever so many seasons? Youthink, perhaps, you will marry a duke, if you wait long enough for hisGrace to appear: but the number of marrying dukes is rather small, LadyLesbia, and I don't think any of those would care to marry LordMaulevrier's granddaughter. '

Lesbia started to her feet, pale as ashes. 

'Why do you fling my grandfather's name in my face--and with thatdiabolical sneer?' she exclaimed. 'When I have asked you about him youhave always evaded my questions. Why should a man of the highest rankshrink from marrying Lord Maulevrier's granddaughter? My grandfatherwas a distinguished man--Governor of Madras. Such posts are not given tonobodies. How can you dare to speak as if it were a disgrace to me tobelong to him?'

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

'CLUBS, DIAMONDS, HEARTS, IN WILD DISORDER SEEN. '

Lady Kirkbank had considerable difficulty in smoothing Lesbia's ruffledplumage. She did all in her power to undo the effect of her rashwords--declared that she had been carried away by temper--she had spokenshe knew not what--words of no meaning. Of course Lesbia's grandfatherhad been a great man--Governor of Madras; altogether an important andcelebrated person--and Lady Kirkbank had meant nothing, could have meantnothing to his disparagement. 

'My dearest girl, I was beside myself, and talked sheer nonsense, ' saidGeorgie. 'But you know really now, dearest, any woman of the world wouldbe provoked at your foolish refusal of that dear good Smithson. Onlythink of that too lovely house in Park Lane, a palace in the style ofthe Italian Renaissance--such a house is in itself equivalent to apeerage--and there is no doubt Smithson will be offered a peerage beforehe is much older. I have heard it confidently asserted that when thepresent Ministry retires Smithson will be made a Peer. You have no ideawhat a useful man he is, or what henchman's service he has done theMinistry in financial matters. And then there is his villa atDeauville--you don't know Deauville--a positively perfect place, thevilla, I mean, built by the Duke de Morny in the golden days of theEmpire--and another at Cowes, and his palace in Berkshire, a manor, mylove, with a glorious old Tudor manor-house; and he has a _pied à terre_in Paris, in the Faubourg, a ground-floor furnished in the Pompeianstyle, half-a-dozen rooms opening one out of the other, and surroundinga small garden, with a fountain in the middle. Some of the greatestpeople in Paris occupy the upper part of the house, and their rooms ofcourse are splendid; but Smithson's ground-floor is the gem of theFaubourg. However, I suppose there is no use in talking any more; forthere is the gong for luncheon. '

Lesbia was in no humour for luncheon. 

'I would rather have a cup of tea in my own room, ' she said. 'ThisSmithson business has given me an abominable headache. '

'But you will go to hear Metzikoff?'

'No, thanks. You detest the Duchess of Lostwithiel, and you don't carefor pianoforte recitals. Why should I drag you there?'

'But, my dearest Lesbia, I am not such a selfish wretch as to keep youat home, when I know you are passionately fond of good music. Forget allabout your headache, and let me see how that lovely little Catherine ofAragon bonnet suits you. I'm so glad I happened to see it in Seraphine'shands yesterday, just as she was going to send it to Lady Fonvielle, whogives herself such intolerable airs on the strength of a pretty face, and always wants to get the _primeures_ in bonnets and things. '

'Another new bonnet!' replied Lesbia. 'What an infinity of things I seemto be having from Seraphine. I'm afraid I must owe her a good deal ofmoney. '

This was a vague way of speaking about actual facts. Lady Lesbia mighthave spoken with more certainty. Her wardrobes and old-fashioned hangingclosets and chests of drawers in Arlington Street were crammed tooverflowing with finery; and then there were all the things that she hadgrown tired of, or had thought unbecoming, and had given away to Kibble, her own maid, or to Rilboche, who had in a great measure supersededKibble on all important occasions; for how could a Westmoreland girlknow how to dress a young lady for London balls and drawing-rooms?

'If you had only accepted Mr. Smithson it would not matter how muchmoney you owed people, ' said Lady Kirkbank. 'You had better come down tolunch. A glass of Heidseck will bring you up to concert pitch. '

Champagne was Lady Kirkbank's idea of a universal panacea; and she hadgradually succeeded in teaching Lesbia to believe in the sovereign powerof Heidseck as a restorative for shattered nerves. At Fellside Lesbiahad drunk only water; but then at Fellside she had never known thatfeeling of exhaustion and prostration which follows days and nightsspent in society, the wear and tear of a mind forever on the alert, andbrilliant spirits which are more often forced than real. For her chiefstimulant Lesbia had recourse to the teapot; but there were occasionswhen she found that something more than tea was needed to maintain thatindispensable vivacity of manner which Lady Kirkbank called concertpitch. 

To-day she allowed herself to be persuaded. She went down to luncheon, and took a couple of glasses of dry champagne with her cutlet, and, thusrestored, was equal to putting on the new bonnet, which was so becomingthat her spirits revived as she contemplated the effect in her glass. SoLady Kirkbank carried her off to the musical _matinée_, beaming andradiant, having forgotten all about that dark hint of evil glancing atthe name of her long dead grandfather. 

The duchess was not on view when Lady Kirkbank and her _protégée_arrived, and a good many people belonging to Georgie's own particularset were scattered like flowers among those real music-lovers who hadcome solely to hear the new pianiste. The music-lovers were mostly dowdyin their attire, and seemed a race apart. Among them were several youngwomen of the Blessed Damozel school, who wore flowing garments ofsap-green or orche, or puffed raiment of Venetian red, and among whomthe cartwheel hat, the Elizabethan sleeve, and the Toby frill wereconspicuous. 

There were very few men except the musical critics in this selectassemblage, and Lesbia began to think that it was going to be verydreary. She had lived in such an atmosphere of masculine adulation whileunder Lady Kirkbank's wing that it was a new thing to find herself in aroom where there were none to love and very few to praise her. She feltout in the cold, as it were. Those ungloved critics, with their shabbycoats and dubious shirts, snuffy, smoky, everything they ought not tobe, seemed to her a race of barbarians. 

Finding herself thus cold and lonely in the midst of the duchess'ssplendour of peacock-blue velvet and peacock-feather decoration, Lesbiawas almost glad when in the middle of Madame Metzikoff's openinggondolied--airy, fairy music, executed with surpassing delicacy--Mr. Smithson crept gently into the _fauteuil_ just behind hers, and leantover the back of the chair to whisper an inquiry as to her opinion ofthe pianist's style. 

'She is exquisite, ' Lesbia murmured softly, but the whispered questionand the murmured answer, low as they were, provoked indignant looks froma brace of damsels in Venetian red, who shook their Toby frills with anoutraged air. 

Lesbia felt that Mr. Smithson's presence was hardly correct. It wouldhave been 'better form' if he had stayed away; and yet she was glad tohave him here. At the worst he was some one--nay, according to LadyKirkbank, he was the only one amongst all her admirers whose offer wasworth having. All Lesbia's other conquests had counted as barren honour;but if she could have brought herself to accept Mr. Smithson she wouldhave secured the very best match of the season. 

To marry a plain Mr. Smithson--a man who had made his money in iron--incochineal--on the Stock Exchange--had seemed to her absolutedegradation, the surrender of all her lofty hopes, her golden dreams. But Lady Kirkbank had put the question in a new light when she said thatSmithson would be offered a peerage. Smithson the peer would bealtogether a different person from Smithson the commoner. 

But was Lady Kirkbank sure of her facts, or truthful in her statement?Lesbia's experience of her chaperon's somewhat loose notions of truthand exactitude made her doubtful upon this point. 

Be this it might she was inclined to be civil to Smithson, albeit shewas inwardly surprised and offended at his taking her refusal so calmly. 

'You see that I am determined not to lose the privilege of your society, because I have been foolish!' he said presently, in the pause after thefirst part of the recital. 'I hope you will consider me as much yourfriend to-day as I was yesterday. '

'Quite as much, ' she answered sweetly, and then they talked of Raff, andRubenstein, and Henselt, and all the composers about whom it is thecorrect thing to discourse nowadays. 

Before they left Belgrave Square Lady Kirkbank had offered Mr. SmithsonSir George's place in her box at the Gaiety that evening, and hadinvited him to supper in Arlington Street afterwards. 

It was Sarah Bernhardt's first season in London--thenever-to-be-forgotten season of the Comédie Française. 

'I should love of all things to be there, ' said Mr. Smithson, meekly. Hehad a couple of stalls in the third row for the whole of the season. 'But how can I be sure that I shall not be turning Sir George out ofdoors?'

'Sir George can never sit out a serious play. He only cares for Chaumontor Judie. The Demi-monde is much too prosy for him. '

'The Demi-monde is one of the finest plays in the French language, ' saidSmithson. 'You know it, of course, Lady Lesbia?'

'Alas! no. At Fellside I was not allowed to read French plays or novels:or only a novel now and then, which my grandmother selected for me. '

'And now you read everything, I suppose, --including Zola?'

'The books are lying about, and I dip into them sometimes while I amhaving my hair brushed, ' answered Lesbia, lightly. 

'I believe that is the only time ladies devote to literature during theseason, ' said Mr. Smithson. 'Well, I envy you the delight of seeing theDemi-monde without knowing what it is all about beforehand. '

'I daresay there are a good many people who would not take their girlsto see a play by Dumas, ' said Lady Kirkbank, 'but I make a point ofletting _my_ girls see everything. It widens their minds and awakenstheir intelligence. '

'And does away with a good many silly prejudices, ' replied Mr. Smithson. 

Lady Kirkbank and Lesbia were due at a Kensington garden-party after therecital, and from the garden-party, for which any hour sufficed, theywent to show themselves in the Park, then back to Arlington Street todress for the play. Then a hurried dinner, and they were in their placesat the theatre in time for the rising of the curtain. 

'If it were an English play we would not care for being punctual, ' saidLady Kirkbank; 'but I should hate to lose a word of Dumas. In his playsevery speech tells. '

There were Royalties present, and the house was good; but not so full asit had been on some other nights, for the English public had been toldthat Sarah Bernhardt was the person to admire, and had been flockingsheep-like after that golden-haired enchantress, whereby many of thesesheep--fighting greedily for Sarah's nights, and ignoring all othertalent--lost some of the finest acting on the French stage, notably thatof Croizette, Delaunay and Febvre, in this very Demi-monde. Lesbia, who, in spite of her affectations, was still fresh enough to be charmed withfine acting and a powerful play, was enthralled by the stage, so wraptin the scene that she was quite unaware of her brother's presence in astall just below Lady Kirkbank's box. He too had a stall at the Gaiety. He had come in very late, when the play was half over. Lesbia wassurprised when he presented himself at the door of the box, after thefourth act. 

Maulevrier and his sister had met very seldom since the young lady's_début_. The young Earl did not go to many parties, and the society hecultivated was chiefly masculine; and as he neither played polo nor shotpigeons his masculine pursuits did not bring him in his sister's way. Lady Kirkbank had asked him to her house with that wide and generalinvitation which is so easily evaded. He had promised to go, and he hadnot gone. And thus Lesbia and he had pursued their several ways, onlycrossing each other's paths now and then at a race meeting or in atheatre. 

'How d'ye do, Lady Kirkbank?--how d'ye do, Lesbia? Just caught sight ofyou from below as the curtain was going down, ' said Maulevrier, shakinghands with the ladies and saluting Mr. Smithson with a somewhatsupercilious nod. 'Rather surprised to see you and Lesbia here to-night, Lady Kirkbank. Isn't the Demi-monde rather strong meat for babes, eh?Not _exactly_ the play one would take a young lady to see. '

'Why should a young lady be forbidden to see a fine play, because thereare some hard and bitter truths told in it?' asked Lady Kirkbank. 'Lesbia sees Madame d'Ange and all her sisterhood in the Park and aboutLondon every day of her life. Why should not she see them on the stage, and hear their history, and understand how cruel their fate is, andlearn to pity them, if she can? I really think this play is a lesson inChristian charity; and I should like to see that Oliver man strangled, though Delaunay plays the part divinely. What a voice! What a manner!How polished! How perfect! And they tell me he is going to leave thestage in a year or two. What will the world do without him?'

Maulevrier did not attempt to suggest a solution of this difficulty. Hewas watching Mr. Smithson as he leant against the back of Lesbia's chairand talked to her. The two seemed very familiar, laughingly discussingthe play and the actors. Smithson knew, or pretended to know, all aboutthe latter. He told Lesbia who made Croizette's gowns--the upholstererwho furnished that lovely house of hers in the Bois--the sums paid forher horses, her pictures, her diamonds. It seemed to Lesbia, when shehad heard all, that Croizette was a much-to-be-envied person. 

Mr. Smithson had unpublished _bon-mots_ of Dumas at his finger ends; heknew Daudet, and Sarcey, and Sardou, and seemed to be thoroughly at homein Parisian artistic society. Lesbia began to think that he would hardlybe so despicable a person as she had at first supposed. No wonder he andhis wealth had turned poor Belle Trinder's head. How could a ruralvicar's daughter, accustomed to poverty, help being dazzled by suchmagnificence?

Maulevrier stayed in the box only a short time, and refused LadyKirkbank's invitation to supper. She did not urge the point, as she hadsurprised one or two very unfriendly glances at Mr. Smithson inMaulevrier's honest eyes. She did not want an antagonistic brother tointerfere with her plans. She had made up her mind to 'run' Lesbiaaccording to her own ideas, and any counter influence might be fatal. So, when Maulevrier said he was due at the Marlborough after the playshe let him go. 

'I might as well be at Fellside and you in London, for anything I see ofyou, ' said Lesbia. 

'You are up to your eyes in engagements, and I don't suppose you want tosee any more of me. ' Maulevrier answered, bluntly. 

'But I'll call to-morrow morning, if I am likely to find you at home. I've some news for you. '

'Then I'll stay at home on purpose to see you. News is alwaysdelightful. Is it good news, by-the-bye?'

'Very good; at least, I think so. '

'What is it about?'

'Oh! that's a long story, and the curtain is just going up. The news isabout Mary. '

'About Mary!' exclaimed Lesbia, elevating her eyebrows. 'What news canthere possibly be about Mary?'

'Such news as there generally is about every nice jolly girl, at leastonce in her life. '

'You don't mean that she is engaged--to a curate?'

'No, not to a curate. There goes the curtain. "I'll see you later, " asthe Yankee President used to say when people bothered him, and he didn'tlike to say no. '

Engaged: Mary engaged! The idea of such an altogether unexpected eventdistracted Lesbia's mind all through the last act of the Demi-monde. Shehardly knew what the actors were talking about. Mary, her youngersister! Mary, a good looking girl enough, but by no means a beauty, andwith manners utterly unformed. That Mary should be engaged to bemarried, while she, Lesbia, was still free, seemed an obvious absurdity. 

And yet the fact was, on reflection, easily to be accounted for. Theseunattractive girls are generally the first to bind themselves with thevows of betrothal. Lady Kirkbank had told her of many such cases. Thepoor creatures know that their chances will be few, and thereforegratefully welcome the first wooer. 

'But who can the man be?' thought Lesbia. 'Mary has been kept assecluded as a cloistered nun. There are so few families we have everbeen allowed to mix with. The man must be a curate, who has takenadvantage of grandmother's illness to force his way into the familycircle at Fellside--and who has made love to Mary in some of her lonelyrambles over the hills, I daresay. It is really very wrong to allow agirl to roam about in that way. '

Sir George and a couple of his horsey friends were waiting for supperwhen Lady Kirkbank and her party arrived in Arlington Street. Thedining-room looked a picture of comfort. The oval table, the low lamps, the clusters of candles under coloured shades, the great Oriental bowlof wild flowers--eglantine, honeysuckle, foxglove, all the sweet hedgeflowers of midsummer, made a central mass of colour and brightnessagainst the subdued and even sombre tones of walls and curtains. Theroom was old, the furniture old. Nothing had been altered since the timeof Sir George's great grandfather; and the whirligig of time had justnow made the old things precious. Yes, those chairs and tables andsideboards and bookcases and wine-coolers against which Georgie's soulhad revolted in the early years of her wedded life were now things ofbeauty, and Georgie's friends envied her the possession of indisputableChippendale furniture. 

Mr. Mostyn, a distinguished owner of race-horses, with his pretty wife, made up the party. The gentleman was full of his entries for Liverpooland Chester, and discoursed mysteriously with Sir George and the horseybachelors all supper time. The lady had lately taken up science as a newform of excitement, not incompatible with frocks, bonnets, Hurlingham, the Ranelagh, and Sandown. She raved about Huxley and Tyndall, and wasperpetually coming down upon her friends with awful facts about the sun, and startling propositions about latent heat, or spontaneous generation. She knew all about gases, and would hardly accept a glass of waterwithout explaining what it was made of. Drawn by Mr. Smithson forLesbia's amusement, the scientific matron was undoubtedly 'good fun. 'The racing men were full of talk. Lesbia and Lady Kirkbank raved aboutthe play they had just been seeing, and praised Delaunay with anenthusiasm which was calculated to make the rest of mankind burst withenvy. 

'Do you know you are making me positively wretched by your talk aboutthat man?' said Colonel Delville, one of Sir George's racing friends, and an ancient adorer of the fair Georgie's. 'No, I tell you there wasnever anything offered higher than five to four on the mare, 'interjectionally, to Sir George. 'There was a day when I thought I wasyour idea of an attractive man. Yes, George, a clear case of roping, 'again interjectionally. 'And to hear you raving about this play-actingfellow--it is too humiliating. '

Lady Kirkbank simpered, and then sighed. 

'We are getting old together, ' she murmured. 'I have come to an age whenone can only admire the charm of manner in the abstract--the Beautifulfor the sake of the Beautiful. I think if I were lying in my grave, themusic of Delaunay's voice would thrill me, under six feet of Londonclay. Will no one take any more wine? No. Then we may as well go intothe next room and begin our little Nap. '

The adjoining room was Sir George's snuggery; and it was here that thecosy little round games after supper were always played. Sir George wasnot a studious person. He never read, and he never wrote, except anoccasional cheque on account, for an importunate tradesman. Hiscorrespondence was conducted by the telegraph or telephone; and theroom, therefore, was absorbed neither by books nor writing desks. It wasfurnished solely with a view to comfort. There was a round table in thecentre, under a large moderator lamp which gave an exceptionallybrilliant light. A divan covered with dark brown velvet occupied threesides of the room. A few choice pieces of old blue Oriental ware in thecorners enlivened the dark brown walls. Three or four easy chairs stoodabout near the broad, old-fashioned fireplace, which had been improvedwith a modern-antique brass grate and a blue and white tiled hearth. 

'There isn't a room in my house that looks half as comfortable as thisden of yours, George, ' said Mr. Smithson, as he seated himself byLesbia's side at the card table. 

They had agreed to be partners. 'Partners at cards, even if we are notto be partners for life, ' Smithson had whispered, tenderly; and Lesbia'sonly reply had been a modest lowering of lovely eyelids, and a faint, faint blush. Lesbia's blushes were growing fainter every day. 

'That is because everything in your house is so confoundedly handsomeand expensive, ' retorted Sir George, who did not very much care aboutbeing called George, _tout court_, by a person of Mr. Smithson's obscureantecedents, but who had to endure the familiarity for reasons knownonly to himself and Mr. Smithson. 'No man can expect to be comfortablein a house in which every room has cost a small fortune. My wifere-arranged this den half-a-dozen years ago when we took to sittin' hereof an evenin'. She picked up the chairs and the blue pots at Bonham's, had everythin' covered with brown velvet--nice subdued tone, suit oldpeople--hung up that yaller curtain, just for a bit of colour, and herewe are. '

'It's the cosiest room in town, ' said Colonel Delville, whereupon Mrs. Mostyn, while counters were being distributed, explained to the companyon scientific principles _why_ the room was comfortable, expatiatingupon the effect of yellow and brown upon the retina, and some curiousfacts relating to the optic machinery of water-fleas, as latelydiscovered by a great naturalist. 

Unfortunately for science, the game had now begun, and the players werecuriously indifferent as to the visual organs of water-fleas. 

The game went on merrily till the pearly lights of dawn began to creepthrough the chinks of Lady Kirkbank's yellow curtain. Everybody seemedgay, yet everybody could not be winning. Fortune had not smiled uponLesbia's cards, or on those of her partner. The Smithson and Haseldenfirm had come to grief. Lesbia's little ivory purse had been emptied ofits three or four half-sovereigns, and Mr. Smithson had beencapitalising a losing concern for the last two hours. And the play hadbeen fast and furious, although nominally for small stakes. 

'I am afraid to think of how much I must owe you, ' said Lesbia, when Mr. Smithson bade her good night. 

'Oh, nothing worth speaking of--sixteen or seventeen pounds, at most. '

Lesbia felt cold and creepy, and hardly knew whether it was the chill ofnew-born day, or the sense of owing money to Horace Smithson. Thosethree or four half-sovereigns to-night were the end of her lastremittance from Lady Maulevrier. She had had a great many remittancesfrom that generous grandmother; and the money had all gone, somehow. Itwas gone, and yet she had paid for hardly anything. She had accountswith all Lady Kirkbank's tradesmen. The money had melted away--it hadoozed out of her pockets--at cards, on the race-course, in recklessgifts to servants and people, at fancy fairs, for trifles bought hereand there by the way-side, as it were, for the sake of buying. If shehad been suddenly asked for an account of her stewardship she could nothave told what she had done with half of the money. And now she must askfor twenty pounds more, and immediately, to pay Mr. Smithson. 

She went up to her room in the clear early light, and stood like astatue, with fixed thoughtful eyes, while Kibble took off her finery, the pretty pale yellow gown which set off her dark brown hair, herviolet eyes. For the first time in her life she felt the keen pang ofanxiety about money matters--the necessity to think of ways and means. She had no idea how much money she had received from her grandmothersince she had begun her career in Scotland last autumn. The cheques hadbeen sent her as she asked for them; sometimes even before she asked forthem; and she had kept no account. She thought her grandmother was sorich that expenditure could not matter. She supposed that she wasdrawing upon an inexhaustible supply. And now Lady Kirkbank had told herthat Lady Maulevrier was not rich, as the world reckons nowadays. Thesavings of a dowager countess even in forty years of seclusion could bebut a small fund to draw upon for the expenses of life at high pressure. 

'The sums people spend nowadays are positively appalling, ' said LadyKirkbank. 'A man with five or six thousand a year is an absolute pauper. I'm sure our existence is only genteel beggary, and yet we spend overten thousand. '

Enlightened thus by the lips of the worldly-wise, Lesbia thoughtruefully of the bills which her grandmother would have to pay for her atthe end of the season, bills of the amount whereof she could not evenmake an approximate guess. Seraphine's charges had never been discussedin her hearing--but Lady Kirkbank had admitted that the creature wasdear. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

'SWIFT SUBTLE POST, CARRIER OF GRISLY CARE. '

Maulevrier called in Arlington Street before twelve o'clock next day, and found Lesbia just returning from her early ride, looking as freshand fair as if there had been no such thing as Nap or late hours in thestory of her life. She was reposing in a large easy chair by the openwindow, in habit and hat, just as she had come from the Row, where shehad been laughing and chatting with Mr. Smithson, who jogged demurely byher side on his short-legged hunter, dropping out envenomed little jokesabout the passers by. People who saw him riding by her side upon thisparticular morning fancied there was something more than usual in thegentleman's manner, and made up their minds that Lady Lesbia Haseldenwas to be mistress of the fine house in Park Lane. Mr. Smithson hadfluttered and fluttered for the last five seasons; but this time theflutterer was caught. 

In her newly-awakened anxiety about money matters, Lesbia had forgottenMary's engagement: but the sight of Maulevrier recalled the fact. 

'Come over here and sit down, ' she said, 'and tell me this nonsenseabout Mary. I am expiring with curiosity. The thing is too absurd. '

'Why absurd?' asked Maulevrier, sitting where she bade him, andstudiously perusing the name in his hat, as if it were a revelation. 

'Oh, for a thousand reasons, ' answered Lesbia, switching the flowers inthe balcony with her light little whip. 'First and foremost it is absurdto think of any one so buried alive as poor Mary is finding an admirer;and secondly--well--I don't want to be rude to my own sister--but Maryis not particularly attractive. '

'Mary is the dearest girl in the world. '

'Very likely. I only said that she is not particularly attractive. '

'And do you think there is no attraction in goodness, in freshness andinnocence, candour, generosity--?'

'I don't know. But I think that if Mary's nose had been a thoughtlonger, and if she had kept her skin free from freckles she would havebeen almost pretty. '

'Do you really? Luckily for Mary the man who is going to marry herthinks her lovely. '

'I suppose he likes freckles. I once heard a man say he did. He saidthey were so original--so much character about them. And, pray, who isthe man?'

'Your old adorer, and my dear friend, John Hammond. '

Lesbia turned as pale as death--pale with rage and mortification. It wasnot jealousy, this pang which rent her shallow soul. She had ceased tocare for John Hammond. The whirlpool of society had spun that firstfancy out of her giddy brain. But that a man who had loved the highest, who had worshipped her, the peerless, the beautiful, should calmlytransfer his affections to her younger sister, was to the last degreeexasperating. 

'Your friend Mr. Hammond must be a fickle fool, ' she exclaimed, 'whodoes not know his own mind from day to day. '

'Oh, but it was more than a day after you rejected him that he engagedhimself to Molly. It was all my doing, and I am proud of my work. I tookthe poor fellow back to Fellside last March, bruised and broken by yourcruel treatment, heartsore and depressed. I gave him over to Molly, andMolly cured him. Unconsciously, innocently, she won that noble heart. Ah, Lesbia, you don't know what a heart it is which you so nearlybroke. '

'Girls in our rank of life can't afford to marry noble hearts, ' saidLesbia, scornfully. 'Do you mean to tell me that Lady Maulevrierconsented to the engagement?'

'She cut up rather rough at first; but Molly held her own like a younglioness--and the grandmother gave way. You see she has a fixed idea thatMolly is a very second-rate sort of person compared with you, and that ahusband who was not nearly good enough for you might pass muster forMolly; and so she gave way, and there isn't a happier young woman inthe three kingdoms than Mary Haselden. '

'What are they to live upon?' asked Lesbia, with an incredulous air. 

'Mary will have her five hundred a year. And Hammond is a very cleverfellow. You may be sure he will make his mark in the world. '

'And how are they to live while he is making his mark? Five hundred ayear won't do more than pay for Mary's frocks, if she goes intosociety. '

'Perhaps they will live without society. '

'In some horrid little hovel in one of those narrow streets offEcclestone Square, ' suggested Lesbia, shudderingly. 'It is too dreadfulto think of--a young woman dooming herself to life-long penury, justbecause she is so foolish as to fall in love. '

'Your days for falling in love are over, I suppose, Lesbia?' saidMaulevrier, contemplating his sister with keen scrutiny. 

The beautiful face, so perfect in line and colour, curiously recalledthat other face at Fellside; the dowager's face, with its look of marblecoldness, and the half-expressed pain under that, outward calm. Here wasthe face of one who had not yet known pain or passion. Here was the coldperfection of beauty with unawakened heart. 

'I don't know; I am too busy to think of such things. '

'You have done with love; and you have begun to think of marriage, ofestablishing yourself properly. People tell me you are going to marryMr. Smithson. '

'People tell you more about me than I know about myself. '

'Come now, Lesbia, I have a right to know the truth upon this point. Your brother--your only brother--should be the first person to be told. '

'When I am engaged, I have no doubt you will be the first person, or thesecond person, ' answered Lesbia, lightly. 'Lady Kirkbank, living on thepremises, is likely to be the first. '

'Then you are not engaged to Smithson?'

'Didn't I tell you so just now? Mr. Smithson did me the honour to makeme an offer yesterday, at about this hour; and I did myself the honourto reject him. '

'And yet you were whispering together in the box last night, and youwere riding in the Row with him this morning. I just met a fellow whosaw you together. Do you think it is right, Lesbia, to play fast andloose with the man--to encourage him, if you don't mean to marry him?'

'How can you accuse me of encouraging a person whom I flatly refusedyesterday morning? If Mr. Smithson likes my society as a friend, must Ineeds deny him my friendship, ask Lady Kirkbank to shut her door againsthim? Mr. Smithson is very pleasant as an acquaintance; and although Idon't want to marry him, there's no reason I should snub him. '

'Smithson is not a man to be trifled with. You will find yourselfentangled in a web which you won't easily break through. '

'I am not afraid of webs. By-the-bye, is it true that Mr. Smithson islikely to get a peerage?'

'I have heard people say as much. Smithson has spent no end of money onelectioneering, and is a power in the House, though he very rarelyspeaks. His Berkshire estate gives him a good deal of influence in thatcounty; at the last general election he subscribed twenty thou to theConservative cause; for, like most men who have risen from nothing, yourfriend Smithson is a fine old Tory. He was specially elected at theCarlton six years ago, and has made himself uncommonly useful to hisparty. He is supposed to be great on financial questions, and comes outtremendously on colonial railways or drainage schemes, about which theHouse in general is in profound ignorance. On those occasions Smithsonscores high. A man with immense wealth has always chances. No doubt, ifyou were to marry him, the peerage would be easily managed. Smithson'smoney, backed by the Maulevrier influence, would go a long way. Mygrandmother would move heaven and earth in a case of that kind. You hadbetter take pity on Smithson. '

Lesbia laughed. That idea of a possible peerage elevated Smithson in hereyes. She knew nothing of his political career, as she lived in a setwhich ignored politics altogether. Mr. Smithson had never talked to herof his parliamentary duties; and it was a new thing for her to hear thathe had some kind of influence in public affairs. 

'Suppose I were inclined to accept him, would you like him as abrother-in-law?' she asked lightly. 'I thought from your manner lastnight that you rather disliked him. '

'I don't quite like him or any of his breed, the newly rich, who goabout in society swelling with the sense of their own importance, perspiring gold, as it were. And one has always a faint suspicion of menwho have got rich very quickly, an idea that there must be some kind ofjuggling. Not in the case of a great contractor, perhaps, who can pointto a viaduct and docks and railways, and say, "I built that, and that, and that. These are the sources of my wealth. " But a man who getsenormously rich by mere ciphering! Where can his money come from, exceptout of other people's pockets? I know nothing against your Mr. Smithson, but I always suspect that class of men, ' concluded Maulevrier shakinghis head significantly. 

Lesbia was not much influenced by her brother's notions, she had neverbeen taught to think him an oracle. On the contrary, she had been toldthat his life hitherto had been all foolishness. '

'When are Mary and Mr. Hammond to be married?' she asked, 'Grandmothersays they must wait a year. Mary is much too young--and so on, and soforth. But I see no reason for waiting. '

'Surely there are reasons--financial reasons. Mr. Hammond cannot be in aposition to begin housekeeping. '

'Oh, they will risk all that. Molly is a daring girl. He proposed to heron the top of Helvellyn, in a storm of wind and rain. '

'And she never wrote me a word about it. How very unsisterly!'

'She is as wild as a hawk, and I daresay she was too shy to tell youanything about it. '

'Pray when did it all occur?'

'Just before I came to London. '

'Two months ago. How absurd for me to be in ignorance all this time!Well, I hope Mary will be sensible, and not marry till Mr. Hammond isable to give her a decent home. It would be so dreadful to have a sistermuddling in poverty, and clamouring for one's cast-off gowns. '

Maulevrier laughed at this gloomy suggestion. 

'It is not easy to foretell the future, ' he said, 'but I think I mayventure to promise that Molly will never wear your cast-off gowns. '

'Oh, you think she would be too proud. You don't know, perhaps, howpoverty--genteel poverty--lowers one's pride. I have heard stories fromLady Kirkbank that would make your hair stand on end. I am beginning toknow the world. '

'I am glad of that. If you are to live in the world it is better thatyou should know what it is made of. But if I had a voice or a choice inthe matter I had rather my sisters stayed at Grasmere, and remainedignorant of the world and all its ways. '

'While you enjoy your life in London. That is just like the selfishnessof a man. Under the pretence of keeping his sisters or his wife securefrom all possible contact with evil, he buries them alive in a countryhouse, while he has all the wickedness for his own share in London. Oh, I am beginning to understand the creatures. '

'I am afraid you are beginning to be wise. Remember that knowledge ofevil was the prelude to the Fall. Well, good-bye. '

'Won't you stay to lunch?'

'No, thanks, I never lunch--frightful waste of time. I shall drop in atthe _Haute Gomme_ and take a cup of tea later on. '

The _Haute Gomme_ was a new club in Piccadilly, which Maulevrier andsome of his friends affected. 

Lesbia went towards the drawing-room door with her brother, and just ashe reached the door she laid her hand caressingly upon his shoulder. Heturned and stared at her, somewhat surprised, for he and she had neverbeen given to demonstrations of affection. 

'Maulevrier, I want you to do me a favour, ' she said, in a low voice, blushing a little, for the thing she was going to ask was a new thingfor her to ask, and she had a deep sense of shame in making her demand. 'I--I lost money at Nap last night. Only seventeen pounds. Mr. Smithsonand I were partners, and he paid my losses. I want to pay himimmediately, and----'

'And you are too hard up to do it. I'll write you a cheque thisinstant, ' said Maulevrier goodnaturedly; but while he was writing thecheque he took occasion to remonstrate with Lesbia on the foolishness ofcard playing. 

'I am obliged to do as Lady Kirkbank does, ' she answered feebly. 'If Iwere to refuse to play it would be a kind of reproach to her. '

'I don't think that would kill Lady Kirkbank, ' replied Maulevrier, witha touch of scorn. 'She has had to endure a good many implied reproachesin her day, and they don't seem to have hurt her very much. I wish toheaven my grandmother had chosen any one else in London for yourchaperon. '

'I'm afraid Lady Kirkbank's is rather a rowdy set, ' answered Lesbia, coolly; 'and I sometimes feel as if I had thrown myself away. We goalmost everywhere--at least, there are only just a few houses to whichwe are not asked. But those few make all the difference. It is sohumiliating to feel that one is not in quite the best society. However, Lady Kirkbank is a dear, good old thing, and I am not going to grumbleabout her. '

'I've made the cheque for five-and-twenty. You can cash it at yourmilliner's, ' said Maulevrier. 'I should not like Smithson to know thatyou had been obliged to ask me for the money. '

'_Apropos_ to Mr. Smithson, do you know if he is in quite the bestsociety?' asked Lesbia. 

'I don't know what you mean by quite the best. A man of Smithson'swealth can generally poke his nose in anywhere, if he knows how tobehave himself. But of course there are people with whom money and finehouses have no weight. The Conservatives are all civil to Smithsonbecause he comes down handsomely at General Elections, and is useful tothem in other ways. I believe that Smithson's wife, if she were athorough-bred one, could go into any society she liked, and make herhouse one of the most popular in London. Perhaps that is what you reallywanted to ask. 

'No, it wasn't, ' answered Lesbia, carelessly; 'I was only talking forthe sake of talking. A thousand thanks for the cheque, you best ofbrothers. '

'It is not worth talking about; but, Lesbia, don't play cards any more. Believe me, it is not good form. '

'Well, I'll try to keep out of it in future. It is horrid to see one'ssovereigns melting away; but there's a delightful excitement inwinning. '

'No doubt, ' answered Maulevrier, with a remorseful sigh. 

He spoke as a reformed plunger, and with many a bitter experience of therace-course and the card-room. Even now, though he had steadied himselfwonderfully, he could not get on without a little mild gambling--half-crownpool, whist with half-guinea points--but when he condescended to such smallstakes he felt that he had settled down into a respectable middle-agedplayer, and had a right to rebuke the follies of youth. 

Lesbia flew to the piano and sang one of her little German balladsdirectly Maulevrier was gone. She felt as if a burden had been liftedfrom her soul, now that she was able to pay Mr. Smithson without waitingto ask Lady Maulevrier for the money. And as she sang she meditated uponMaulevrier's remarks about Smithson. He knew nothing to the man'sdiscredit, except that he had grown rich in a short space of time. Surely no man ought to be blamed for that. And he thought that Mr. Smithson's wife might make her house the most popular in London. Lesbia, in her mind's eye, beheld an imaginary Lady Lesbia Smithson givingdances in that magnificent mansion, entertaining Royal personages. Andthe doorways would be festooned with roses, as she had seen them theother night at a ball in Grosvenor Square; but the house in GrosvenorSquare was a hovel compared with the Smithsonian Palace. 

Lesbia was beginning to be a little tired of Lady Kirkbank and hersurroundings. Life taken _prestissimo_ is apt to pall, Lesbia sighed asshe finished her little song. She was beginning to look upon herexistence as a problem which had been given to her to solve, and thesolution just it present was all dark. 

As she rose from the piano a footman came in with two letters on asalver--bulky letters, such packages as Lesbia had never seen before. She wondered what they could be. She opened the thickest envelope first. It was Seraphine's bill--such a bill, page after page on creamy Bathpost, written in an elegant Italian hand by one of Seraphine's youngwomen. 

Lesbia looked at it aghast with horror. The total at the foot of thefirst page was appalling, ever so much more than she could have supposedthe whole amount of her indebtedness; but the total went on increasingat the foot of every page, until at sight of the final figures Lesbiagave a wild shriek, like a wretched creature who has received a telegramannouncing bitterest loss. 

The final total was twelve hundred and ninety-three pounds seventeen andsixpence!

Thirteen hundred pounds for clothes in eight weeks!

No, the thing was a cheat, a mistake. They had sent her somebody else'sbill. She had not had half these things. 

She read the first page, her heart beating violently as she pored overthe figures, her eyes dim and clouded with the trouble of her brain. 

Yes, there was her court dress. The description was too minute to bemistaken; and the court dress, with feathers, and shoes, and gloves, andfan, came to a hundred and thirty pounds. Then followed innumerableitems. The very simplest of her gowns cost five-and-twentypounds--frocks about which Seraphine had talked so carelessly, as if twoor three more or less could make no difference. Bonnets and hats, atfive or seven guineas apiece, swelled the account. Parasols and fanswere of fabulous price, as it seemed to Lesbia; and the shoes andstockings to match her various gowns occurred again and again betweenthe more important items, like the refrain of an old ballad. All theuseless and unnessary things which she had ordered, because she thoughtthem pretty or because she was told they were fashionable, rose upagainst her in the figures of the bill, like the record of forgottensins at the Day of Judgment. 

She sank into a chair, pallid with consternation, and sat with the billin her lap, turning the pages listlessly, and staring at the figures. 

'It cannot be so much, ' she cried to herself. 'It must be added upwrong;' and then she feebly tried to cast up a column; but arithmeticnot being one of those accomplishments which Lady Maulevrier deemednecessary to a patrician beauty's success in life, Lesbia's educationhad been somewhat neglected upon this point, and she flung the bill fromher in a rage, unable to hold the figures in her brain. 

She opened the second envelope, her jeweller's account. At the veryfirst item she gave another scream, fainter than the first, for her mindwas getting hardened against such shocks. 

'To re-setting a suite of amethysts, with forty-four finest Brazilianbrilliants, three hundred and fifteen pounds. '

Then followed the trifles she had bought at different visits to theshop--casual purchases, bought on the impulse of the moment. Theseswelled the account to a little over eight hundred pounds. Lesbia satlike a statue, numbed by despair, appalled at the idea of owing over twothousand pounds. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

'ROSES CHOKED AMONG THORNS AND THISTLES. '

Lady Lesbia ate no luncheon that day. She went to her own room and had acup of tea to steady her nerves, and sent to ask Lady Kirkbank to go toher as soon as she had finished luncheon. Lady Kirkbank's luncheon was aserious business, a substantial leisurely meal with which she fortifiedherself for the day's work. It enabled her to endure all the fatigues ofvisits and park, and to be airily indifferent to the charms of dinner;for Lady Kirkbank was not one of those matrons who with advanced yearstake to _gourmandise_ as a kind of fine art. She gave good dinners, because she knew people would not come to Arlington Street to eat badones; but she was not a person who lived only to dine. At luncheon shegave her healthy appetite full scope, and ate like a ploughman. 

She found Lesbia in her white muslin dressing-gown, with cheeks as paleas the gown she wore. She was sitting in an easy chair, with a lowtea-table at her side, and the two bills were in the tray among thetea-things. 

'Have you any idea how much I owe Seraphine and Cabochon?' she asked, looking up despairingly at Lady Kirkbank. 

'What, have they sent in their bills already?'

'Already! I wish they had sent them before. I should have known howdeeply I was getting into debt. '

'Are they very heavy?'

'They are dreadful! I owe over two thousand pounds. How can I tell LadyMaulevrier that? Two thousand one hundred pounds! It is awful. '

'There are women in London who would think very little of owing twice asmuch, ' said Lady Kirkbank, in a comforting tone, though the fact, seriously considered, could hardly afford comfort. 'Your grandmothersaid you were to have _carte blanche_. She may think that you have beenjust a little extravagant; but she can hardly be angry with you forhaving taken her at her word. Two thousand pounds! Yes, it certainly israther stiff. '

'Seraphine is a cheat!' exclaimed Lesbia, angrily. 'Her prices arepositively exorbitant!'

'My dear child, you must not say that. Seraphine is positively moderatein comparison with the new people. '

'And Mr. Cabochon, too. The idea of his charging me three hundredguineas for re-setting those stupid old amethysts. '

'My dear, you _would_ have diamonds mixed with them, ' said LadyKirkbank, reproachfully. 

Lesbia turned away her head with an impatient sigh. She rememberedperfectly that it was Lady Kirkbank who had persuaded her to order thediamond setting; but there was no use in talking about it now. The thingwas done. She was two thousand pounds in debt--two thousand pounds tothese two people only--and there were ever so many shops at which shehad accounts--glovers, bootmakers, habit-makers, the tailor who made herNewmarket coats and cloth gowns, the stationer who supplied her withnote-paper of every variety, monogrammed, floral; sporting, illuminatedwith this or that device, the follies of the passing hour, hatched bypenniless Invention in a garret, pandering to the vanities of the idle. 

'I must write to my grandmother by this afternoon's post, ' said Lesbia, with a heavy sigh. 

'Impossible. We have to be at the Ranelagh by four o'clock. Smithsonand some other men are to meet us there. I have promised to drive Mrs. Mostyn down. You had better begin to dress. '

'But I ought to write to-day. I had better ask for this money at once, and have done with it. Two thousand pounds! I feel as if I were a thief. You say my grandmother is not a rich woman?'

'Not rich as the world goes nowadays. Nobody is rich now, except yourcommercial magnates, like Smithson. Great peers, unless their money isin London ground-rents, are great paupers. To own land is to bedestitute. I don't suppose two thousand pounds will break yourgrandmother's bank; but of course it is a large sum to ask for at theend of two months; especially as she sent you a good deal of money whilewe were at Cannes. If you were engaged--about to make a really goodmatch--you could ask for the money as a matter of course; but as it is, although you have been tremendously admired, from a practical point ofview you are a failure. '

A failure. It was a hard word, but Lesbia felt it was true. She, thereigning beauty, the cynosure of every eye, had made no conquest worthtalking about, except Mr. Smithson. 

'Don't tell your grandmother anything about the bills for a week ortwo, ' said Lady Kirkbank, soothingly. 'The creatures can wait for theirmoney. Give yourself time to think. '

'I will, ' answered Lesbia, dolefully. 

'And now make haste, and get ready for the Ranelagh. My love, your eyesare dreadfully heavy. You _must_ use a little belladonna. I'll sendRilboche to you. '

And for the first time in her life, Lesbia, too depressed to argue thepoint, consented to have her eyes doctored by Rilboche. 

She was gay enough at the Ranelagh, and looked her loveliest at a dinnerparty that evening, and went to three parties after the dinner, and wenthome in the faint light of early morning, after sitting out a late waltzin a balcony with Mr. Smithson, a balcony banked round with hot-houseflowers which were beginning to droop a little in the chilly morningair, just as beauty drooped under the searching eye of day. 

Lesbia put the bills in her desk, and gave herself time to think, asLady Kirkbank advised her. But the thinking progress resulted in verylittle good. All the thought of which she was capable would not reducethe totals of those two dreadful accounts. And every day brought somefresh bill. The stationer, the bootmaker, the glover, the perfumer, people who had courted Lady Lesbia's custom with an air which impliedthat the honour of serving fashionable beauty was the firstconsideration, and the question of payment quite a minor point--thesenow began to ask for their money in the most prosaic way. Every strawadded to Lesbia's burden; and her heart grew heavier with every post. 

'One can see the season is waning when these people begin to pesterwith their accounts, ' said Lady Kirkbank, who always talked of tradesmenas if they were her natural enemies. 

Lesbia accepted this explanation of the avalanche of bills, and neversuspected Lady Kirkbank's influence in the matter. It happened, however, that the chaperon, having her own reasons for wishing to bring Mr. Smithson's suit to a successful issue, had told Seraphine and the otherpeople to send in their bills immediately. Lady Lesbia would be leavingLondon in a week or so, she informed these purveyors, and would like tosettle everything before she went away. 

Mr. Smithson appeared in Arlington Street almost every day, and was fullof schemes for new pleasures--or pleasures as nearly new as the world offashion can afford. He was particularly desirous that Sir George andLady Kirkbank, with Lady Lesbia, should stay at his Berkshire placeduring the Henley week. He had a large steam launch, and the regatta wasa kind of carnival for his intimate friends, who were not too proud toriot and batten upon the parvenu's luxurious hospitality, albeit theywere apt to talk somewhat slightingly of his antecedents. 

Lady Kirkbank felt that this invitation was a turning point, and that ifLesbia went to stay at Rood Hall, her acceptance of Mr. Smithson was acertainty. She would see him at his place in Berkshire in the mostflattering aspect; his surroundings as lord of the manor, and owner ofone of the finest old places in the county, would lend dignity to hisinsignificance. Lesbia at first expressed a strong disinclination to goto Rood Hall. There would be a most unpleasant feeling in stopping atthe house of a man whom she had refused, she told Lady Kirkbank. 

'My dear, Mr. Smithson has forgiven you, ' answered her chaperon. 'He isthe soul of good nature. '

'One would think he was accustomed to be refused, ' said Lesbia. 'I don'twant to go to Rood Hall, but I don't want to spoil your Henley week. Could not I run down to Grasmere for a week, with Kibble to take care ofme, and see dear grandmother? I could tell her about those dreadfulbills. '

'Bury yourself at Grasmere in the height of the season! Not to bethought of! Besides, Lady Maulevrier objected before to the idea of yourtravelling alone with Kibble. No! if you can't make up your mind to goto Rood Hall, George and I must make up our minds to stay away. But itwill be rather hard lines; for that Henley week is quite the jolliestthing in the summer. '

'Then I'll go, ' said Lesbia, with a resigned air. 'Not for worlds wouldI deprive you and Sir George of a pleasure. '

In her heart of hearts she rather wished to see Rood Hall. She wascurious to behold the extent and magnitude of Mr. Smithson'spossessions. She had seen his Italian villa in Park Lane, the perfectionof modern art, modern skill, modern taste, reviving the old eternallybeautiful forms, recreating the Pitti Palace--the homes of theMedici--the halls of dead and gone Doges--and now she was told that RoodHall--a genuine old English manor-house, in perfect preservation--waseven more interesting than the villa in Park Lane. At Rood Hall therewere ideal stables and farm, hot-houses without number, rose gardens, lawns, the river, and a deer park. 

So the invitation was accepted, and Mr. Smithson immediately laidhimself at Lesbia's feet, as it were, with regard to all otherinvitations for the Henley festival. Whom should he ask to meether?--whom would she have?

'You are very good, ' she said, 'but I have really no wish to beconsulted. I am not a royal personage, remember. I could not presume todictate. '

'But I wish you to dictate. I wish you to be imperious in the expressionof your wishes. '

'Lady Kirkbank has a better right than I, if anybody is to beconsulted, ' said Lesbia, modestly. 

'Lady Kirkbank is an old dear, who gets on delightfully with everybody. But you are more sensitive. Your comfort might be marred by an obnoxiouspresence. I will ask nobody whom you do not like--who is not thoroughly_simpatico_. Have you no particular friends of your own choosing whomyou would like me to ask?'

Lesbia confessed that she had no such friends. She liked everybodytolerably; but she had not a talent for friendship. Perhaps it wasbecause in the London season one was too busy to make friends. 

'I can fancy two girls getting quite attached to each other, out of theseason, ' she said, 'but in May and June life is all a rush and ascramble----'

'And one has no time to gather wayside flowers of friendship, 'interjected Mr. Smithson. 'Still, if there are no people for whom youhave an especial liking, there _must_ be people whom you detest. '

Lesbia owned that it was so. Detestation came of itself, naturally. 

'Then let me be sure I do not ask any of your pet aversions, ' said Mr. Smithson. 'You met Mr. Plantagenet Parsons, the theatrical critic, at myhouse. Shall we have him?'

'I like all amusing people. '

'And Horace Meander, the poet. Shall we have him? He is brimful ofconceits and affectations, but he's a tremendous joke. '

'Mr. Meander is charming. '

'Suppose we ask Mostyn and his wife? Her scraps of science are rathergood fun. '

'I haven't the faintest objection to the Mostyns, ' replied Lesbia. 'Butwho are "we"?'

'We are you and I, for the nonce. The invitations will be issuedostensibly by me, but they will really emanate from you. '

'I am to be the shadow behind the throne, ' said Lesbia. 'Howdelightful!'

'I would rather you were the sovereign ruler, on the throne, ' answeredSmithson, tenderly. 'That throne shall be empty till you fill it. '

'Please go on with your list of people, ' said Lesbia, checking this gushof sentiment. 

She began to feel somehow that she was drifting from all her moorings, that in accepting this invitation to Rood Hall she was allowing herselfto be ensnared into an alliance about which she was still doubtful. Ifanything better had appeared in the prospect of her life--if anyworthier suitor had come forward, she would have whistled Mr. Smithsondown the wind; but no worthier suitor had offered himself. It wasSmithson or nothing. If she did not accept Smithson, she would go backto Fellside heavily burdened with debt, and an obvious failure. Shewould have run the gauntlet of a London season without definite result;and this, to a young woman so impressed with her own transcendentmerits, was a most humiliating state of things. 

Other people's names were suggested by Mr. Smithson and approved byLesbia, and a house party of about fourteen in all was made up. Mr. Smithson's steam launch would comfortably accommodate that number. Hehad a couple of barges for chance visitors, and kept an open table onboard them during the regatta. 

The visit arranged, the next question was gowns. Lesbia had gowns enoughto have stocked a draper's shop; but then, as she and Lady Kirkbankdeplored, the difficulty was that she had worn them all, some as many asthree or four times. They were doubtless all marked and known. Some ofthem had been described in the society papers. At Henley she would beexpected to wear something distinctly new, to introduce some new fashionof gown or hat or parasol. No matter how ugly the new thing might be, solong as it was startling; no matter how eccentric, provided it wasoriginal. 

'What am I to do?' asked Lesbia, despairingly. 

'There is only one thing that can be done. We must go instantly toSeraphine and insist upon her inventing something. If she has no ideaready she must telegraph Worth and get him to send something over. Yourold things will do very well for Rood Hall. You have no end of prettygowns for morning and evening; but you must be original on the racedays. Your gowns will be in all the papers. '

'But I shall be only getting deeper into debt, ' said Lesbia, with asigh. 

'That can't be helped. If you go into society you must be properlydressed. We'll go to Clanricarde Place directly after luncheon, and seewhat that old harpy has to show us. '

Lesbia had a rather uncomfortable feeling about facing the fairSeraphine, without being able to give her a cheque upon account of thatdreadful bill. She had quite accepted Lady Kirkbank's idea that billsnever need be discharged in full, and that the true system of financewas to give an occasional cheque on account, as a sop to Cerberus. True, that while Cerberus fattened on the sops the bill seemed always growing;and the final crash, when Cerberus grew savage and sops could be no moreaccepted, was too awful to be thought about. 

Lesbia entered Seraphine's Louis-seize drawing-room with a faintexpectation of unpleasantness; but after a little whispering betweenLady Kirkbank and the dressmaker, the latter came to Lesbia smilinggraciously, and seemingly full of eagerness for new orders. 

'Miladi says you want something of the most original--_tant soit peurisqué_--for 'Enley, ' she said. 'Let us see now, ' and she tapped herforehead with a gold thimble which nobody had ever seen her use, butwhich looked respectable. 'There is ze dresses that Chaumont wear in zisnew play, _Une Faute dans le Passé_. Yes, zere is the watare dress--aboating party at Bougival, a toilet of the most new, striking, _écrasant_, what you English call a "screamer. "'

'What a genius you are, Fifine, ' exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, rapturously. 'The _Faute dans le Passé_ was only produced last week. No one will havethought of copying Chaumont's gowns yet awhile. The idea is aninspiration. '

'What is the boating costume like?' asked Lady Lesbia, faintly. 

'An exquisite combination of simplicity with _vlan_, ' answered thedressmaker. 'A skin-tight indigo silk Jersey bodice, closely studdedwith dark blue beads, a flounced petticoat of indigo and amber foulard, an amber scarf drawn tightly round the hips, and a dark blue toque witha largo bunch of amber poppies. Tan-coloured mousquetaire gloves, andHessian boots of tan-coloured kid. '

'Hessian boots!' ejaculated Lesbia. 

'But, yes, Miladi. The petticoat is somewhat short, you comprehend, toescape the damp of the deck, and, after all, Hessians are much lessindelicate than silk stockings, legs _à cru_, as one may say. '

'Lesbia, you will look enchanting in yellow Hessians, ' said LadyKirkbank, 'Let the dress be put in hand instantly, Seraphine. '

Lesbia was inclined to remonstrate. She did not admire the descriptionof the costume, she would rather have something less outrageous. 

'Outrageous! It is only original, ' exclaimed her chaperon. 'If Chaumontwears it you may be sure it is perfect. '

'But on the stage, by gaslight, in the midst of unrealities, ' arguedLesbia. 'That makes such a difference. '

'My dear, there is no difference nowadays between the stage and thedrawing-room. Whatever Chaumont wears you may wear. And now let us thinkof the second day. I think as your first costume is to be nautical, andrather masculine, your second should be somewhat languishing and_vaporeux_. Creamy Indian muslin, wild flowers, a large Leghorn hat. '

'And what will Miladi herself wear?' asked the French woman of LadyKirkbank. 'She must have something of new. '

'No, at my age, it doesn't matter. I shall wear one of my cotton frocks, and my Dunstable hat. '

Lesbia shuddered, for Lady Kirkbank in her cotton frock was a spectacleat which youth laughed and age blushed. But after all it did not matterto Lesbia. She would have liked a less rowdy chaperon; but as a foil toher own fresh young beauty Lady Kirkbank was admirable. 

They drove down to Rood Hall early next week, Sir George conveying themin his drag, with a change of horses at Maidenhead. The weather waspeerless; the country exquisite, approached from London. How differentthat river landscape looks to the eyes of the traveller returning fromthe wild West of England, the wooded gorges of Cornwall and Devon, theTamar and the Dart. Then how small and poor and mean seems silveryThames, gliding peacefully between his willowy bank, singing his lullabyto the whispering sedges; a poor little river, a flat commonplacelandscape, says the traveller, fresh from moorland and tor, from therocky shore of the Atlantic, the deep clefts of the great, red hills. 

To Lesbia's eyes the placid stream and the green pastures, breathingodours of meadow-sweet and clover, seemed passing lovely. She waspleased with her own hat and parasol too, which made her graciouslydisposed towards the landscape; and the last packet of gloves from NorthAudley Street fitted without a wrinkle. The glovemaker was beginning tounderstand her hand, which was a study for a sculptor, but which had itslittle peculiarities. 

Nor was she ill-disposed to Mr. Smithson, who had come up to town by anearly train, in order to lunch in Arlington Street and go back by coach, seated just behind Lady Lesbia, who had the box seat beside Sir George. 

The drive was delightful. It was a few minutes after five when the coachdrove past the picturesque old gate-house into Mr. Smithson's Park, andRood Hall lay on the low ground in front of them, with its back to theriver. It was an old red brick house in the Tudor style, with anadvanced porch, and four projecting wings, three stories high, withpicturesque spire roofs overtopping the main building. Around the houseran a boldly-carved stone parapet, bearing the herons and bulrusheswhich were the cognisance of the noble race for which the mansion wasbuilt. Numerous projecting mullioned windows broke up the line of thepark front. Lesbia was fain to own that Rood Hall was even better thanPark Lane. In London Mr. Smithson had created a palace; but it was a newpalace, which still had a faint flavour of bricks and mortar, and whichwas apt to remind the spectator of that wonderful erection of Aladdin, the famous Parvenu of Eastern story. Here, in Berkshire, Mr. Smithsonhad dropped into a nest which had been kept warm for him for threecenturies, aired and beautified by generations of a noble race which hadobligingly decayed and dwindled in order to make room for Mr. Smithson. Here the Parvenu had bought a home mellowed by the slow growth of years, touched into poetic beauty by the chastening fingers of time. His artistfriends told him that every brick in the red walls was 'precious, ' amystery of colour which only a painter could fitly understand and value. Here he had bought associations, he had bought history. He had boughtthe dust of Elizabeth's senators, the bones of her court beauties. Thecoffins in the Mausoleum yonder in the ferny depths of the Park, thevillage church just outside the gates--these had all gone with theproperty. 

Lesbia went up the grand staircase, through the long corridors, in adream of wonder. Brought up at Fellside, in that new part of theWestmoreland house which had been built by her grandmother and had nohistory, she felt thrilled by the sober splendour of this fine oldmanorial mansion. All was sound and substantial, as if createdyesterday, so well preserved had been the goods and chattels of thenoble race; and yet all wore such unmistakeable marks of age. The deeprich colouring of the wainscot, the faded hues of the tapestry, thedraperies of costliest velvet and brocade, were all sobered by thepassing of years. 

Mr. Smithson had shown his good taste in having kept all things as SirHubert Heronville, the last of his race, had left them; and theHeronvilles had been one of those grand old Tory races which changenothing of the past. 

Lady Lesbia's bedroom was the State chamber, which had been occupied bykings and queens in days of yore. That grandiose four-poster, with thecarved ebony columns, cut velvet curtains, and plumes of ostrichfeathers, had been built for Elizabeth, when she deigned to include RoodHall in one of her royal progresses. Charles the First had rested hisweary head upon those very pillows, before he went on to the Inn atUxbridge, where he was to be lodged less luxuriously. James the Secondhad stayed there when Duke of York, with Mistress Anne Hyde, before heacknowledged his marriage to the multitude; and Anne's daughter hadoccupied the same room as Queen of England forty years later; and nowthe Royal Chamber, with adjacent dressing-room, and oratory, andspacious boudoir all in the same suite, was reserved for Lady LesbiaHaselden. 

'I'm afraid you are spoiling me, ' she told Mr. Smithson, when he askedif she approved of the rooms that had been allotted to her. 'I feelquite ashamed of myself among the ghosts of dead and gone queens. '

'Why so? Surely the Royalty of beauty has as divine a right as that ofan anointed sovereign. '

'I hope the Royal personages don't walk, ' exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, inher girlish tone; 'this is just the house in which one would expectghosts. '

Whereupon Mrs. Mostyn hastened to enlighten the company upon the realcauses of ghost-seeing, which she had lately studied in Carpenter's'Mental Physiology, ' and favoured them with a diluted version of theviews of that authority. 

This was at afternoon tea in the library, where the brass-wiredbookcases, filled with mighty folios and handsome octavos in oldbindings, looked as if they had not been opened for a century. Theliterature of past ages furnished the room, and made a delightfulbackground. The literature of the present lay about on the tables, andtestified that the highest intellectual flight of the inhabitants ofRood Hall was a dip into the _Contemporary_ or the _Nineteenth Century_, or the perusal of the last new scandal in the shape of Reminiscences orAutobiography. One large round table was consecrated to Mudie, anotherto Rolandi. On the one side you had Mrs. Oliphant, on the other Zola, exemplifying the genius of the two nations. 

After tea Mr. Smithson's visitors, most of whom had arrived in SirGeorge's drag, explored the grounds. These were lovely beyond expressionin the low afternoon light. Cedars of Lebanon spread their broad shadowson the velvet lawn, yews and Wellingtonias of mighty growth made anatmosphere of gloom in some parts of the grounds. One great feature wasthe Ladies' Garden, a spot apart, a great square garden surrounded witha laurel wall, eight feet high, containing a rose garden, where thechoicest specimens grew and flourished, while in the centre there was acircular fish-pond with a fountain. There was a Lavender Walk too, another feature of the grounds at Rood Hall, an avenue of tall lavenderbushes, much affected by the stately dames of old. 

Modern manners preferred the river terrace, as a pleasant place on whichto loiter after dinner, to watch the boats flashing by in the eveninglight, or the sun going down behind a fringe of willows on the oppositebank. This Italian terrace, with its statues, and carved vases filledwith roses, fuchsias, and geraniums, was the great point of rendezvousat Rood Hall--an ideal spot whereon to linger in the deepening twilight, from which to gaze upon the moonlit river later on in the night. 

The windows of the drawing-room, and music-room, and ballroom opened onto this terrace, and the royal wing--the tower-shaped wing now devotedto Lady Lesbia, looked upon the terrace and the river. 

'Lovely, as your house is altogether, I think this river view is thebest part of it, ' said Lady Lesbia, as she strolled with Mr. Smithson onthe terrace after dinner, dressed in Indian muslin which was almost aspoetical as a vapour, and with a cloud of delicate lace wrapped roundher head. 'I think I shall spend half of my life at my boudoir window, gloating over that delicious landscape. '

Horace Meander, the poet, was discoursing to a select group upon thatpeculiar quality of willows which causes them to shiver, and quiver, andthrow little lights and shadows on the river, and on the subtle, ineffable beauty of twilight, which perhaps, however utterly beautifulin the abstract, would have been more agreeable to him personally if hehad not been surrounded by a cloud of gnats, which refused to bebuffeted off his laurel-crowned head. 

While Mr. Meander poetised in his usual eloquent style, Mrs. Mostyn, asa still newer light, discoursed as eloquently to little a knot of women, imparting valuable information upon the anatomical structure andindividual peculiarities of those various insects which are the pests ofa summer evening. 

'You don't like gnats!' exclaimed the lady; 'how very extraordinary. Doyou know I have spent days and weeks upon the study of their habits anddear little ways. They are the most interesting creatures--far superiorto _us_ in intellect. Do you know that they fight, and that they havetribes which are life-long enemies--like those dreadful Corsicans--andthat they make little sepulchres in the bark of trees, and bury eachother--alive, if they can; and they hold vestries, and have burialboards. They are most absorbing creatures, if you only give yourself upto the study of them; but it is no use to be half-hearted in a study ofthat kind. I went without so much as a cup of tea for twenty-four hours, watching my gnats, for fear the opening of the door should startle them. Another time I shall make the nursery governess watch for me. '

'How interesting, how noble of you, ' exclaimed the other ladies; andthen they began to talk about bonnets, and about Mr. Smithson, tospeculate how much money this house and all his other houses had costhim, and to wonder if he was really rich, or if he were only one ofthose great financial windbags which so often explode and leave theworld aghast, marvelling at the ease with which it has been deluded. 

They wondered, too, whether Lady Lesbia Haselden meant to marry him. 

'Of course she does, my dear, ' answered Mrs. Mostyn, decisively. 

'You don't suppose that after having studied the habits of _gnats_ Icannot read such a poor shallow creature as a silly vain girl. Of courseLady Lesbia means to marry Mr. Smithson's fine houses; and she is onlyamusing herself and swelling her own importance by letting him dangle ina kind of suspense which is not suspense; for he knows as well as shedoes that she means to have him. '

The next day was given up, first to seeing the house, an amusement whichlasted very well for an hour or so after breakfast, and then towandering in a desultory manner, to rowing and canoeing, and a littlesailing, and a good deal of screaming and pretty timidity upon the bluebright river; to gathering wild flowers and ferns in rustic lanes, andto an _al fresco_ luncheon in the wood at Medmenham, and then dinner, and then music, an evening spent half within and half without themusic-room, cigarettes sparkling, like glowworms on the terrace, talltalk from Mr. Meander, long quotations from his own muse and that ofRossetti, a little Shelley, a little Keats, a good deal of Swinburne. The festivities were late on this second evening, as Mr. Smithson hadinvited a good many people from the neighbourhood, but the house partywere not the less early on the following morning, which was the firstHenley day. 

It was a peerless morning, and all the brasswork of Mr. Smithson'slaunch sparkled and shone in the sun, as she lay in front of theterrace. A wooden pier, a portable construction, was thrown out from theterrace steps, to enable the company to go on board the launch withoutthe possibility of wet feet or damaged raiment. 

Lesbia's Chaumount costume was a success. The women praised it, the menstared and admired. The dark-blue silken jersey, sparkling with closelystudded indigo beads, fitted the slim graceful figure as a serpent'sscales fit the serpent. The coquettish little blue silk toque, thecareless cluster of gold-coloured poppies, against the glossy brownhair, the large sunshade of old gold satin lined with indigo, theflounced petticoat of softest Indian silk, the dainty littletan-coloured boots with high heels and pointed toes, were all perfectafter their fashion; and Mr. Smithson felt that the liege lady of hislife, the woman he meant to marry willy nilly, would be the belle of therace-course. Nor was he disappointed. Everybody in London had heard ofLady Lesbia Haselden. Her photograph was in all the West-End windows, was enshrined in the albums of South Kensington and Clapham, Maida Valeand Haverstock Hill. People whose circles were far remote from LadyLesbia's circle, were as familiar with her beauty as if they had knownher from her cradle. And all these outsiders wanted to see her in theflesh, just as they always thirst to behold Royal personages. So when itbecame known that the beautiful Lady Lesbia Haselden was on board Mr. Smithson's launch, all the people in the small boats, or on neighbouringbarges, made it their business if have a good look at her. The launchwas almost mobbed by those inquisitive little boats in the intervalsbetween the races. 

'What are the people all staring and hustling one another for?' askedLesbia, innocently. She had seen the same hustling and whispering andstaring in the hall at the opera, when she was waiting for her carriage;but she chose to affect unconsciousness. 'What do they all want?'

'I think they want to see you, ' said Mr. Smithson, who was sitting byher side. 'A very natural desire. '

Lesbia laughed, and lowered the big yellow sunshade, so as to hideherself altogether from the starers. 

'How silly!' she exclaimed. 'It is all the fault of those horridphotographers: they vulgarise everything and everybody. I will never bephotographed again. '

'Oh yes, you will, and in that frock. It's the prettiest thing I've seenfor a long time. Why do you hide yourself from those poor wretches, whokeep rowing backwards and forwards in an obviously aimless way, just toget a peep at you _en passant_? What happiness for us who live near you, and can gaze when we will, without all those absurd manoeuvres. Theregoes the signal--and now for a hard-fought race. '

Lesbia pretended to be interested in the racing--she pretended to begay, but her heart was as heavy as lead. The burden of debt, which hadbeen growing ever since Seraphine sent in her bill, was weighing herdown to the dust. 

She owed three thousand pounds. It seemed incredible that she should oweso much, that a girl's frivolous fancies and extravagances could amountto such a sum within so short a span. But thoughtless purchases, ignorant orders, had run on from week to week, and the main result wasan indebtedness of close upon three thousand pounds. 

Three thousand pounds! The sum was continually sounding in her ears likethe cry of a screech owl. The very ripple of the river flowing sopeacefully under the blue summer sky seemed to repeat the words. Threethousand pounds! 'Is it much?' she wondered, having no standard ofcomparison. 'Is it very much more than my grandmother will expect me tohave spent in the time? Will it trouble her to have to pay those bills?Will she be very angry?'

These were questions which Lesbia kept asking herself, in every pause ofher frivolous existence; in such a pause as this, for instance, whilethe people round her were standing breathless, open-mouthed, gazingafter the boats. She did not care a straw for the boats, who won, or wholost the race. It was all a hollow mockery. Indeed it seemed just nowthat the only real thing in life was those accursed bills, which wouldhave to be paid somehow. 

She had told Lady Maulevrier nothing about them as yet. She had allowedherself to be advised by Lady Kirkbank, and she had taken time to think. But thought had given her no help. The days were gliding onward, andLady Maulevrier would have to be told. 

She meditated perplexedly about her grandmother's income. She had neverheard the extent of it, but had taken for granted that Lady Maulevrierwas rich. Would three thousand pounds make a great inroad on thatincome? Would it be a year's income?--half a year's? Lesbia had no idea. Life at Fellside was carried on in an elegant manner--with considerableluxury in house and garden--a luxury of flowers, a lavish expenditure oflabour. Yet the expenditure of Lady Maulevrier's existence, spent alwayson the same spot, must be as nothing to the money spent in such a lifeas Lady Kirkbank's, which involved the keeping up of three or fourhouses, and costly journeys to and fro, and incessant change of attire. 

No doubt Lady Maulevrier had saved money; yes, she must have savedthousands during her long seclusion, Lesbia argued. Her grandmother hadtold her that she was to look upon herself as an heiress. This couldonly mean that Lady Maulevrier had a fortune to leave her; and thisbeing so, what could it matter if she had anticipated some of herportion? And yet there was in her heart of hearts a terrible fear ofthat stern dowager, of the cold scorn in those splendid eyes when sheshould stand revealed in all her foolishness, her selfish, mindless, vain extravagances. She, who had never been reproved, shrank with asickly dread from the idea of reproof. And to be told that her career asa fashionable beauty had been a failure! That would be the bitterestpang of all. 

Soon came luncheon, and Heidseck, and then an afternoon which was gayerthan the morning had been, inasmuch as every one babbled and laughedmore after luncheon. And then there was five o'clock tea on deck, underthe striped Japanese awning, to the jingle of banjos, enlivened by thewit of black-faced minstrels, amidst wherries and canoes and gondolas, and ponderous houseboats, and snorting launches, crowding the sides ofthe sunlit river, in full view of the crowd yonder in front of the RedLion, and here on this nearer bank, and all along either shore, fringingthe green meadows with a gaudy border of smartly-dressed humanity. 

It was a gay scene, and Lesbia gave herself up to the amusement of thehour, and talked and chaffed as she had learned to talk and chaff in onebrief season, holding her own against all comers. 

Rood Hall looked lovely when they went back to it in the gloaming, anElizabethan pile crowned with towers. The four wings with their conicalroofs, the massive projecting windows, grey stone, ruddy brickwork, lattices reflecting the sunlight, Italian terrace and blue river in theforeground, cedars and yews at the back, all made a splendid picture ofan English ancestral home. 

'Nice old place, isn't it?' asked Mr. Smithson, seeing Lesbia'sadmiring gaze as the launch neared the terrace. They two were standingin the bows, apart from all the rest. 

'Nice! it is simply perfect. '

'Oh no, it isn't. There is one thing wanted yet. '

'What is that?'

'A wife. You are the only person who can make any house of mine perfect. Will you?' He took her hand, which she did not withdraw from his grasp. He bent his head and kissed the little hand in its soft Swedish glove. 

'Will you, Lesbia?' he repeated earnestly; and she answered softly, 'Yes. '

That one brief syllable was more like a sigh than a spoken word, and itseemed to her as if in the utterance of that syllable the three thousandpounds had been paid. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

'KIND IS MY LOVE TO-DAY, TO-MORROW KIND. '

While Lady Lesbia was draining the cup of London folly and London careto the dregs, Lady Mary was leading her usual quiet life beside theglassy lake, where the green hill-sides and sheep walks were reflectedin all their summer verdure under the cloudless azure of a summer sky. Amonotonous life--passing dull as seen from the outside--and yet Mary wasvery happy, happy even in her solitude, with the grave deep joy of asatisfied heart, a mind at rest. All life had taken a new colour sinceher engagement to John Hammond. A sense of new duties, an awakeningearnestness had given a graver tone to her character. Her spirits wereless wild, yet not less joyous than of old. The joy was holier, deeper. 

Her lover's letters were the chief delight of her lonely days. To readthem again and again, and ponder upon them, and then to pour out all herheart and mind in answering them. These were pleasures enough for heryoung like. Hammond's letters were such as any woman might be proud toreceive. They were not love-letters only. He wrote as friend to friend;not descending from the proud pinnacle of masculine intelligence to thelower level of feminine silliness; not writing down to a simple countrygirl's capacity; but writing-fully and fervently, as if there were nosubject too lofty or too grave for the understanding of his betrothed. He wrote as one sure of being sympathised with, wrote as to his secondself: and Mary showed herself not unworthy of the honour thus renderedto her intellect. 

There was one world which had newly opened to Mary since herengagement, and that was the world of politics. Hammond had told herthat his ambition was to succeed as a politician--to do some good in hisday as one of the governing body; and of late she had made it herbusiness to learn how England and the world outside England weregoverned. 

She had no natural leaning to the study of political economy. Instead, she had always imagined any question relating to the government of hercountry to be inherently dry-as-dust and uninviting. But had JohnHammond devoted his days to the study of Coptic manuscripts, or thearrow headed inscriptions upon Assyrian tablets, she would have toiledher hardest in the endeavour to make herself a Coptic scholar, or anadept in the cuneiform characters. If he had been a student of Chinese, she would not have been discomfited by such a trifle as the fiftythousand characters in the Chinese alphabet. 

And so, as he was to make his name in the arena of public life, she setherself to acquire a proper understanding of the science of politics;and to this end she gorged herself with English history, --Hume, Hallam, Green, Justin McCarthy, Palgrave, Lecky, from the days of Witenagemoteto the Reform Bill; the Repeal of the Corn Laws, the Disestablishment ofthe Irish Church, Ballot, Trade Unionism, and unreciprocated Free Trade. No question was deep enough to repel her; for was not her loverinterested in the dryest thereof; and what concerned him and his welfaremust needs be full of interest for her. 

To this end she read the debates religiously day by day; and she one dayventured shyly to suggest that she should read them aloud to LadyMaulevrier. 

'Would it not be a little rest for you if I were to read your Timesaloud to you every afternoon, grandmother?' she asked. 'You read so manybooks, French, English, and German, and I think your eyes must get alittle tired sometimes. '

Mary ventured the remark with some timidity, for those falcon eyes werefixed upon her all the time, bright and clear and steady as the eyes ofyouth. It seemed almost an impertinence to suggest that such eyes couldknow weariness. 

'No, Mary, my sight, holds out wonderfully for an old woman, ' repliedher ladyship, gently. 'The new theory of the last oculist whose book Idipped into--a very amusing and interesting book, by-the-bye--is thatthe sight improves and strengthens by constant use, and that anagricultural labourer, who hardly uses his eyes at all, has rarely inthe decline of life so good a sight as the watchmaker or the student. Ihave read immensely all my life, and find myself no worse for thatindulgence. But you may read the debates to me if you like, my dear, forif my eyes are strong, I myself am very tired. Sick to death, Mary, sickto death. '

The splendid eyes turned from Mary, and looked away to the blue sky, tothe hills in their ineffable beauty of colour and light--shifting, changing with every moment of the summer day. Intense weariness, asettled despair, were expressed in that look--tearless, yet sadder thanall tears. 

'It must be very monotonous, very sad for you, ' murmured Mary, her owneyes brimming over with tears. 'But it will not be always so, deargrandmother. I hope a time will come when you will be able to go aboutagain, to resume your old life. '

'I do not hope, Mary. No, child, I feel and know that time will nevercome. My strength is ebbing slowly day by day. If I live for anotheryear, live to see Lesbia married, and you, too, perhaps--well, I shalldie at peace. At peace, no; not----' she faltered, and the thin, semi-transparent hand was pressed upon her brow. 'What will be said ofme when I am dead?'

Mary feared that her grandmother's mind was wandering. She came andknelt beside the couch, laid and her head against the satin pillows, tenderly, caressingly. 

'Dear grandmother, pray be calm, ' she murmured. 

'Mary, do not look at me like that, as if you would read my heart. Thereare hearts that must not be looked into. Mine is like a charnel-house. Monotonous, yes; my life has been monotonous. No conventual gloom wasever deeper than the gloom of Fellside. My boy did nothing to lighten itfor me, and his son followed in his father's footsteps. You and Lesbiahave been my only consolation. Lesbia! I was so proud of her beauty, soproud and fond of her, because she was like me, and recalled my ownyouth. And see how easily she forgets me. She has gone into a new world, in which my age and my infirmities have no part; and I am as nothing toher. '

Mary changed from red to pale, so painful was her embarrassment. Whatcould she say in defence of her sister? How could she deny that Lesbiawas an ingrate, when those rare and hurried letters, so careless intheir tone, expressing the selfishness of the writer in every syllable, told but too plainly of forgetfulness and ingratitude?

'Dear grandmother, Lesbia has so much to do--her life is so full ofengagements, ' she faltered feebly. 

'Yes, she goes from party to party--she gives herself up heart and mindand soul to pleasures which she ought to consider only as the trivialmeans to great ends; and she forgets the woman who reared her, and caredfor her, and watched over her from her infancy, and who tried to inspireher with a noble ambition. --Yes, read to me, child, read. Give me newthoughts, if you can, for my brain is weary with grinding the old ones. There was a grand debate in the Lords last night, and Lord Hartfieldspoke. Let me hear his speech. You can read what was said by the manbefore him; never mind the rest. '

Mary read Lord Somebody's speech, which was passing dull, but whichprepared the ground for a magnificent and exhaustive reply from LordHartfield. The question was an important one, affecting the well-beingof the masses, and Lord Hartfield spoke with an eloquence which rose inforce and fire as he wound himself like a serpent into the heart of hissubject--beginning quietly, soberly, with no opening flashes ofrhetoric, but rising gradually to the topmost heights of oratory. 

'What a speech!' cried Lady Maulevrier, delighted, her cheeks glowing, her eyes kindling; 'what a noble fellow the speaker must be! Oh, Mary, Imust tell you a secret. I loved that man's father. Yes, my dear, I lovedhim fondly, dearly, truly, as you love that young man of yours; and hewas the only man I ever really loved. Fate parted us. But I have neverforgotten him--never, Mary, never. At this moment I have but to close myeyes and I can see his face--see him looking at me as he looked the lasttime we met. He was a younger son, poor, his future quite hopeless inthose days; but it was not my fault we were parted. I would have marriedhim--yes, wedded poverty, just as you are going to marry this Mr. Hammond; but my people would not let me; and I was too young, toohelpless, to make a good fight. Oh, Mary, if I had only fought hardenough, what a happy woman I might have been, and how good a wife. '

'You were a good wife to my grandfather, I am sure, ' faltered Mary, byway of saying something consolatory. 

A dark frown came over Lady Maulevrier's face, which had softened todeepest tenderness just before. 

'A good wife to Maulevrier, ' she said, in a mocking tone. Well, yes, asgood a wife as such a husband deserved. 'I was better than Caesar'swife, Mary, for no breath of suspicion ever rested upon my name. But ifI had married Ronald Hollister, I should have been a happy woman; andthat I have never been since I parted from him. '

'You have never seen the present Lord Hartfield, I think?'

'Never; but I have watched his career, I have thought of him. His fatherdied while he was an infant, and he was brought up in seclusion by awidowed mother, who kept him tied to her apron-strings till he went toOxford. She idolised him, and I am told she taught herself Latin andGreek, mathematics even, in order to help him in his boyish, studies, and, later on, read Greek plays and Latin poetry with him, till shebecame an exceptional classic for a woman. She was her son's companionand friend, sympathised with his tastes, his pleasures, his friendships;devoted every hour of her life, every thought of her mind to hiswelfare, his interests, walked with him, rode with him, travelled halfover Europe, yachted with him. Her friends all declared that the ladwould grow up an odious milksop; but I am told that there never was amanlier man than Lord Hartfield. From his boyhood he was his mother'sprotector, helped to administer her affairs, acquired a premature senseof responsibility, and escaped almost all those vices which make youngmen detestable. His mother died within a few months of his majority. Hewas broken-hearted at losing her, and left Europe immediately after herdeath. From that time he has been a great traveller. But I suppose nowthat he has taken his seat in the House of Lords, and has spoken a goodmany times, he means to settle down and take his place among theforemost men of his day. I am told that he is worthy to take such aplace. '

'You must feel warmly interested in watching his career, ' said Mary, sympathetically. 

'I am interested in everything that concerns him. I will tell youanother secret, Mary. I think I am getting into my dotage, my dear, or Ishould hardly talk to you like this, ' said Lady Maulevrier, with a touchof bitterness. 

Mary was sitting on a stool by the sofa, close to the invalid's pillow. She clasped her grandmother's hand and kissed it fondly. 

'Dear grandmother, I think you are talking to me like this to-daybecause you are beginning to care for me a little, ' she said, tenderly. 

'Oh, my dear, you are very good, very sweet and forgiving to care for meat all, after my neglect of you, ' answered Lady Maulevrier, with asigh. 'I have kept you out in the cold so long, Mary. Lesbia--well, Lesbia has been a kind of infatuation for me, and like all infatuationsmine has ended in disappointment and bitterness. Ambition has been thebane of my life, Mary; and when I could no longer be ambitious formyself--when my own existence had become a mere death in life, I beganto dream and to scheme for the aggrandisement of my granddaughter. Lesbia's beauty, Lesbia's elegance seemed to make success certain--andso I dreamt my dream--which may never be fulfilled. '

'What was your dream, grandmother? May I know all about it?'

'That was the secret I spoke of just now. Yes, Mary, you may know, for Ifear the dream will never be realised. I wanted my Lesbia to become LordHartfield's wife. I would have brought them together myself, could Ihave but gone to London; but, failing that, I fancied Lady Kirkbankwould have divined my wishes without being told them, and would haveintroduced Hartfield to Lesbia; and now the London season is drawing toa close, and Hartfield and Lesbia have never met. He hardly goesanywhere, I am told. He devotes himself exclusively to politics; and heis not in Lady Kirkbank's set. A terrible disappointment to me, Mary!'

'It is a pity, ' said Mary. 'Lesbia is so lovely. If Lord Hartfield werefancy-free he ought to fall in love with her, could they but meet. Ithought that in London all fashionable people knew each other, and werecontinually meeting. '

'It used to be so in my day, Mary. Almack's was a common ground, even ifthere had been no other. But now there are circles and circles, Ibelieve, rings that touch occasionally, but never break and mingle. I amafraid poor Georgie's set is not quite so nice as I could have wished. Yet Lesbia writes as if she were in raptures with her chaperon, and withall the people she meets. And then Georgie tells me that this Mr. Smithson whom Lesbia has refused is a very important personage, amillionaire, and very likely to be made a peer. '

'A new peer, ' said Mary, making a wry face. 'One would rather have anold commoner. I always fancy a newly-made peer must be like anewly-built house, glaring, and staring, and arid and uncongenial. '

'_C'est selon_, ' said Lady Maulevrier. 'One would not despise a Chathamor a Wellington because of the newness of his title; but a man who hasonly money to recommend him----'

Lady Maulevrier left her sentence unfinished, save by a shrug; whileMary made another wry face. She had that grand contempt for sordidwealth which is common to young people who have never known the want ofmoney. 

'I hope Lesbia will marry some one better than Mr. Smithson, ' she said. 

'I hope so too, dear; and yet do you know I have an idea that Lesbiameans to accept Mr. Smithson, or she would hardly have consented to goto his house for the Henley week. Here is a letter from Georgie Kirkbankwhich you will have to answer for me to-morrow--a letter full ofraptures about Mr. Smithson's place in Berkshire, Rood Hall. I rememberthe house well. I was there nearly fifty years ago, when the Heronvillesowned it; and now the Heronvilles are all dead or ruined, and this cityperson is master of the fine old mansion. It is a strange world, Mary. '

From that time forward Mary and her grandmother were on moreconfidential terms, and when, two days later, Fellside was startled intolife by the unexpected arrival of Lord Maulevrier and Mr. Hammond, thedowager seemed almost as pleased as her granddaughter at the arrival ofthe young men. 

As for Mary, she was almost beside herself with joy when she heard theirvoices from the lawn, and, rushing to the shrubbery, saw them walk upthe hill, as she had seen them on that first evening nearly a year ago, when John Hammond came as a stranger to Fellside. 

She tried to take her joy soberly, though her eyes were dancing withdelight, as she went to the porch to meet them. 

'What extraordinary young men you are, ' she said, as she emergedbreathless from her lover's embrace. 'The idea of your descending uponus without a moment's notice. Why did you not write or telegraph, thatyour rooms might be ready?'

'Am I to understand that all the spare rooms at Fellside are kept asdamp as at the bottom of the lake?' asked Maulevrier. 

'I did not think any preparation was necessary; but we can go back ifwe're not wanted, can't we, Jack?'

'You darling, ' cried Mary, hanging affectionately upon her brother'sarm. 'You _know_ I was only joking, you _know_ how enraptured I am tohave you. '

'To have _me_, only me, ' said Maulevrier. 'Jack doesn't count, Isuppose?'

'You know how glad I am, and that I want to hide my gladness, ' answeredMary, radiant and blushing like the rich red roses in the porch. 'Youmen are so vain. And now come and see grandmother, she will be cheeredby your arrival. She has been so good to me just lately, so sweet. '

'She might have been good and sweet to you all your life, ' said Hammond. 'I am not prepared to be grateful to her at a moment's notice for anycrumbs of affection she may throw you. '

'Oh but you must be grateful, sir; and you must love her and pity her, 'retorted Mary. 'Think how sadly she has suffered. We cannot be too kindto her, or too fond of her, poor dear. '

'Mary is right, ' said Hammond, half in jest and half in earnest. 'Whatwonderful instincts these young women have. '

'Come and see her ladyship; and then you must have dinner, just as youhad that first evening, ' said Mary. 'We'll act that first evening overagain, Jack; only you can't fall in love with Lesbia, as she isn'there. '

'I don't think I surrendered that first evening, Mary. Though I thoughtyour sister the loveliest girl I had ever seen. '

'And what did you think of me, sir? Tell me that, ' said Mary. 

'Shall I tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but thetruth?'

'Of course. '

'Then I freely confess that I did not think about you at all. You werethere--a pretty, innocent, bright young maiden, with big brown eyes andauburn hair; but I thought no more about you than I did about theGainsborough on the wall, which you very much resemble. '

'That is most humiliating, ' said Mary, pouting a little in the midst ofher bliss. 

'No, dearest, it is only natural, ' answered Hammond. 'I believe if allthe happy lovers in this world could be questioned, at least half ofthem would confess to having thought very little about each other atfirst meeting. They meet, and touch hands, and part again, and neverguess the mystery of the future, which wraps them round like a cloud, never say of each other, There is my fate; and then they meet again, andagain, as hazard wills, and never know that they are drifting to theirdoom. '

Mary rang bells and gave orders, just as she had done in that summergloaming a year ago. The young men had arrived just at the same hour, onthe stroke of nine, when the eight o'clock dinner was over and donewith; for a _tête-à-tête_ meal with Fräulein Müller was not a feast tobe prolonged on account of its felicity. Perhaps they had so contrivedas to arrive exactly at this hour. 

Lady Maulevrier received them both with extreme cordiality. But theyoung men saw a change for the worse in the invalid since the spring. The face was thinner, the eyes too bright, the flush upon the hollowcheek had a hectic tinge, the voice was feebler. Hammond was reminded ofa falcon or an eagle pining and wasting in a cage. 

'I am very glad to see you, Mr. Hammond, ' said Lady Maulevrier, givinghim her hand, and addressing him with unwonted cordiality. 'It was ahappy thought that brought you and Maulevrier here. When an old woman isas near the grave as I am her relatives ought to look after her. I shallbe glad to have a little private conversation with you to-morrow, Mr. Hammond, if you can spare me a few minutes. '

'As many hours, if your ladyship pleases, ' said Hammond. 'My time isentirely at your service. '

'Oh, no, you will want to be roaming about the hills with Mary, discussing your plans for the future. I shall not encroach too much onyour time. But I am very glad you are here. '

'We shall only trespass on you for a few days, ' said Maulevrier, 'just aflying visit. '

'How is it that you are not both at Henley?' asked Mary. 'I thought allthe world was at Henley. '

'Who is Henley? what is Henley?' demanded Maulevrier, pretendingignorance. 

'I believe Maulevrier has lost so much money backing, his college boaton previous occasions that he is glad to run away from the regatta thisyear, ' said Hammond. 

'I have a sister there, ' replied his friend. 'That's an all-sufficientexplanation. When a fellow's women-kind take to going to races andregattas it is high time for _him_ to stop away. '

'Have you seen Lesbia lately?' asked his grandmother. 

'About ten days ago. '

'And did she seem happy?'

Maulevrier shrugged his shoulders. 

'She was vacillating between the refusal or the acceptance of a millionof money and four or five fine houses. I don't know whether thatcondition of mind means happiness. I should call it an intermediatestate. '

'Why do you make silly jokes about serious questions? Do you thinkLesbia means to accept this Mr. Smithson?'

'All London thinks so. '

'And is he a good man?'

'Good for a hundred thousand pounds at half an hour's notice. '

'Is he worthy of your sister?'

Maulevrier paused, looked at his grandmother with a curious expression, and then replied--

'I think he is--quite. '

'Then I am content that she should marry him, ' said Lady Maulevrier, 'although he is a nobody. '

'Oh, but he is a very important nobody, a nobody who can get a peeragenext year, backed by the Maulevrier influence, which I suppose wouldcount for something. '

'Most of my friends are dead, ' said Lady Maulevrier, 'but there are afew survivors of the past who might help me. '

'I don't think there'll be any difficulty or doubt about the peerage. Smithson stumped up very handsomely at the last General Election, andthe Conservatives are not strong enough to be ungrateful. "These have, no master. "'

CHAPTER XXXII. 

WAYS AND MEANS. 

The three days that followed were among the happiest days of MaryHaselden's young life. Lady Maulevrier had become strangely indulgent. Asoftening influence of some kind had worked upon that haughty spirit, and it seemed as if her whole nature was changed--or it might be, Marythought, that this softer side of her character had always been turnedto Lesbia, while to Mary herself it was altogether new. Lesbia had beenthe peach on the sunny southern wall, ripening and reddening in a floodof sunshine; Mary had been the stunted fruit growing in a north-eastcorner, hidden among leaves, blown upon by cold winds green and hard andsour for lack of the warm bright light. And now Mary felt the sunshine, and grew glad and gay in those glowing beams. 

'Dear grandmother, I believe you are beginning to love me, ' she said, bending over to arrange the invalid's pillows in the July morning, thefresh mountain air blowing in upon old and young from the great openwindow, like a caress. 

'I am beginning to know you, ' answered Lady Maulevrier, gently. 

'I think it is the magic of love, Mary, that has sweetened and softenedyour nature, and endeared you to me. I think you have grown ever so muchsweeter a girl since your engagement. Or it may be that you were thesame always, and it was I who was blind. Lesbia was all in all to me. All in all--and now I am nothing to her, ' she murmured, to herselfrather than to Mary. 

'I am so proud to think that you see an improvement in me since myengagement, ' said Mary, modestly. 'I have tried very hard to improvemyself, so that I might be more worthy of him. '

'You are worthy, Mary, worthy of the best and the highest: and I believethat, although you are making what the world calls a very bad match, youare marrying wisely. You are wedding yourself to a life of obscurity;but what does that matter, if it be a happy life? I have known what itis to pursue the phantom fortune, and to find youth and hope andhappiness vanish from the pathway which I followed. '

'Dear grandmother, I wish you had been able to marry the man of yourchoice, ' answered Mary, tenderly. 

She was ready to weep over that wasted life of her grandmother's; toweep for that forced parting of true lovers, albeit the tragedy was halfa century old. 

'I should have been a happier woman and a better woman if fate had beenkind to me, Mary, ' answered Lady Maulevrier, gravely; 'and now that I amdaily drawing nearer the land of shadows, I will not stand in the way offaithful lovers. I have a fancy, Mary, that I have not many months tolive. '

'Only an invalid's fancy, ' said Mary, stooping down to kiss the paleforehead, so full of thought and care; 'only a morbid fancy, nursed inthe monotony of this quiet room. Maulevrier and Jack and I must findsome way of amusing you. '

'You will never amuse me out of that conviction, my dear. I can see theshadows lengthening and the sands running out. There are but a fewgrains left in the glass, Mary; and while those last I should like tosee you and Mr. Hammond married. I should like to feel that your fate issettled before I go. God knows what confusion and trouble may follow mydeath. '

This was said with a sharp ring of despair. 

'I am not going to leave you, grandmother, ' said Mary. 

'Not even for the man you love? You are a good girl, Mary. Lesbia hasforsaken me for a lesser temptation. '

'Grandmother, that is hardly fair. It was your own wish to have Lesbiapresented this season, ' remonstrated Mary, loyal to the absent. 

'True, my dear. I saw she was very tired of her life here, and I thoughtit was better. But I'm sorely afraid London has spoiled her. No, Mary, you can stay with me to the end, if you like. There is room enough foryou and your husband under this roof. I like this Mr. Hammond. His isthe only face that ever recalled the face of the dead. Yes, I like him;and although I know nothing about him except what Maulevrier tellsme--and that is of the scantiest--still I feel, somehow, that I cantrust him. Send your lover to me, Mary. I want to have a serious talkwith him. '

Mary ran off to obey, fluttered, blushing, and trembling. This idea ofmarriage in the immediate future was to be the last degree startling. Ayear had seemed a very long time; and she had been told that she and herlover must wait a year at the very least; so that vision of marriage hadseemed afar off in the dim shadowland of the future. She had been toldnothing by her lover of where she was to live, or what her life was tobe like when she was his wife. And now she was told that they were to bemarried almost immediately, that they were to live in the house whereshe had been reared, in that familiar land of hills and waters, thatthey were to roam about the dales and mountains together, they two, asman and wife. The whole thing was wonderful, bewildering, impossiblealmost. 

This was on the first morning after Mr. Hammond's arrival. Maulevrierhad gone off to hunt the Rotha for otters, and was up to his waist inthe water, no doubt, by this time. Hammond was strolling up and down theterrace in front of the house, looking at the green expanse ofFairfield, the dark bulk of Seat Sandal, the nearer crests of Helm Cragand Silver Howe. 

'You are to come to her ladyship directly, please, ' said Mary, going upto him. 

He took both her hands, drew her nearer to him, smiling down at her. They had been sitting side by side at the breakfast table half-an-hourago, he waiting upon her as she poured out the tea; yet by his tendergreeting and the delight in his face it might have been supposed theyhad not met for weeks. Such are the sweet inanities of love. 

'What does her ladyship want with me, darling? and why are youblushing?' he asked. 

'I--I think she is going to talk about--our--marriage, ' faltered Mary. 

'"Why, I will talk to her upon this theme until mine eyelids can nolonger wag, "' quoted Hammond. 'Take me to her, Mary. I hope her ladyshipis growing sensible. '

'She is very kind, very sweet. She has changed so much of late. '

Mary went with him to the door of her ladyship's sitting-room, and thereleft him to go in alone. She went to the library--that room over which agloomy shadow seemed to have hung ever since that awful winter afternoonwhen Mary found Lady Maulevrier lying on the floor in the twilight. Butit was a noble room, and in her studious hours Mary loved to sit here, walled round with books, and able to consult or dip into as many volumesas she liked. To-day, however, her mind was not attuned to study. Shesat with a volume of Macaulay open before her: but her thoughts were notwith the author. She was wondering what those two were saying in theroom overhead, and finding all attempts at reading futile, she let herhead sink back upon the cushion of her deep luxurious chair, and satwith her dreamy eyes fixed on the summer landscape and her thoughts withher lover. 

Lady Maulevrier looked very wan and tired in the bright morning light, when Mr. Hammond seated himself beside her sofa. The change in herappearance since the spring was more marked to-day than it had seemed tohim last night in the dim lamplight. Yes, there was need hero for aspeedy settlement of air earthly matters. The traveller was nearing themysterious end of the journey. The summons might come at any hour. 

'Mr. Hammond, I feel a confidence in your integrity, your goodness ofheart, and high principle which I never thought I could feel for a manof whom I know so little, ' began Lady Maulevrier, gravely. 'All I knowof you or your antecedents is what my grandson has told me--and I mustsay that the information so given has been very meagre. And yet Ibelieve in you--and yet I am going to trust you, wholly, blindly, implicitly--and I am going to give you my granddaughter, ever so muchsooner than I intended to give her to you. Soon, very soon, if you willhave her!'

'I will have her to-morrow, if there is time to get a special licence, 'exclaimed Hammond, bending down to kiss the dowager's hand, radiant withdelight. 

'You shall marry her very soon, if you like, marry her by speciallicence, in this room. I should like to see your wedding. I have astrange impatience to behold one of my granddaughters happily married, to know that her future is secure, that come weal, come woe, she is safein the protection of a brave true man. I am not scared by the idea of alittle poverty. That is often the best education for youth. But whileyou and I are alone we may as well talk about ways and means. Perhapsyou may hardly feel prepared to take upon yourself the burden of a wifethis year. '

'As well this year as next. I am not afraid. '

'Young men are so rash. However, as long as I live your responsibilitieswill be only nominal. This house will be Mary's home, and yours wheneveryou are able to occupy it. Of course I should not like to interfere withyour professional efforts--but if you are cultivating literature, --whybooks can be written at Fellside better than in London. This lakeland ofours has been the nursery of deathless writers. But I feel that my daysare numbered--and when I am dead--well death is always a cause of changeand trouble of some kind, and Mary will profit very little by my death. The bulk of my fortune is left to Lesbia. I have taught her to considerherself my heiress; and it would be unjust to alter my will. '

'Pray do not dream of such a thing--there is no need--Mary will be richenough, ' exclaimed Hammond, hastily. 

'With five hundred a year and the fruits of your industry, ' said LadyMaulevrier. 'Yes, yes, with modest aspirations and simple habits, peoplecan live happily, honourably, on a few hundreds a year. And if youreally mean to devote yourself to literature, and do not mind buryingyourself alive in this lake district until you have made your name as awriter, why the problem of ways and means will be easily solved. '

'Dear Lady Maulevrier, I am not afraid of ways and means. That is thelast question which need trouble you. I told Lesbia when I offeredmyself to her nearly a year ago, that if she would trust me, if shewould cleave to me, poverty should never touch her, sordid care shouldnever come near her dwelling. But she could not believe me. She was likeThomas the twin. I could show her no palpable security for mypromise--and she would not believe for the promise' sake. Mary trustedme; and Mary shall not regret her confidence. '

'Ah! it was different with Lesbia, ' sighed Lady Maulevrier. 'I taughther to be ambitious. She had been schooled to set a high price uponherself. I know she cared for you--very much, even. But she could notface poverty; or, if you like, I will say that she could not face anobscure existence--sacrifice her ambition, a justifiable ambition in oneso lovely, at the bidding of her first wooer. And then, again, she wastold that if she married you, she would for ever forfeit my regard. Youmust not blame her for obeying me. '

'I do not blame her; for I have won the peerless pearl--the jewel aboveall price--a perfect woman. And now, dear Lady Maulevrier, give me butyour consent, and I am off to York this afternoon, to interview theArchbishop, and get the special licence, which will allow me to wed mydarling here by your couch to-morrow afternoon. '

'I have no objection to your getting the licence immediately; but youmust let me write a cheque before you go. A special licence isexpensive--I believe it costs fifty pounds. '

'If it cost a thousand I should not think it dear. But I have a notionthat I shall be able to get the licence--cheap. You have made me wildwith happiness. '

'But you must not refuse my cheque. '

'Indeed I must, Lady Maulevrier. I am not quite such a pauper as youthink me. '

'But fifty pounds and the expenses of the journey; an outlay altogetherunexpected on your part. I begin to fear that you are very reckless. Aspendthrift shall never marry my granddaughter, with my consent. '

'I have never yet spent above half my income. '

Lady Maulevrier looked at him in wonderment and perplexity. Had theyoung man gone suddenly out of his mind, overwhelmed by the greatness ofhis bliss?

'But I thought you were poor, ' she faltered. 

'It has pleased you to think so, dear Lady Maulevrier; but I have morethan enough for all my wants, and I shall be able to provide a fittinghome for my Mary, when you can spare her to preside over her ownestablishment. '

'Establishment' seemed rather a big word, but Lady Maulevrier supposedthat in this case it meant a cook and housemaid, with perhaps later on aboy in buttons, to break windows and block the pantry sink with missingteaspoons. 

'Well, Mr. Hammond, this is quite an agreeable surprise, ' she said, after a brief silence. 'I really thought you were poor--as poor as ayoung man of gentlemanlike habits could be, and yet exist. Perhaps youwill wonder why, thinking this, I brought myself to consent to yourmarriage with my granddaughter. '

'It was a great proof of your confidence in me, or in Providence, 'replied Hammond, smiling. 

'It was no such thing. I was governed by a sentiment--a memory. It wasmy love for the dead which softened my heart towards you, John Hammond. '

'Indeed!' he murmured, softly. 

'There was but one man in this world I ever fondly loved--the love of myyouth--my dearest and best, in the days when my heart was fresh andinnocent and unambitious. That man was Ronald Hollister, afterwards LordHartfield. And yours is the only face that ever recalled his to my mind. It is but a vague likeness--a look now and then; but slight as thatlikeness is it has been enough to make my heart yearn towards you, asthe heart of a mother to her son. '

John Hammond knelt beside the sofa, and bent his handsome face over thepale face on the pillow, imprinting such a kiss as a son might havegiven. His eyes were full of tears. 

'Dear Lady Maulevrier, think that it is the spirit of the dead whichblesses you for your fidelity to old memories, ' he said, tenderly. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

BY SPECIAL LICENCE. 

After that interview with John Hammond all the arrangements for themarriage were planned by Lady Maulevrier with a calm and business-likecapacity which seemed extraordinary in one so frail and helpless. For alittle while after Hammond left her she remained lost in a reverie, deeply affected by the speech and manner of her granddaughter's lover, as he gave her that first kiss of duty and affection, the affection ofone who in that act declared the allegiance of a close and holy bond. 

Yes, she told herself, this marriage, humble as it might be, wasaltogether satisfactory. Her own feeling towards the man of hergranddaughter's choice was one of instinctive affection. Her heart hadyearned to him from the beginning of their acquaintance; but she hadschooled herself to hide all indications of her liking for him, she hadmade every effort to keep him at a distance, deeming his very merits asource of danger in a household where there were two freshimpressionable girls. 

And despite all her caution and care he had succeeded in winning one ofthose girls: and she was glad, very glad, that he had so succeeded inbaffling her prudence. And now it was agreeable to discover that he wasnot quite such a pauper as she had supposed him to be. 

Her heart felt lighter than it had been for some time when she set aboutplanning the wedding. 

The first step in the business was to send for James Steadman. He cameimmediately, grave and quiet as of old, and stood with his serious eyesbent upon the face of his mistress, awaiting her instructions. 

'Lady Mary is going to be married to Mr. Hammond, by special licence, inthis room, to-morrow afternoon, if it can be managed so soon, ' said LadyMaulevrier. 

'I am very glad to hear it, my lady, ' answered Steadman, without thefaintest indication of surprise. 

'Why are you so--particularly glad?' asked his mistress, looking at himsharply. 

'Because Lady Mary's presence in this house is a source of dangerto--your arrangements. She is very energetic and enterprising--veryshrewd--and--well, she is a woman--so I suppose there can be no harm insaying she is somewhat inquisitive. Things will be much safer here whenLady Mary is gone!'

'But she will not be gone--she is not going away--except for a verybrief honeymoon. I cannot possibly do without her. She has becomenecessary to my life, Steadman; and there is so little left of that lifenow, that there is no need for me to sacrifice the last gleams ofsunshine. The girl is very sweet, and loving, and true. I was not halffond enough of her in the past; but she has made herself very dear to meof late. There are many things in this life, Steadman, which we onlyfind out too late. '

'But, surely, my lady, Lady Mary will leave Fellside to go to a home ofher own after her marriage. '

'No, I tell you, Steadman, ' his mistress answered, with a touch ofimpatience; 'Lady Mary and her husband will make this house their homeso long as I am here. It will not be long. '

'God grant it may be very long before you cease to be mistress here, 'answered Steadman, with real feeling; and then in a lower tone he wenton: 'Pardon me, my lady, for the suggestion, but do you think it wise tohave Mr. Hammond here as a resident?'

'Why should it not be wise? Mr. Hammond is a gentleman. '

'True, my lady; but any accident, such as that which brought Lady Maryinto the old garden----'

'No such accident need occur--it must not occur, Steadman, ' exclaimedLady Maulevrier, with kindling eyes. She who had so long ruled supremewas not inclined to have any desire of hers questioned. 'There must havebeen gross carelessness that day--carelessness on your part, or thatstable door would never have been left open. The key ought to have beenin your possession It ought not to have been in the power of thestableman to open that door. As to Mr. Hammond's presence at Fellside, Icannot see any danger--any reason why harm should come of it, more thanof Lord Maulevrier's presence here in the past. '

'The two gentlemen are so different, my lady, ' said Steadman, with agloomy brow. 'His lordship is so light-hearted and careless, his mindtaken up with his horses, guns, dogs, fishing, shooting, and all kindsof sport. He is not a gentleman to take much notice of anything out ofhis own line. But this Mr. Hammond is different--a very thoughtfulgentleman, an inquiring mind, as one would say. '

'Steadman, you are getting cowardly in your old age. The danger--such arisk as you hint at, must be growing less and less every day. Afterforty years of security----'

'Security' echoed Steadman, with a monosyllabic laugh which expressedintense bitterness. 'Say forty years during which I have felt myselfupon the edge of a precipice every day and every hour. Security! Butperhaps you are right, my lady, I am growing old and nervous, a feeblerman than I was a few years ago, feebler in body and mind. Let Mr. Hammond make his home here, if it pleases your ladyship to have him. Solong as I am well and able to get about there can be no danger ofanything awkward happening. '

Lady Maulevrier looked alarmed. 

'But you have no expectation of falling ill, I hope, Steadman; you haveno premonition of any malady?'

'No, my lady, none--except the malady of old age. I feel that I am notthe man I once was, that is all. My brain is getting woolly, and mysight is clouded now and then. And if I were to fall ill suddenly----'

'Oh, it would be terrible, it would be a dire calamity! There is yourwife, certainly, to look after things, but----'

'My wife would do her best, my lady. She is a faithful creature, but sheis not--yes, without any unkindness I must say that Mrs. Steadman is nota genius!'

'Oh, Steadman, you must not fail me! I am horror-stricken at the mereidea, ' exclaimed Lady Maulevrier. 'After forty years--great God! itwould be terrible. Lesbia, Mary, Maulevrier! the great, malignant, babbling world outside these doors. I am hemmed round with perils. ForGod's sake preserve your strength. Take care of your health. You are mystrong rock. If you feel that there is anything amiss with you, or thatyour strength is failing, consult Mr. Horton--neglect no precaution. Thesafety of this house, of the family honour, hangs upon you. '

'Pray do not agitate yourself, my lady, ' entreated Steadman. 'I waswrong to trouble you with my fears. I shall not fail you, be sure. Although I am getting old, I shall hold out to the end. '

'The end cannot be very far off, ' said Lady Maulevrier, gloomily. 

'I thought that forty years ago, my lady. But you are right--the endmust be near now. Yes, it must be near. And now, my lady, your ordersabout the wedding. '

'It will take place to-morrow, as I told you, in this room. You will goto the Vicar and ask him to officiate. His two daughters will no doubtconsent to be Lady Mary's bridesmaids. You will make the request in myname. Perhaps the Vicar will call this afternoon and talk matters overwith me. Lady Mary and her husband will go to Cumberland for a briefhoneymoon--a week at most--and then they will come back to Fellside. Tell Mrs. Power to prepare the east wing for them. She will make one ofthe rooms into a boudoir for Lady Mary; and let everything be as brightand pretty as good taste can make it. She can telegraph to London forany new furniture that may be wanted to complete her arrangements. Andnow send Lady Mary to me. '

Mary came, fresh from the pine-wood, where she had been walking with herlover; her lover of to-day, her husband to-morrow. He had told her howhe was to start for York directly after luncheon, and to come back bythe earliest train next day, and how they two were to be marriedto-morrow afternoon. 

'It is more wonderful than any dream that I ever dreamt. ' exclaimedMary. 'But how can it be? I have not even a wedding gown. '

'A fig for wedding gowns! It is Mary I am to wed, not her gown. Were youclad like patient Grisel I should be content. Besides you have no end ofpretty gowns. And you are to be dressed for travelling, remember; for Iam going to carry you off to Lodore directly we are married, and youwill have to clamber up the rocky bed of the waterfall to see the sunset behind the Borrowdale hills in your wedding gown. It had better beone of those neat little tailor gowns which become you so well. '

'I will wear whatever you tell me, ' answered Mary. 'I shall always dressto please you, and not the outside world. '

'Will you, my Griselda. Some day you shall be dressed as Grisel was--

 "In a cloth of gold that brighte shone, With a coroune of many a riche stone. "

'Yes, you darling, when you are Lord Chancellor: and till that day comesI will wear tailor gowns, linsey-wolsey, anything you like, ' cried Mary, laughing. 

She ran to her grandmother's room, ineffably content, without a thoughtof trousseau or finery; but then Mary Haselden was one of those fewyoung women for whom life is not a question of fashionable raiment. 

'Mary, I am going to send you off upon your honeymoon to-morrowafternoon, ' said Lady Maulevrier, smiling at the bright, happy facewhich was bent over her. 'Will you come back and nurse a fretful oldwoman when the honeymoon is over?'

'The honeymoon will never be over, ' answered Mary, joyously 'Our weddedlife is to be one long honeymoon. But I will come back in a very fewdays, and take care of you. I am not going to let you do without me, nowthat you have learnt to love me. '

'And will you be content to stay with me when your husband has gone toLondon?'

'Yes, but I shall try to prevent his going very often, or staying verylong. I shall try to wind myself into his heart, so that there will bean aching void there when we are parted. '

Lady Maulevrier proceeded to tell Mary all her arrangements. Threehandsome rooms in the east wing, a bedroom, dressing-room, and boudoir, were to be made ready for the newly-married, couple. Fräulein Müller wasto be dismissed with a retiring pension, in order that Lady Mary and herhusband might feel themselves master and mistress in the lower part ofthe house. 

'And if your husband really means to devote himself to literature, hecan have no better workshop than the library I have put together, ' saidLady Maulevrier. 

'And no better adviser and guide than you, dear grandmother, you whohave read everything that has been written worth reading during the lasthalf century. '

'I have read a great deal, Mary, but I hardly know if I am any wiser onthat account, ' answered Lady Maulevrier. 'After all, however much ofother people's wisdom we may devour, it is in ourselves that we arethus, or thus. Our past follies rise up against us at the end of life;and we see how little our book-learning has helped us to stand againstfoolish impulses, against evil passions. "Be good, " Mary, "and let whowill be wise, " as the poet says. A faithful heart is your only anchor inthe stormy seas of life. My dear, I am so glad you are going to bemarried. '

'It is very sudden, ' said Mary. 

'Very sudden; yet in your case that does not much matter. You have quitemade up your mind about Mr. Hammond, I believe. '

'Made up my mind! I began to worship him the first night he came here. '

'Foolish child. Well, there is no deed to wait for settlements. You haveonly your allowance as Lord Maulevrier's daughter--a first charge on theestate, which cannot be made away with or anticipated, and of which nohusband can deprive you. '

'He shall have every sixpence of it, ' murmured Mary. 

'And Mr. Hammond, though he tells me he is better off than I supposed, can have nothing to settle. So there will be nothing forfeited by amarriage without settlements. '

Mary could not enter upon the question. It was even of less importancethan the wedding gown. 

The gong sounded for luncheon. 

'Steadman's dogcart is to take Mr. Hammond to the station at half-pasttwo, ' said Lady Maulevrier, 'so you had better go and give him hisluncheon. '

Mary needed no second bidding. She flew downstairs, and met her lover inthe hall. 

What a happy luncheon it was! Fräulein 'mounched, and mounched, andmounched, ' like the sailor's wife eating chestnuts: but those two loverslunched upon moonshine, upon each other's little words and little looks, upon their own ineffable bliss. They sat side by side, and helped eachother to the nicest thing's on the table, but neither could eat, andthey got considerably mixed in their way of eating, taking chutnee withstrawberry cream, and currant jelly with asparagus. What did it matter?Everything tasted of bliss. 

'You have had absolutely nothing to eat, ' said Mary, piteously, as thedogcart came grinding round upon the dry gravel. 

'Oh, I have done splendidly--thanks. I have just had a macaroon and someof that capital gorgonzola. God bless you, dearest, and _à revoir, àrevoir_ to-morrow. '

'And to-morrow I shall be Mary Hammond, ' cried Mary, clasping her hands. 'Isn't it capital fun?'

They were in the porch alone. The servants were all at dinner, save thegroom with the cart, Miss Müller was still munching at the well-spreadtable in the dining-room. 

John Hammond folded his sweetheart in his arms for one brief embrace;there was no time for loitering. In another moment he was springing intothe cart. A shake of the reins, and he was driving slowly down the steepavenue. 

'Life is full of partings, ' Mary said to herself, as she watched thelast glimpse of the dogcart between the trees down in the road below, 'but this one is to be very short, thank God. '

She wondered what she should do with herself for the rest of theafternoon, and finally, finding that she was not wanted by hergrandmother until afternoon tea, she set out upon a round of visits toher favourite cottagers, to bid them a long farewell as a spinster. 

'You'll be away a long time, I suppose, Lady Mary?' said one of herhumble friends; 'you'll be going to Switzerland or Italy, or some ofthose foreign parts where great ladies and gentlemen travel for theirhoneymoons?'

But Mary declared that she would be absent a week at longest She wascoming back to take care of her invalid grandmother; and she was notgoing to marry a great gentleman, but a man who would have to work forhis living. 

She went back to Fellside, and read the _Times_, and poured out LadyMaulevrier's tea, and sat on her low stool by the sofa, and the old andthe young woman were as happy and confidential together as if they hadbeen always the nearest and dearest to each other. Her ladyship had seenMiss Müller, and had informed that excellent person that her services atFellside would no longer be required after Lady Mary's marriage; butthat her devotion to her duties during the last fourteen years should berewarded by a pension which, together with her savings, would enable herto spend the rest of her days in repose. Miss Müller was duly grateful, and owned to a tender longing for the _Heimath_, and declared herselfready to retire from her post whenever her ladyship pleased. 

'I shall go back to Germany directly I leave you, and I shall live anddie there, unless I am wanted by one of my old pupils. But should LadyLesbia or Lady Mary need my services for their daughters, in days tocome, they can command me. For no one else will I abandon theFatherland. '

The Fräulein thus easily disposed of, Lady Mary felt that matrimonywould verily mean independence. And yet she was prepared to regard herhusband as her master. She meant to obey him in all meekness andreverence of spirit. 

She spent the rest of the afternoon and the whole of the evening in hergrandmother's sitting-room, dining _tête-à-tête_ with the invalid forthe first time since her illness. Lady Maulevrier talked much of Mary'sfuture, and of Lesbia's; but it was evident that she was full ofuneasiness upon the latter subject. 

'I don't know what Lesbia is going to do with her life, ' she said, witha sigh. 'Her letters tell me of nothing but gowns and parties; andGeorgina Kirkbank can only expatiate upon Mr. Smithson's wealth, and thegrand position he is going to occupy by-and-by. I should like to seeboth my granddaughters married before I die--yes, I should like to seeLesbia's fate secure, if she were to be only Lady Lesbia Smithson. '

'She cannot fail to make a good match, grandmother, ' said Mary. 

'I am beginning to lose faith in her future, ' answered Lady Maulevrier. 'There seems to be a fatality about the career of particularlyattractive girls. They are too confident of their power to succeed inlife. They trifle with fortune, fascinate the wrong people, and keep theright people at arm's length. I think if I had been Lesbia's guide insociety her first season would have counted for more than it is likelyto count for under Lady Kirkbank's management. I should have awakenedLesbia from the dream of dress and dancing--the mere butterfly life of agirl who never looks beyond the present moment. But now go and giveorders about your packing, Mary. It is past ten, and Clara had betterpack your trunks early to-morrow morning. '

Clara was a modest Easedale damsel, who had been promoted to be LadyMary's personal attendant, when the more mature Kibble had gone awaywith Lady Lesbia. Mary required very little waiting upon, but she wasnot the less glad to have a neat little smiling maiden devoted to herservice, ready to keep her rooms neat and trim, to go on errands to thecottagers, to arrange the flowers in the old china bowls, and to makeherself generally useful. 

It seemed a strange thing to have to furnish a trousseau from thewardrobe of everyday life--a trousseau in which nothing, excepthalf-a-dozen pairs of gloves, a pair of boots, and a few odds and endsof lace and ribbons would be actually new. Mary thought very little ofthe matter, but the position of things struck her maid as altogetherextraordinary and unnatural. 

'You should have seen the things Miss Freeman had, Lady Mary, ' exclaimedthe damsel, 'the daughter of that cotton-spinning gentleman fromManchester, who lives at The Gables--you should have seen her new gownsand things when she was married. Mrs. Freeman's maid keeps company withmy brother James--he's in the stables at Freeman's, you know, LadyMary--and she asked me in to look at the trousseau two days before thewedding. I never saw such beautiful dresses--such hats--suchbonnets--such jackets and mantles. It was like going into one of thosegrand shops at York, and having all the things in the shop pulled outfor one to look at--such silks and satins--and trimmed--ah! how thosedresses was trimmed. The mystery was how the young lady could ever getherself into them, or sit down when she'd got one of them on. '

'Instruments of torture, Clara. I should hate such gowns, even if I weregoing to marry a rich man, as I suppose Miss Freeman was. '

'Not a bit of it, Lady Mary. She was only going to marry a Bolton doctorwith a small practice; but her maid told me she was determined she'd getall she could out of her pa, in case he should lose all his money and gobankrupt. They said that trousseau cost two thousand pounds. '

'Well, Clara, I'd rather have my tailor gowns, in which I can scrambleabout the ghylls and crags just as I like. ' There was a pale yellowIndian silk, smothered with soft yellow lace, which would serve for awedding gown; for indifferent as Mary was to the great clothes question, she wanted to look in some wise as a bride. A neat chocolate-colouredcloth, almost new from the tailor's hands, with a little cloth toque tomatch, would do for the wedding journey. All the details of Mary'swardrobe were the perfection of neatness. She had grown very neat andcareful in her habits since her engagement, anxious to be industriousand frugal in all things--a really handy housewife for a hard-workedbread-winner. And now she was told that Mr. Hammond was not so poor asshe had thought. She would not be obliged to stint herself, and manage, as she had supposed when she went about among the cottagers, takinglessons in household economy. It was almost a disappointment. 

She and Clara finished the packing that night, Mary being much tooexcited for the possibility of sleep. There was not much to pack, onlyone roomy American trunk--a trunk which held everything--a Gladstone bagfor things that might possibly be wanted in a hurry, and a handsomedressing-bag, Maulevrier's last birthday gift to his sister. 

Mary had received no gifts from her lover, save the plain goldengagement ring, and a few new books sent straight from the publishers. Clara took care to inform her young mistress that Miss Freeman'ssweetheart had sent her all manner of splendid presents, scent bottles, photograph albums, glove boxes, and other things of beauty, albeit hismeans were supposed to be _nil_. It was evident that Clara disapprovedof Mr. Hammond's conduct in this matter, and even suspected him ofmeanness. 

'He did ought to have sent you his photograph, Lady Mary, ' said Clara, with a reproachful air. 

'I daresay he would have done so, Clara, but he has been photographedonly once in his life. '

'Lawk a mercy, Lady Mary! Why most young gentlemen have themselvesphotographed in every new place they go to; and as Mr. Hammond has beena traveller, like his lordship, I made sure he'd have been photographedin knickerbockers and every other kind of attitude. '

Mary had not refrained from asking for her lover's portrait; and he hadtold her that he had carefully abstained from having his countenancereproduced in any manner since his fifteenth year, when he had beenphotographed at his mother's desire. 

'The present fashion of photographs staring out of every stationer'swindow makes a man's face public property, ' he told Mary. 'I don't wantevery street Arab in London to recognise me. '

'But you are not a public man, ' said Mary. 'Your photograph would not bein all the windows; although, in my humble opinion, you are a veryhandsome man. '

Hammond blushed, laughed, and turned the conversation, and Mary had toexist without any picture of her lover. 

'Millais shall paint me in his grand Reynolds manner by-and-by, ' he toldMary. 

'Millais! Oh, Jack! When will you and I be able to give a thousand or sofor a portrait?'

'Ah, when, indeed? But we may as well enjoy our day-dreams, likeAlnaschar, without smashing our basket of crockery. '

And now Mary, who had managed to exist without the picture, was to havethe original. He was to be all her own--her master, her lord, her love, after to-morrow--unto eternity, in life, and in the grave, and in thedim hereafter beyond the grave, they two were to be one. In heaven therewas to be no marrying or giving in marriage, Mary was told; but her ownheart cried aloud to her that the happily wedded must remain linked inheaven. God would not part the blessed souls of true lovers. 

A short sleep, broken by happy dreams, and it was morning, Mary'swedding morning, fairest of summer days, July in all her beauty. Marywent to her grandmother's room, and waited upon her at breakfast. 

Lady Maulevrier was in excellent spirits. 

'Everything is arranged, Mary, I have had a telegram from Hammond, whohas got the licence, and will come at half-past one. At three the Vicarwill come to marry you, his daughters, Katie and Laura, acting as yourbridesmaids. '

'Bridesmaids!' exclaimed Mary. 'I forgot all about bridesmaids. Am Ireally to have any?'

'You will have two girls of your own age to bear you company, at anyrate. I have asked dear old Horton to be present; and he, Fräulein, andMaulevrier will complete the party. It will not be a brilliant wedding, Mary, or a costly ceremonial, except for the licence. '

'And poor Jack will have to pay for that, ' said Mary, with a long face. 

'Poor Jack refused to let me pay for it, ' answered Lady Maulevrier. 'Heis vastly independent, and I fear somewhat reckless. '

'I like him for his independence; but he mustn't be reckless, ' saidMary, severely. 

He was to be the master in all things! and yet she was to exercise arestraining influence, she was to guard him against his own weaknesses, his too generous impulses. Her voice was to be the voice of prudence. This is how Mary understood the marriage tie. 

Under ordinary conditions Mary would have been in the avenue, lying inwait for her lover, eager to get the very first glimpse of him when hearrived, to see him before he had brushed the dust of the journey fromhis raiment. But to-day she hung back. She stayed in her grandmother'sroom and sat beside the sofa, shy, and even a little downcast. Thislover who was so soon to be transformed into a husband was a formidablepersonage. She dare not rush forth to greet him. Perhaps he had changedhis mind by this time, and was sorry he had ever asked her to marry him. Perhaps he thought he was being hustled into a marriage. He had beentold that he was to wait at least a year. And now, all in a moment, hewas sent off to get a special licence. How could she be quite sure thathe liked this kind of treatment?

If there is any faith to be placed in the human countenance, Mr. Hammondwas in no wise an unwilling bridegroom; for his face teamed with happylight as he came into the room presently, followed by an elderly manwith grey hair and whiskers, and in a strictly professional frock coat, whom the butler announced as Mr. Dorncliffe. Lady Maulevrier lookedstartled, somewhat offended even at this intrusion, and she gave Mr. Dorncliffe a very haughty salutation, which was almost more crushingthan no salutation at all. 

Mary stood up by her grandmother's sofa, and looked rather frightened. 

'Dear Lady Maulevrier, ' said Hammond, 'I ventured to telegraph to mylawyer to meet me at York last night, and come on here with me thismorning. He has prepared a settlement, which I should like you to hearhim read, and which he will explain to you, if necessary, while Mollyand I go for a stroll in the grounds. '

He had never called her Molly before. He put his arm round her with aproud air of possession, even under her grandmother's eyes. And shenestled close up to his side, forgetting everything but the delight ofbelonging to him. 

They went downstairs, and through the billiard room to the terrace, andfrom the terrace to the tennis lawn, where John Hammond sat readingHeine nearly a year ago, just before he proposed to Lesbia. 

'Do you remember that day?' asked Mary, looking at him, solemnly. 

'I remember every day and every hour we have spent together since I beganto love you, ' answered Hammond. 

'Ah, but this was before you began to love me, ' said Mary, with apiteous little grimace. 'This was while you were loving Lesbia as hardas ever you could. Don't you remember the day you proposed to her--alovely summer day like this, the lake just as blue, the sun shining uponFairfield just as it is shining now, and you sat there readingHeine--those sweet, sweet verses, that seemed made of sighs and tears;and every now and then you paused and looked up at Lesbia, and there wasmore love in your eyes than in all Heine's poetry, though that brimsover with love. '

'But how did you know all this, Molly? You were not here. '

'I was not very far off. I was behind those bushes, watching andlistening. I knew you were in love with Lesbia, and I thought youdespised me, and I was very, very wretched; and I listened afterwardswhen you proposed to her there--behind the pine trees--and I hated herfor refusing you, and I am afraid I hated you for proposing to her. '

'When I ought to have been proposing to my Molly, blind fool that Iwas, ' said Hammond, smiling tenderly at her, smiling, though his eyeswere dim with tears. 'My own sweet love, it was a terrible mistake, amistake that might have cost me the happiness of a lifetime. But Fatewas very good to me, and let me have my Mary after all. And now let ussit down under the old red beech and talk till it is time to go and getready for our wedding. I suppose one ought to brush one's hair and washone's hands for that kind of thing, even when the function is not on aceremonious scale. '

Mary laughed. 

'I have a prettier gown than this to be married in, although it isn't awedding gown, ' she said. 

'Oh, by-the-by, I have something for you, ' said her lover, 'something inthe way of ornaments, but I don't suppose you'd care to wear themto-day. I'll run and get them. '

He went back to the house, leaving Mary sitting on the rustic benchunder the fine old copper beech, a tree that had been standing longbefore Lady Maulevrier enlarged the old stone house into a statelyvilla. He returned in a few minutes, bringing a morocco bag about thesize of those usually carried by lawyers or lawyers' clerks. 

'I don't think I have given you anything since we were engaged, Mary, 'he said, as he seated himself by her side. 

Mary blushed, remembering how Clara, the maid, had remarked upon thisfact. 

'You gave me my ring, ' she said, looking down at the massive band ofgold, 'and you have given me ever so many delightful books. '

'Those were very humble gifts, Molly: but to-day I have brought you awedding present. '

He opened the bag and took out a red morocco case, and then half-a-dozenmore red morocco cases of various shapes and sizes. The first lookednew, but the others were old-fashioned and passing shabby, as if theyhad been knocking about brokers' shops for the last quarter of acentury. 

'There is my wedding gift, Mary, ' he said, handing her the new case. 

It contained an exquisitely painted miniature of a very beautiful woman, in a large oval locket set with sapphires. 

'You have asked me for my portrait, dearest, ' he said. 'I give you mymother's rather than my own, because I loved her as I never thought tolove again, till I knew you. I should like you to wear that locketsometimes, Mary, as a kind of link between the love of the past and thelove of the present. Were my mother living, she would welcome andcherish my bride and my wife. She is dead, and you and she can nevermeet on earth: but I should like you to be familiar with the face whichwas once the light of my life. '

Mary's eyes filled with tears as she gazed at the face in the miniature. It was the portrait of a woman of about thirty--a face of exquisiterefinement, of calm and pensive beauty. 

'I shall treasure this picture always, above all things, ' she said: but'why did you have it set so splendidly, Jack? No gems were needed togive your mother's portrait value in my eyes. '

'I know that, dearest, but I wanted to make the locket worth wearing. And now for the other cases. The locket is your lover's free gift, andis yours to keep and to bequeath to your children. These are heirlooms, and yours only during your husband's lifetime. '

He opened one of the largest cases, and on a bed of black velvet Marybeheld a magnificent diamond necklace, with a large pendant. He openedanother and displayed a set of sprays for the hair. Another containedearrings, another bracelets, the last a tiara. 

'What are they for?' gasped Mary. 

'For my wife to wear. '

'Oh, but I could never wear such things, ' she exclaimed, with an ideathat these must be stage jewellery. 'They are paste, of course--verybeautiful for people who like that kind of thing--but I don't. '

She felt deeply shocked at this evidence of bad taste on the part of herlover. How the things flashed in the sunshine--but so did the crystaldrops in the old Venetian girondoles. 

'No, Molly, they are not paste; they are Brazilian diamonds, and, asMaulevrier would say, they are as good as they make them. They areheirlooms, Molly. My dear mother wore them in her summer-tide of weddedhappiness. My grandmother wore them for thirty years before her; mygreat grandmother wore them at the Court of Queen Charlotte, and theywere worn at the Court of Queen Anne. They are nearly two hundred yearsold; and those central stones in the tiara came out of a cap worn by theGreat Mogul, and are the largest table diamonds known. They arehistoric, Mary. '

'Why, they must be worth a fortune. '

'They are valued at something over seventy thousand pounds. '

'But why don't you sell them?' exclaimed Mary, opening her eyes widewith surprise, 'they would give you a handsome income. '

'They are not mine to sell, Molly. Did not I tell you that they areheirlooms? They are the family jewels of the Countesses of Hartfield. '

'Then what are you?'

'Ronald Hollister, Earl of Hartfield, and your adoring lover!'

Mary gave a cry of surprise, a cry of distress even. 

'Oh, that is too dreadful!' she exclaimed; 'grandmother will be sounhappy. She had set her heart upon Lesbia marrying Lord Hartfield, theson of the man _she_ loved. '

'I got wind of her wish more than a year ago, ' said Hartfield, 'fromyour brother; and he and I hatched a little plot between us. He told meLesbia was not worthy of his friend's devotion--told me that she wasvain and ambitious--that she had been educated to be so. I determined tocome and try my fate. I would try to win her as plain John Hammond. Ifshe was a true woman, I told myself, vanity and ambition would be blownto the four winds, provided I could win her love. I came, I saw her; andto see was to love her. God knows I tried honestly to win her; but Ihad sworn to myself that I would woo her as John Hammond, and I did notwaver in my resolution--no, not when a word would have turned the scale. She liked me, I think, a little; but she did not like the notion of anobscure life as the wife of a hardworking professional man. The pompsand vanities of this world had it against love or liking, and she gaveme up. I thank God that the pomps and vanities prevailed; for this happychance gave me Mary, my sweet Wordsworthian damsel, found, like theviolet or the celandine, by the wayside, in Wordsworth's own country. '

'And you are Lord Hartfield!' exclaimed Mary, still lost in wonder, andwith no elation at this change in the aspect of her life. 'I always knewyou were a great man. But poor grandmother! It will be a dreadfuldisappointment to her. '

'I think not. I think she has learned my Molly's value; rather late, asI learned it; and I believe she will be glad that one of hergranddaughters should marry the son of her first lover. Let us go toher, love, and see if she is reconciled to the idea, and whether thesettlement is ready for execution. Dorncliffe and his clerk were workingat it half through the night. '

'What is the good of a settlement?' asked Mary. 'I'm sure I don't wantone. '

'Lady Hartfield must not be dependent upon her husband's whim orpleasure for her milliner's bill or her private charities, ' answered herlover, smiling at her eagerness to repudiate anything business-like. 

'But I would rather be dependent on your pleasure. I shall never haveany milliner's bills; and I am sure you would never deny me money forcharity. '

'You shall not have to ask me for it, except when you have exceeded yourpin-money I hope you will do that now and then, just to afford me thepleasure of doing you a favour. '

'Hartfield, ' repeated Mary, to herself, as they went towards the house;'shall I have to call you Hartfield? I don't like the name nearly sowell as Jack. '

'You shall call me Jack for old sake's sake, ' said Hartfield, tenderly. 

'How did you think of such a name as Jack?'

'Rather an effort of genius, wasn't it. Well, first and foremost I waschristened Ronald John--all the Hollisters are christened John--name ofthe founder of the race; and, secondly, Maulevrier and I were alwaysplain Mr. Morland and Mr. Hammond in our travels, and always called eachother Jack and Jim. '

'How nice!' said Mary; 'would you very much mind our being plain Mr. AndMrs. Hammond, while we are on our honeymoon trip?'

'I should like it of all things. '

'So should I. People will not take so much notice of us, and we can dowhat we like, and go where we like. '

'Delightful! We'll even disguise ourselves as Cook's tourists, if youlike. I would not mind. '

They were at the door of Lady Maulevrier's sitting room by this time. They went in, and were greeted with smiles. 

'Let me look at the Countess of Hartfield that is to be in half anhour, ' said her ladyship. 'Oh, Mary, Mary, what a blind idiot I havebeen, and what a lucky girl you are! I told you once that you were wiserthan Lesbia, but I little thought how much wiser you had been. '

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

'OUR LOVE WAS NEW, AND THEN BUT IN THE SPRING. '

Henley Regatta was over. It had passed like a tale that is told; likeEpsom and Ascot, and all the other glories of the London season. Happythose for whom the glory of Henley, the grace of Ascot, the fever ofEpsom, are not as weary as a twice-told tale, bringing with them onlybitterest memories of youth that has fled, of hopes that have withered, of day-dreams that have never been realised. There are some to whom thatmad hastening from pleasure to pleasure, that rush from scene to sceneof excitement, that eager crowding into one day and night of gaietieswhich might fairly relieve the placid monotony of a month's domesticity, a month's professional work--some there are to whom this Vanity Fair isas a treadmill or the turning of a crank, the felon's deepesthumiliation, purposeless, unprofitable, labour. 

The regatta was over, and Lady Kirkbank and her charge hastened back toArlington Street. Theirs was the very first departure; albeit Mr. Smithson pleaded hard for a prolongation of their visit. The weather wasexceptionally lovely, he urged. Water picnics were delightful justnow--the banks were alive with the colour of innumerable wild flowers, as beautiful and more poetical than the gorgeous flora of the Amazon orthe Paraguay river. And Lady Lesbia had developed a genius for punting;and leaning against her pole, with her hair flying loose and sleevesrolled up above the elbow, she was a subject for canvas or marble, Millais or Adams Acton. 

'When we are in Italy I will have her modelled, just in that attitude, and that dress, ' said Mr. Smithson. 'She will make a lovely companionfor my Reading Girl: one all repose and reverie, the other all life andaction. Dear Lady Kirkbank, you really must stay for another week atleast. Why go back to the smoke and sultriness of town? Here we canalmost live on the water; and I will send to London for some people tomake music for us in the evenings, or if you miss your little game at"Nap, " we will play for an hour or so every night. It shall not be myfault if my house is not pleasant for you. '

'Your house is charming, and I shall be here only too often in the daysto come; you will have more than enough of me _then_, I promise you, 'replied Georgie, with her girlish laugh, 'but we must not stop a daylonger now. People would begin to talk. Besides, we have engagements forevery hour of the week that is coming, and for a fortnight after: andthen I suppose I ought to take Lesbia to the North to see hergrandmother, and to discuss all the preparations and arrangements forthis very serious event in which you and Lesbia are to be the chiefperformers. '

'I shall be very glad to go to Grasmere myself, and to make theacquaintance of my future grandmother-in-law, ' said Mr. Smithson. 

'You will be charmed with her. She belongs to the old school--somethingof a fossil, perhaps, but a very dignified fossil. She has grown old ina rustic seclusion, and knows less of _our_ world than a mother abbess;but she has read immensely, and is wonderfully clever. I am bound totell you that she has very lofty ideas about her granddaughter; and Ibelieve she will only be reconciled to Lesbia's marriage with a commonerby the notion that you are sure of a peerage. I ventured to hint as muchin my letter to Lady Maulevrier yesterday. '

A shade of sullenness crept over Horace Smithson's visage. 

'I should hope that such settlements as I am in a position to make willconvince Lady Maulevrier that I am a respectable suitor for hergranddaughter, ex peerage, ' he said, somewhat haughtily. 

'My dear Smithson, did I not tell you that poor Lady Maulevrier is acentury behind the times, ' exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, with an aggrievedlook. 'If she were one of _us_, of course she would know that wealth isthe paramount consideration, and that you are quite the best match ofthe season. But she is dreadfully _arriérée_, poor dear thing; and shemust have amused herself with the day-dream of seeing Lesbia a duchess, or something of that kind. I shall tell her that Lesbia can be one ofthe queens of society without having strawberry leaves on her coachpanels, and that my dear friend Horace Smithson is a much better matchthan a seedy duke. So don't look cross, my dear fellow; in me you have afriend who will never desert you. '

'Thanks, ' said Smithson, inwardly resolving that, so soon as thislittle transaction of his marriage were over, he would see as little ofGeorgie Kirkbank and her cotton frocks and schoolgirl hats as barecivility would allow. 

He had promised her that she should be the richer by a neat littlebundle of fat and flourishing railway stock when his happiness wassecured, and he was not going to break his promise. But he did not meanto give George and Georgie free quarters at Rood Hall, or at Cowes, orDeauville; and he meant to withdraw his wife altogether from LadyKirkbank's pinchbeck set. 

What were Lesbia's feelings in the early morning after the last day ofthe regatta, as she slowly paced the lavender walk in the Ladies'Garden, alone?--for happily Mr. Smithson was not so early a riser as theGrasmere-bred damsel, and she had this fresh morning hour to herself. Ofwhat was she thinking as she paced slowly up and down the broad gravelwalk, between two rows of tall old bushes, on which masses of purpleblossom stood up from the pale grey foliage, silvery where the summerbreeze touched it?

Well, she was thinking first what a grand old place Rood Hall was, andthat it was in a manner hers henceforward. She was to be mistress ofthis house, and of other houses, each after its fashion as perfect asRood Hall. She was to have illimitable money at her command, to spendand give away as she liked. She, who yesterday had been tortured by theidea of owing a paltry three thousand pounds, was henceforward to counther thousands by the hundred. Her senses reeled before that dazzlingvision of figures with rows of ciphers after them, one cipher more orless meaning the difference between thousands and millions. Everybodyhad agreed in assuring her that Mr. Smithson was inordinately rich. Everybody had considered it his or her business to give her informationabout the gentleman's income; clearly implying thereby that in theopinion of society Mr. Smithson's merits as a suitor were a question ofso much bullion. 

Could she doubt--she who had learned in one short season to know whatthe world was made of and what it most valued--could she, steeped to thelips in the wisdom of Lady Kirkbank's set, doubt for an instant that shewas making a better match in the eye of society, than if she had marrieda man of the highest lineage in all England, a peer of the highest rank, without large means? She knew that money was power, that a man mightbegin life as a pot-boy or a greengrocer, a knacker or a dustcontractor, and climb to the topmost pinnacles, were he only richenough. She knew that society would eat such a man's dinners and danceat his wife's balls, and pretend to think him an altogether exceptionalman, make believe to admire him for his own sake, to think his wife mostbrilliant among women, if he were only rich enough. And could she doubtthat society would bow down to her as Lady Lesbia Smithson? She hadlearned a great deal in her single season, and she knew how society wasinfluenced and governed, almost as well as Sir Robert Walpole knew howhuman nature could be moulded and directed at the will of a shrewddiplomatist. She knew that in the fashionable world every man and everywoman, every child even, has his or her price, and may be bought andsold at pleasure. She had her price, she, Lesbia, the pearl of Grasmere;and the price having been fairly bidden she had surrendered to thebidder. 

'I suppose I always meant to marry him, ' she thought, pausing in herpromenade to gaze across the verdant landscape, a fertile vale, againsta background of low hills. All the landscape, to the edge of thosehills, belonged to Mr. Smithson. 'Yes, I must have meant to give way atlast, or I should hardly have tolerated his attentions. It would havebeen a pity to refuse such a place as this; and, he is quitegentlemanlike; and as I have done with all romantic ideas, I do not seewhy I should not learn to like him very much. '

She dismissed the idea of Smithson lightly, with this conclusion, whichshe believed very virtuous; and then as she resumed her walk herthoughts reverted to the Park Lane Palace. 

'I hardly know whether I like it, ' she mused languidly; 'beautiful as itis, it is only a reproduction of bygone splendour, and it is painfullyexcruciating now. For my own part I would much rather have the shabbiestold house which had belonged to one's ancestors, which had come to oneas a heritage, by divine right as it were, instead of being bought withnewly made money. To my mind it would rank higher. Yet I doubt ifanybody nowadays sets a pin's value upon ancestors. People ask, Who ishe? but they only mean, How much has he? And provided a person is notabsolutely in trade, not actually engaged in selling soap, or matches, or mustard, society doesn't care a straw how his money has been made. The only secondary question is, How long will it last? And that is ofcourse important. '

Musing thus, wordly wisdom personified, the maiden looked up and saw herlover entering at the light little iron gate which gave entrance to thisfeminine Eden. She went to meet him, looking all simplicity andfreshness in her white morning gown and neat little Dunstable hat. Itseemed to him as he gazed at her almost as if this delicate, sylph-likebeauty were some wild white flower of the woods personified. 

She gave him her hand graciously, but he drew her to his breast andkissed her, with the air of a man who was exercising an indisputableright. She supposed that it was his right, and she submitted, butreleased herself as quickly as possible. 

'My dearest, how lovely you look in this morning light, ' he exclaimed, 'while all the other women are upstairs making up their faces to meetthe sun, and we shall see every shade of bismuth by-and-by, from palemauve to purple. '

'It is very uncivil of you to say such a thing of your guests, 'exclaimed Lesbia. 

'But they all indulge in bismuth--you must be quite aware of that. Theycall the stuff by different names--Blanc Rosati, Crême de l'Imperatrice, Milk of Beauty, Perline, Opaline, Ivorine--but it means bismuth all thesame. Expose your fashionable beauty to the fumes of sewer-gas, and thatdazzling whiteness would turn to a dull brown hue, or even black. Thankheaven, my Lesbia wears real lilies and roses. Have you been here long?'

'About half an hour'

'I only wish I had known. I should not have dawdled so long over mydressing. '

'I am very glad you did not know, ' Lesbia answered coolly. 

'Do you suppose I never want to be alone? Life in London is perpetualturmoil; one's eyes grow weary with ever-moving crowds, one's ears achewith trying to distinguish one voice among the buzz of voices. '

'Then why go back to town? Why go back to the turmoil and the treadmill?It is only a kind of treadmill, after all, though we choose to call itpleasure. Stay here, Lesbia, and let us live upon the river, and amongthe flowers, ' urged Smithson, with as romantic an air as if he had neverheard of contango, or bulling and bearing; and yet only half an hourago, while his valet was shaving him, he was debating within himselfwhether he should be bear or bull in his influence upon certain stock. 

It was supposed that he never went near the city, that he had shaken thedust of Lombard Street and the House off his shoes, that his fortune wasmade, and he had no further need of speculation. Yet the proverb holdsgood with the stock-jobber. 'He who has once drunk will drink again. ' Ofthat fountain there is no satiety. 

'Stay and hear the last of the nightingales, ' he murmured; 'we are famousfor our nightingales. '

'I wonder you don't order a _fricassée_ of their tongues, like thatloathsome person in Roman history. '

'I hope I shall never resemble any loathsome person. Why can you notstay?'

'Why, because it is not etiquette, Lady Kirkbank says. '

'Lady Kirkbank, eh? _la belle farce_, Lady Kirkbank standing out foretiquette. '

'Don't laugh at my chaperon, sir. Upon what rock can a poor girl lean ifyou undermine her faith in her chaperon, sir. '

'I hope you will have a better guardian before you are a month older. Imean to be a very strong rock, Lesbia. You do not know how firmly Ishall stand between you and all the perils of society. You have been butpoorly guarded hitherto. '

'You talk as if you mean to be an abominable tyrant, ' said Lesbia. 'Ifyou don't take care I shall change my mind, and recall my promise. '

'Not on that account, Lesbia: every woman likes a man who stands up forhis own. It is only your invertebrate husband whose wife drifts into thedivorce court. I mean to keep and hold the prize I have won. When is itto be, dearest--our wedding day?'

'Not for ages, I hope--some time next summer, at the earliest. '

'You would not be so cruel as to keep me waiting a year?'

'Why not?'

'You would not ask that if you loved me. '

'You are asking too much, ' said Lesbia, with a flash of defiance. 'Therehas been nothing said about love yet. You asked me to be your wife, andI said yes--meaning that at some remote period such a thing might be. '

She knew that the man was her slave--slave to her beauty, slave to hersuperior rank--and she was determined not to lessen the weight of hischain by so much as a feather. 

'Did not that promise imply something like love?' he asked, earnestly. 

'Perhaps it implied a little gratitude for your devotion, which I haveneither courted nor encouraged a little respect for your talents, yourperseverance--a little admiration for your wonderful success in life. Perhaps love may follow these sentiments, naturally, easily, if you arevery patient; but if you talk about our being married before next year, you will simply make me hate you. '

'Then I will say very little, except to remind you that there is noearthly reason why we should not be married next month. October andNovember are the best months for Rome, and I heard you say last nightyou were pining to see Rome. '

'What then--cannot Lady Kirkbank take me to Rome?'

'And introduce you to the rowdiest people in the city, ' cried Mr. Smithson. 'Lesbia, I adore you. It is the dream of my life to be yourhusband: but if you are going to spend a winter in Italy with LadyKirkbank, I renounce my right, I surrender my hope. You will not be thewife of my dreams after that. '

'Do you assert a right to control my life during our engagement?'

'Some little right; above all, the privilege of choosing your friends. And that is one reason why I most fervently desire our marriage shouldnot be delayed. You would find it difficult, impossible perhaps, to getout of Lady Kirkbank's claws while you are single; but once my wife, that amiable old person can be made to keep her distance. '

'Lady Kirkbank's claws! What a horrible way in which to speak of afriend. I thought you adored Lady Kirkbank. '

'So I do. We all adore her, but not as a guide for youth. As a specimenof the elderly female of the latter half of the nineteenth century, sheis perfect. Such gush, such juvenility, such broad views, such an utterabsence of starch; but as a lamp for the footsteps of girlhood--no_there_ we must pause. '

'You are very ungrateful. Do you know that poor Lady Kirkbank has beenmost strenuous in your behalf?'

'Oh, yes, I know that. '

'And you are not grateful?'

'I intend to be very grateful, so grateful as to entirely satisfy LadyKirkbank. '

'You are horribly cynical. That reminds me, there was a poor girl whomLady Kirkbank had under her wing one season--a Miss Trinder, to whom Iam told you behaved shamefully. '

'There was a parson's daughter who threw herself at my head in a mostaudacious way, and who behaved so badly, egged on by Lady Kirkbank, thatI had to take refuge in flight. Do you suppose I am the kind of man tomarry the first adventurous damsel who takes a fancy to my town house, and thinks it would be a happy hunting ground for a herd of brothers andsisters? Miss Trinder was shocking bad style, and her designs weretransparent from the very beginning! I let her flirt as much as sheliked; and when she began to be seriously sentimental I took wing forthe East?'

'Was she pretty?' asked Lesbia, not displeased at this contemptuoussumming up of poor Belle Trinder's story. 

'If you admire the Flemish type, as illustrated by Rubens, she waslovely. A complexion of lilies and roses--cabbage roses, _bien entendu_, which were apt to deepen into peonies after champagne and mayonaise atAscot or Sandown--a figure--oh--well--a tremendous figure--hair of anauburn that touched perilously on the confines of red--large, serviceable feet, and an appetite--the appetite of a ploughman'sdaughter reared upon short commons. '

'You are very cruel to a girl who evidently admired you. '

'A fig for her admiration! She wanted to live in my house and spend mymoney. '

'There goes the gong, ' exclaimed Lesbia; 'pray let us go to breakfast. You are hideously cynical, and I am wofully tired of you. '

And as they strolled back to the house, by lavender walk and rosegarden, and across the dewy lawn, Lesbia questioned herself as towhether she was one whit better or more dignified than Isabella Trinder. She wore her rue with a difference, that was all. 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

'ALL FANCY, PRIDE, AND FICKLE MAIDENHOOD. '

The return to Arlington Street meant a return to the ceaseless whirl ofgaiety. Even at Rood Hall life had been as near an approach to perpetualmotion as one could hope for in this world; but the excitement and thehurrying and scampering in Berkshire had a rustic flavour; there weremoments that were almost repose, a breathing space between the blueriver and the blue sky, in a world that seemed made of green fields andhanging woods, the plashing of waters, and the song of the lark. But inLondon the very atmosphere was charged with hurry and agitation; thefreshness was gone from the verdure of the parks; the glory of therhododendrons had faded; the Green Park below Lady Kirkbank's mansionwas baked and rusty; the towers of the Houses of Parliament yonder weredimly seen in a mist of heat. London air tasted of smoke and dust, vibrated with the incessant roll of carriages, and the trampling ofmultitudinous feet. 

There are women of rank who can take the London season quietly, and livetheir own lives in the midst of the whirl and the riot--women for whomthat squirrel-like circulation round and round the fashionable wheel hasno charm--women who only receive people they like, only go into societythat is congenial. But Lady Kirkbank was not one of these. The advanceof age made her only more keen in the pursuit of pleasure. She wouldhave abandoned herself to despair had the glass over the mantelpiece inher boudoir ceased to be choked and littered with cards--had her book ofengagements shown a blank page. Happily there were plenty of people--ifnot all of them the best people--who wanted Sir George and Lady Kirkbankat their parties. The gentleman was sporting and harmless, the lady wasgood-natured, and just sufficiently eccentric to be amusing withoutdegenerating into a bore. And this year she was asked almost everywhere, for the sake of the beauty who went under her wing. Lesbia had been as apearl of price to her chaperon, from a social point of view; and nowthat she was engaged to Horace Smithson she was likely to be even morevaluable. 

Mr. Smithson had promised Lady Kirkbank, sportively as it were, and uponthe impulse of the moment, as he would have offered to wager a dozen ofgloves, that were he so happy as to win her _protégée's_ hand he wouldfind her an investment for, say, a thousand, which would bring her intwenty per cent. ; nay, more, he would also find the thousand, whichwould have been the initial difficulty on poor Georgie's part. But thislittle matter was in Georgie's mind a detail, compared with theadvantages to accrue to her indirectly from Lesbia's union with one ofthe richest men in London. 

Lady Kirkbank had brought about many good matches, and had been toooften rewarded with base ingratitude upon the part of her _protégées_, after marriage; but there was a touch of Arcady in the good soul'snature, and she was always trustful. She told herself that Lesbia wouldnot be ungrateful, would not basely kick down the ladder by which shehad mounted to heights empyrean, would not cruelly shelve the friend whohad pioneered her to high fortune. She counted upon making the house inPark Lane as her own house, upon being the prime mover of all Lesbia'shospitalities, the supervisor of her visiting list, the shadow behindthe throne. 

There were balls and parties nightly, dinners, luncheons, garden-parties; and yet there was a sense of waning in the glory of theworld--everybody felt that the fag-end of the season was approaching. All the really great entertainments were over--the Cabinet dinners, theReception at the Foreign Office, the last of the State balls andconcerts. Some of the best people had already left town; and senatorswere beginning to complain that they saw no prospect of earlydeliverance. There was Goodwood still to look forward to; and afterGoodwood the Deluge--or rather Cowes Regatta, about which LadyKirkbank's set were already talking. 

Lady Lesbia was to be at Cowes for the Regatta week. That was a settledthing. Mr. Smithson's schooner-yacht, the Cayman, was to be her hotel. It was to be Lady Kirkbank and Lady Lesbia's yacht for the nonce; andMr. Smithson was to live on shore at his villa, and at that aristocraticclub to which, by Maulevrier's influence, and on the score of hisapproaching marriage with an earl's daughter, he had been just selected. He would be only Lady Kirkbank's visitor on board the Cayman. The severeetiquette of the situation would therefore not be infringed; and yet Mr. Smithson would have the happiness of seeing his betrothed sole andsovereign mistress of his yacht, and of spending the long summer days ather feet. Even to Lady Lesbia this idea of the yacht was not without itscharm. She had never been on board such a yacht as the Cayman; she was agood sailor, as testified by many an excursion, in hired sailing boats, at Tynemouth, and St. Bees; and she knew that she would be the queen ofthe hour. She accepted Mr. Smithson's invitation for the Cowes week moregraciously than she was wont to receive his attentions, and was pleasedto say that the whole thing would be rather enjoyable. 

'It will be simple enchantment, ' exclaimed the more enthusiasticGeorgie Kirkbank. 'There is nothing so rapturous as life on board ayacht; there is a flavour of adventure, a _sansgêne_, a--in shorteverything in the world that I like. I shall wear my cotton frocks, andgive myself up to enjoyment, lie on the deck and look up at the bluesky, too deliciously idle even to read the last horrid thing of Zola's. '

But the Cowes Regatta was nearly three weeks ahead; and in the meantimethere was Goodwood, and the ravelled threads of the London season had tobe wound up. And by this time it was known everywhere that the affairbetween Mr. Smithson and Maulevrier's sister was really on. 'It's assettled a business as the entries and bets for next year's Derby, ' saidone lounger to another in the smoking-room of the Haute Gomme. 'Play orpay, don't you know. '

Lady Kirkbank and Lesbia had both written to Lady Maulevrier, Lesbiawriting somewhat coldly, very briefly, and in a half defiant tone, tothe effect that she had accepted Mr. Smithson's offer, and that shehoped her grandmother would be pleased with a match which everybodysupposed to be extremely advantageous. She was going to Grasmereimmediately after the Cowes week to see her dear grandmother, and to beassured of her approval. In the meanwhile she was awfully busy; therewere callers driving up to the door at that very moment, and her brainwas racked by the apprehension that she might not get her new gown intime for the Bachelor's Ball, which was to be quite one of the nicestthings of the year, so dearest grandmother must excuse a hurried letter, etc. , etc. , etc. 

Georgie Kirkbank was more effusive, more lengthy. She expatiated uponthe stupendous alliance which her sweetest Lesbia was about to make; andtook credit to herself for having guided Lesbia's footsteps in the rightway. 

'Smithson is a most difficult person, ' she wrote. 'The least error oftaste on your dear girl's part would have _froisséd_ him. Men with thatimmense wealth are always suspicious, ready to imagine mercenarymotives, on their guard against being trapped. But Lesbia had _me_ ather back, and she managed him perfectly. He is positively her slave; andyou will be able to twist him round your little finger in the matter ofsettlements. You may do what you like with him, for the ground has beenthoroughly prepared by _me_. '

Lady Maulevrier's reply was not enthusiastic. She had no doubt Mr. Smithson was a very good match, according to the modern estimate ofmatrimonial alliances, in which money seemed to be the Alpha and Omega. But she had cherished views of another kind. She had hoped to see herdear granddaughter wear one of those noble and historic names which area badge of distinction for all time. She had hoped to see her enter oneof those grand old families which are a kind of royalty. And that Lesbiashould marry a man whose sole distinction consisted of an immensefortune amassed heaven knows how, was a terrible blow to her pride. 

'But it is not the first, ' wrote Lady Maulevrier. 'My pride has receivedcrushing blows in days past, and I ought to be humbled to the dust. Butthere is a stubborn resistance in some natures which stands firm againstevery shock. You and Lesbia will both be surprised to hear that Mary, from whom I expected so little, has made a really great match. She wasmarried yesterday afternoon in my morning room, by special licence, tothe Earl of Hartfield, the lover of her choice, whom we at Fellside haveall known as plain John Hammond. He is an admirable young man, and sureto make a great figure in the world, as no doubt you know better than Ido, for you are in the way of hearing all about him. His courtship ofMary is quite an idyll; and the happy issue of this romantic love-affairhas cheered and comforted me more than anything that has happened sinceLesbia left me. '

This letter, written in Fräulein's niggling little hand, Lady Kirkbankhanded to Lesbia, who read it through in silence; but when she came tothat part of the letter which told of her sister's marriage, her cheekgrew ashy pale, her brow contracted, and she started to her feet andstared at Lady Kirkbank with wild, dilated eyes, as if she had beenstung by an adder. 

'A strange mystification, wasn't it?' said Lady Kirkbank, almostfrightened at the awful look in Lesbia's face, which was even worse thanBelle Trinder's expression when she read the announcement of Mr. Smithson's flight. 

'Strange mystification! It was base treachery--a vile and wicked lie!'cried Lesbia, furiously. 'What right had he to come to us under falsecolours, to pretend to be poor, a nobody--with only the vaguest hope ofmaking a decent position in the future?--and to offer himself under suchimpossible conditions to a girl brought up as I had been--a girleducated by one of the proudest and most ambitious of women--to force meto renounce everything except him? How could he suppose that any girl, so placed, could decide in his favour? If he had loved me he would havetold me the truth--he would not have made it impossible for me to accepthim. '

'I believe he is a very high flown young man, ' said Lady Kirkbank, soothingly; 'he was never in _my_ set, you know, dear. And I suppose hehad some old Minerva-press idea that he would find a girl who wouldmarry him for his own sake. And your sister, no doubt, eager to marry_anybody_, poor child, for the sake of getting away from that verylovely dungeon of Lady Maulevrier's, snapped at the chance; and by amere fluke she becomes a countess. '

Lesbia ignored these consolatory remarks. She was pacing the room likea tigress, her delicate cambric handkerchief grasped between her twohands, and torn and rent by the convulsive action of her fingers. Shecould have thrown herself from the balcony on to the spikes of the arearailings, she could have dashed herself against yonder big plate-glasswindow looking towards the Green Park, like a bird which shatters hislittle life against the glass barrier which he mistakes for the opensky. She could have flung herself down on the floor and grovelled, andtorn her hair--she could have done anything mad, wicked, desperate, inthe wild rage of this moment. 

'Loved me!' she exclaimed; 'he never loved me. If he had he would havetold me the truth. What, when I was in his arms, my head upon hisbreast, my whole being surrendered to him, adoring him, what more couldhe want? He must have known that this meant real love. And why should heput it upon me to fight so hard a fight--to brave my grandmother'sanger--to be cursed by her--to face poverty for his sake? I neverprofessed to be a heroine. He knew that I was a woman, with all awoman's weakness, a woman's fear of trial and difficulty in the future. It was a cowardly thing to use me so. '

'It was, ' said Lady Kirkbank, in the same soothing tone; 'but if youliked this Hammond-Hartfield creature--a little in those old days, Iknow you have outlived that liking long ago. '

'Of course; but it is a hard thing to know one has been fooled, cheated, weighed in the balance and found wanting, ' said Lesbia, scornfully. 

She was taming down a little by this time, ashamed of that outbreak ofviolent passion, feeling that she had revealed too much to LadyKirkbank. 

'It was a caddish thing to do, ' said Georgie; 'and this Hartfield isjust what I always thought him--an insufferable prig. However, mysweetest girl, there is really nothing to lament in the matter. Yoursister has made a good alliance, which will score high in your favourby-and-by, and you are going to marry a man who is three times as richas Lord Hartfield. '

'Rich, yes; and nothing but rich; while Lord Hartfield is a man of thevery highest standing, belongs to the flower of English nobility. Rich, yes; Mr. Smithson is rich; but, as Lady Maulevrier says, He has made hismoney heaven knows how. '

'Mr. Smithson has not made his money heaven knows how, ' answered LadyKirkbank, indignantly. 'He has made it in cochineal, in iron, ingunpowder, in coal, in all kinds of commodities. Everybody in the Cityknows how he has made his money, and that he has a genius for turningeverything into gold. If the gold changes back into one of the basermetals, it is only when Mr. Smithson has made all he wanted to make. Andnow he has quite done with the City. The House is the only business ofhis life; and he is becoming a power in the House. You have every reasonto be proud of your choice, Lesbia. '

'I will try to be proud of it, ' said Lesbia, resolutely. 'I will not bescorned and trampled upon by Mary. '

'She seemed a harmless kind of girl, ' said Lady Kirkbank, as if she hadbeen talking of a housemaid. 

'She is a designing minx, ' exclaimed Lesbia, 'and has set her cap atthat man from the very beginning. '

'But she could not have known that he was Lord Hartfield. '

'No; but he was a man; and that was enough for her. '

From this time forward there was a change in Lady Lesbia's style andmanner--a change very much for the worse, as old-fashioned peoplethought; but to the taste of some among Lady Kirkbank's set, the changewas an improvement. She was gayer than of old, gay with a recklessvivacity, intensely eager for action and excitement, for cards andracing, and all the strongest stimulants of fashionable life. Mostpeople ascribed this increased vivacity, this electric manner, to thefact of her engagement to Horace Smithson. She was giddy with hertriumph, dazzled by a vision of the gold which was soon to be hers. 

'Egad, if I saw myself in a fair way of being able to write cheques uponsuch an account as Smithson's I should be as wild as Lady Lesbia, ' saidone of the damsel's military admirers at the Rag. 'And I believe theyoung lady was slightly dipped. '

'Who told you that?' asked his friend. 

'A mother of mine, ' answered the youth, with an apologetic air, as if hehardly cared to own such a humdrum relationship. 'Seraphine, thedressmaker, was complaining--wanted to see the colour of Lady LesbiaHaselden's money--vulgar curiosity--asked my old mother if she thoughtthe account was safe, and so on. That's how I came to know all aboutit. '

'Well, she'll be able to pay Seraphine next season. '

Lord Maulevrier came back to London directly after his sister's wedding. The event, which came off so quietly, so happily, filled him withunqualified joy. He had hoped from the very first that his Molly wouldwin the cup, even while Lesbia was making all the running, as he saidafterwards. And Molly had won, and was the wife of one of the best youngmen in England. Maulevrier, albeit unused to the melting-mood, shed atear or two for very joy as the sister he loved and the friend of hisboyhood and youth stood side by side in the quiet room at Grasmere, andspoke the solemn words that made them one for ever. 

The first news he heard after his return to town was of Lesbia'sengagement, which was common talk at the clubs. The visitors at RoodHall had come back to London full of the event, and were proud of givinga detailed account of the affair to outsiders. 

They all talked patronisingly of Smithson, and seemed to think itrather a wonderful fact that he did not drop his aspirates or eat peaswith a knife. 

'A man of stirling metal, ' said the gossips, 'who can hold his own withmany a fellow born in the purple. '

Maulevrier called in Arlington Street, but Lady Kirkbank and her_protégée_ were out; and it was at a cricket match at the Orleans Clubthat the brother and sister met for the first time after LordHartfield's wedding, which by this time had been in all the papers; avery simple announcement:

'On the 29th inst. , at Grasmere, by the Reverend Douglass Brooke, theEarl of Hartfield to Mary, younger daughter of the ninth Earl ofMaulevrier. '

Lesbia was the centre of a rather noisy little court, in which Mr. Smithson was conspicuous by his superior reserve. 

He did not exert himself as a lover, paid no compliments, was notsentimental. The pearl was won, and he wore it very quietly; butwherever Lesbia went he went; she was hardly ever out of his sight. 

Maulevrier received the coolest possible greeting. Lesbia turned palewith anger at sight of him, for his presence reminded her of the mosthumiliating passage in her life; but the big red satin sunshadeconcealed that pale angry look, and nothing in Lesbia's manner betrayedemotion. 

'Where have you been hiding yourself all this time, and why were you notat Henley?' she asked. 

'I have been at Grasmere. '

'Oh, you were a witness of that most romantic marriage. The Lady ofLyons reversed, the gardener's son turning out to be an earl. Was itexcruciatingly funny?'

'It was one of the most solemn weddings I ever saw. '

'Solemn! what, with my Tomboy sister as bride! Impossible!'

'Your sister ceased to be a Tomboy when she fell in love. She is a sweetand womanly woman, and will make an adorable wife to the finest fellow Iknow. I hear I am to congratulate you, Lesbia, upon your engagement withMr. Smithson. '

'If you think _I_ am the person to be congratulated, you are at libertyto do so. My engagement is a fact. '

'Oh, of course, Mr. Smithson is the winner. But as I hope you intend tobe happy, I wish you joy. I am told Smithson is a really excellentfellow when one gets to know him; and I shall make it my business to bebetter acquainted with him. '

Smithson was standing just out of hearing, watching the bowling. Maulevrier went over to him and shook hands, their acquaintance hithertohaving been of the slightest, and very shy upon his lordship's part; butnow Smithson could see that Maulevrier meant to be cordial. 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

A RASTAQUOUÈRE. 

There was a dinner party in one of the new houses in Grosvenor Placethat evening, to which Lady Kirkbank and Lesbia had been bidden. The newhouse belonged to a new man, who was supposed to have made millions outof railways, and other gigantic achievements in the engineering line;and the new man and his wife were friends of Mr. Smithson, and had madethe simple Georgie's acquaintance only within the last three weeks. 

'Of course they are stupid, my dear, ' she remarked, in response to someslighting remark of Lesbia's, 'but I am always willing to know richpeople. One drops in for so many good things; and they never want anyreturn in kind. It is quite enough for them to be allowed to spend theirmoney _upon us. _'

The house was gorgeous in all the glory of the very latest fashions inupholstery; hall Algerian; dining-room Pompeian; drawing-room EarlyItalian; music-room Louis Quatorze; billiard-room mediaeval English. Thedinner was as magnificent as dinner can be made. Three-fourths of theguests were the _haute gomme_ of the financial world, and perspiredgold. The other third belonged to a class which Mr. Smithson describedsomewhat contemptuously as the shake-back nobility. An Irish peer, ayounger son of a ducal house that had run to seed, a political agitator, a grass widow whose titled husband was governor of an obscure colony, anancient dowager with hair which was too luxuriant to be anything but awig, and diamonds which were so large as to suggest paste. 

Lesbia sat by her affianced at the glittering table, lighted withclusters of wax candles, which shone upon a level _parterre_ of tearoses, gardenias, and gloire de Malmaison carnations; from which rose atintervals groups of silver-gilt dolphins, supporting shallow goldendishes piled with peaches, grapes, and all the costliest produce ofCovent Garden. 

Conversation was not particularly brilliant, nor had the guests anelated air. The thermometer was near eighty, and at this period of theseason everybody was tired of this kind of dinner, and would gladly haveforegone the greatest achievements of culinary art, in favour of achicken and a salad, eaten under green leaves, in a garden at Wargraveor Henley, within sound of the rippling river. 

On Lesbia's right hand there was a portly personage of Jewish type, darkto swarthiness, and somewhat oily, whose every word suggested bullion. He and Mr. Smithson were evidently acquaintances of long standing, andMr. Smithson presented him to Lesbia, whereupon he joined in theirconversation now and then. 

His talk was of the usual standard. He had seen everything worth seeingin London and in Paris, between which cities he seemed to oscillate withsuch frequency that he might be said to live in both places at once. Hehad his stall at Covent Garden, and his stall at the Grand Opera. He wasa subscriber at the Theatre Français. He had seen all the races atLongchamps and Chantilly, as well as at Sandown and Ascot. But every nowand then he and Mr. Smithson drifted from the customary talk aboutoperas and races, pictures and French novels, to the wider world ofcommerce and speculation, mines, waterworks, and foreign loans--andLesbia leant back in her chair, and fanned herself languidly, withhalf-closed eyelids, while two or three courses went round, she givingthe little supercilious look at each entree offered to her, to beobserved on such occasions, as if the thing offered were particularlynasty. 

She wondered how long the two men were going to prose about mines andshares, in those subdued half-mysterious voices, telling each otheroccult facts in half-expressed phrases, utterly dark to the outsideworld; but, while she was languidly wondering, a change in her lover'smanner startled her into keenest curiosity. 

'Montesma is in Paris, ' said Mr. Sampayo, the dark gentleman; 'I dinedlast week with him at the Continental. '

Mr. Smithson's complexion faded curiously, and a leaden darkness cameover his countenance, as of a man whose heart and lungs suddenly refusetheir office. But in a few moments he was smiling feebly. 

'Indeed! I thought he was played out years ago. '

'A man of that kind is never played out. Don Gomez de Montesma is asclever as Satan, as handsome as Apollo, and he bears one of the oldestnames in Castile. Such a man will always come to the front. _C'est unrastaquouère mais rastaquouère de bon genre_. You knew him intimately_là bas_, I believe?'

'In Cuba; yes, we were pretty good friends once. '

'And were useful to each other, no doubt, ' said Mr. Sampayo, pleasantly. 'Was that Argentiferous Copper Company in sixty-four yours or his?'

'There were a good many people concerned in it. '

'No doubt; it takes a good many people to work that kind of thing, but Ifancy you and Montesma were about the only two who came out of itpleasantly. And he and you did a little in the shipping line, didn'tyou--African produce? However, that's an old song. You have had so manygood things since then. '

'Did Montesma talk of coming to London?'

'He did not talk about it; but he would hardly go back to the tropicswithout having a look round on both sides of the Channel. He was alwaysfond of society, pretty women, dancing, and amusements of all kinds. Ihave no doubt we shall see him here before the end of the season. '

Mr. Smithson pursued the subject no further He turned to Lesbia, who hadbeen curiously interested in this little bit of conversation--interestedfirst because Smithson had seemed agitated by the mention of theSpaniard's name; secondly, because of the description of the man, whichhad a romantic sound. The very word tropic suggested a romance. AndLesbia, whose mind was jaded by the monotony of a London season, thethreadbare fabric of society conversation, kindled at any image whichappealed to her fancy. 

Clever as Satan, handsome as Apollo, scion of an old Castilian family, fresh from the tropics. Her imagination dwelt upon the ideas which thesewords had conjured up. 

Three days after this she was at the opera with her chaperon, her loverin attendance as usual. The opera was "Faust, " with Nillson asMarguerite. After the performance they were to drive down to Twickenhamon Mr. Smithson's drag, and to dance and sup at the Orleans. The lastball of the season was on this evening; and Lesbia had been persuadedthat it was to be a particular _recherché_ ball, and that only the verynicest people were to be present. At any rate, the drive under the lightof a July moon would be delicious; and if they did not like the peoplethey found there they could eat their supper and come away immediatelyafter, as Lady Kirkbank remarked philosophically. 

The opera was nearly over--that grand scene of Valentine's death wason--and Lesbia was listening breathlessly to every note, watching everylook of the actors, when there came a modest little knock at the door ofher box. She darted an angry glance round, and shrugged her shouldersvexatiously. What Goth had dared to knock during that thrilling scene?

Mr. Smithson rose and crept to the door and quietly opened it. 

A dark, handsome man, who was a total stranger to Lesbia, glided in, shaking hands with Smithson as he entered. 

Till this moment Lesbia's whole being had been absorbed in thescene--that bitter anathema of the brother, the sister's cry of anguishand shame. Where else is there tragedy so human, so enthralling--griefthat so wrings the spectator's heart? It needed a Goethe and a Gounod toproduce this masterpiece. 

In an instant, in a flash, Lesbia's interest in the stage was gone. Herfirst glance at the stranger told, her who he was. The olive tint, theeyes of deepest black, the grand form of the head and perfect chisellingof the features could belong only to that scion of an old Castilian racewhom she had heard described the other evening--'clever as Satan, handsome as Apollo. '

Yes, this must be the man, Don Gomez de Montesma. There was nothing inMr. Smithson's manner to indicate that the Spaniard was an unwelcomeguest. On the contrary, Smithson received him with a cordiality which ina man of naturally reserved manner seemed almost rapture. The curtainfell, and he presented Don Gomez to Lady Kirkbank and Lady Lesbia;whereupon dear Georgie began to gush, after her wont, and to ask a goodmany questions in a manner that was too girlish to seem impertinent. 

'How perfectly you speak English!' she exclaimed. 'You must have livedin England a good deal. '

'On the contrary, it is my misfortune to have, lived here very little, but I have known a good many English and Americans in Cuba and inParis. '

'In Cuba! Do you really come from Cuba? I have always fancied that Cubamust be an altogether charming place to live in--like Biarritz or Pau, don't you know, only further away. Do please tell me where it is, andwhat kind of a place. '

Geographically, Lady Kirkbank's mind was a blank. It was quite arevelation to her to find that Cuba was an island. 

'It must be a lovely spot!' exclaimed the fervid creature. 'Let me see, now, what do we get from Cuba?--cigars--and--and tobacco. I suppose inCuba everybody smokes?'

'Men, women, and children. '

'How delicious! Would that I were a Cuban! And the natives, are theynice?'

'There are no aborigines. The Indians whom Columbus found soon perishedoff the face of the island. European civilisation generally has thateffect. But one of our most benevolent captain-generals provided us withan imported population of niggers. '

'How delightful. I have always longed to live among a slave population, dear submissive black things dressed in coral necklaces and feathers, instead of the horrid over-fed wretches we have to wait upon us. And ifthe aborigines were not wanted it was just as well for them to die out, don't you know, ' prattled Lady Kirkbank. 

'It was very accommodating of them, no doubt. Yet we could employ half amillion of them, if we had them, in draining our swamps. Agriculturesuffered by the loss of Indian labour. '

'I suppose they were like the creatures in Pizarro, poor dear yellowthings with brass bracelets, ' said Lady Kirkbank. 'I remember seeingMacready as Rolla when I was quite a little thing. '

And now the curtain rose for the last act. 

'Do you care about staying for the end?' asked Mr. Smithson of Lesbia. 'It will make us rather late at the Orleans. '

'Never mind how late we are, ' said Lesbia, imperiously. 'I have alwaysbeen cheated out of this last act for some stupid party. Imagine losingGounod and Nillson for the sake of struggling through the mob on astifling staircase, and being elbowed by inane young men, with gardeniasin their coats. '

Lady Lesbia had a pretty little way of always opposing any suggestion ofher sweetheart. She was resolved to treat him as badly as a futurehusband could be treated. In consenting to marry him she had done him afavour which was a great deal more than such a person had any right toexpect. 

She leant forward to watch and listen, with her elbow resting on thevelvet cushion--her head upon her hand, and she seemed absorbed in thescene. But this was mere outward seeming. All the enchantment of musicand acting was over. She only heard and saw vaguely, as if it were ashadowy scene enacted ever so far away. Every now and then her eyesglanced involuntarily toward Don Gomez, who stood leaning against theback of the box, pale, languid, graceful, poetic, an altogetherdifferent type of manhood from that with which she had of late beensatiated. 

Those deep dark eyes of his had a dreamy look. They gazed across thedazzling house, into space, above Lady Lesbia's head. They seemed to seenothing; and they certainly were not looking at her. 

Don Gomez was the first man she ever remembered to have been presentedto her who did not favour her with a good deal of hard staring, more orless discreetly managed, during the first ten minutes of theiracquaintance. On him her beauty fell flat. He evidently failed torecognise her supreme loveliness. It might be that she was the wrongtype for Cuba. Every nation has its own Venus; and that far away spotbeyond the torrid zone might have a somewhat barbarous idea of beauty. At any rate, Don Gomez was apparently unimpressed. And yet Lesbiaflattered herself that she was looking her best to-night, and that hercostume was a success. She wore a white satin gown, short in the skirt, for the luxury of freedom in waltzing, and made with Quaker-likesimplicity, the bodice high to the throat, fitting her like a sheath. 

Her only ornaments were a garland of scarlet poppies wreathed fromthroat to shoulder, and a large diamond heart which Mr. Smithson hadlately given her; 'a bullock's heart, ' as Lady Kirkbank called it. 

When the curtain fell, and not till then, she rose and allowed herselfto be clad in a brown velvet Newmarket, which completely covered hershort satin gown. She had a little brown velvet toque to match theNewmarket, and thus attired she would be able to take her seat on thedrag which was waiting on the quietest side of Covent Garden. 

'Why should not you go with us, Don Gomez?' exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, ina gush of hospitality. 'The drive will be charming--not equal to yourtropical Cuba--but intensely nice. And the gardens will be something toosweet on such a night as this. I knew them when the dear Duc d'Aumalewas there. Ay de mi, such a man!'

Lady Kirkbank sighed, with the air of having known his Altésse Royaleintimately. 

'I should be charmed, ' said Don Gomez, 'if I thought my friend Smithsonwanted me. Would you really like to have me, Smithson?'

'I should be enchanted. '

'And there is room on the drag?'

'Room enough for half-a-dozen. I am only taking Sir George Kirkbank andColonel Delville--whom we are to pick up at the Haute Gomme--and Mr. AndMrs. Mostyn, who are in the stalls. '

'A nice snug little party, ' exclaimed that charming optimist, LadyKirkbank. 'I hate a crowd on a drag. The way some of the members of theFour-in-hand Club load their coaches on parade reminds me of aBeanfeast!'

They found Lady Kirkbank's footman and one of Mr. Smithson's groomswaiting in the hall of the opera house. The groom to conduct them to thespot where the drag was waiting; the footman to carry wraps and take hismistress's final orders. There was a Bohemian flavour in the little walkto the great fruit garden, which was odorous of bruised peaches andstale salads as they passed it. Waggon-loads of cabbages and othergarden stuff were standing about by the old church; the roadway waslittered with the refuse of the market; and the air was faint and heavywith the scent of herbs and flowers. 

Lesbia mounted lightly to her place of honour on the box-seat; and LadyKirkbank was hoisted up after her. Mr. And Mrs. Mostyn followed; andthen Don Gomez took his seat by Lady Kirkbank's side and behind Lesbia, a vantage point from which he could talk to her as much as he liked. Mr. Smithson seated himself a minute afterwards, and drove off by KingStreet and Leicester Square and on to Piccadilly, steering cleverlythrough the traffic of cabs and carriages, which was at its apogee justnow, when all the theatres were disgorging their crowds. Piccadilly wasquieter, yet there were plenty of carriages, late people going toparties and early people going home, horses slipping and sliding onstones or wood, half the roadway up, and luminous with lanterns. Theystopped in front of the Haute Gomme, where they picked up Sir GeorgeKirkbank and Colonel Delville, a big man with a patriarchal head, supposed to be one of the finest whist players in London, and to make ahandsome income by his play. He had ridden in the Balaclava charge, wasa favourite everywhere, and, albeit no genius, was much cleverer thanhis friend and school-fellow, George Kirkbank. They had been at Etontogether, had both made love to the lively Georgie, and had beeninseparables for the last thirty years. 

'Couldn't get on without Delville, ' said Sir George; 'dooced smartfellow, sir. Knows the ropes; and does all the thinking for both of us. '

And now they were fairly started, and the team fell into a rattlingpace, with the road pretty clear before them. Hyde Park was oneumbrageous darkness, edged by long lines of golden light. Coolness andsilence enfolded all things in the summer midnight, and Lesbia, notprone to romance, sank into a dreamy state of mind, as she leaned backin her seat and watched the shadowy trees glide by, the long vista oflamps and verdure in front of her. She was glad that no one talked toher, for talk of any kind must have broken the spell. Don Gomez sat likea statue in his place behind her. From Lady Kirkbank, the loquacious, came a gentle sound of snoring, a subdued, ladylike snore, breathedsoftly at intervals, like a sigh. Mr. Smithson had his team, and his ownthoughts, too, for occupation, --thoughts which to-night were notaltogether pleasant. 

At the back of the coach Mrs. Mostyn was descanting on the evolution ofthe nautilus, and the relationship of protoplasm and humanity, toColonel Delville, who sat smiling placidly behind an immense cigar, andaccepted the most stupendous facts and the most appalling theories witha friendly little nod of his handsome head. 

Mr. Mostyn frankly slept, as it was his custom to do upon all convenientoccasions. He called it recuperating. 

'Frank ought to be delightfully fresh, for he recuperated all the waydown, ' said his wife, when they alighted in the dewy garden atTwickenham, in front of the lamp-lit portico. 

'I wouldn't have minded his recuperating if he hadn't snored soabominably, ' remarked Colonel Delville. 

It was nearly one o'clock, and the ball had thinned a little, which madeit all the better for those who remained. Mr. Smithson's orders had beengiven two days ago, and the very best of the waiters had been told offfor his especial service. The ladies went upstairs to take off theirwrappings and mufflings, and Lesbia emerged dazzling from her brownvelvet Newmarket, while Lady Kirkbank, bending closely over thelooking-glass, like a witch over a caldron, repaired her complexion withcotton wool. 

They went through the conservatory to the octagon dining-room, where thesupper was ready, a special supper, on a table by a window, a tableladen with exotics and brilliant with glass and silver. The supper was, of course, perfect in its way. Mr. Smithson's _chef_ had been down tosee about it, and Mr. Smithson's own particular champagne and the claretgrown in his own particular _clos_ in the Gironde, had been sent downfor the feast. No common cuisine, no common wine could be good enough;and yet there was a day when the cheapest gargote in Belleville orMontmartre was good enough for Mr. Smithson. There had been days onwhich he did not dine at all, and when the fumes of a _gibelotte_steaming from a workman's restaurant made his mouth water. 

The supper was all life and gaiety. Everyone was hungry and thirsty, andfreshioned by the drive, except Lesbia. She was singularly silent, atehardly anything, but drank three or four glasses of champagne. 

Don Gomez was not a great talker. He had the air of a prince of theblood royal, who expects other people to talk and to keep him amused, But the little he said was to the point. He had a fine baritone, verylow and subdued, and had a languor which was almost insolent, but notwithout its charm. There was an air of originality about the manner andthe man. 

He was the typical _rastaquouère_, a man of finished manners, andunknown antecedents, a foreigner, apparently rich, obviouslyaccomplished, but with that indefinable air which bespeaks theadventurer; and which gives society as fair a warning as if the man worea placard on his shoulder with the word _cave_. 

But to Lesbia this Spaniard was the first really interesting man she hadmet since she saw John Hammond; and her interest in him was much morevivid than her interest in Hammond had been at the beginning of theiracquaintance. That pale face, with its tint of old ivory, those thin, finely-cut lips, indicative of diabolical craft, could she but readaright, those unfathomable eyes, touched her fancy as it had never yetbeen touched, awoke within her that latent vein of romance, self-abnegation, supreme foolishness, which lurks in the nature of everywoman, be she chaste as ice and pure as snow. 

The supper was long. It was past two o'clock, and the ballroom wasthinly occupied, when Mr. Smithson's party went there. 

'You won't dance to-night, I suppose?' said Smithson, as Lesbia and hewent slowly down the room arm in arm. It was in a pause between twowaltzes. The wide window at the end was opened to the summer night, andthe room was delightfully cool. 'You must be horribly tired?'

'I am not in the least tired, and I mean to waltz, if anyone will askme, ' replied Lesbia, decisively. 

'I ought to have asked you to dance, and then it would have been theother way, ' said Smithson, with a touch of acrimony. 'Surely you havedancing enough in town, and you might be obliging for once in a way, and come and sit with me in the garden, and listen to the nightingales. '

'There are no nightingales after June. There is the Manola, ' as the bandstruck up, 'my very favourite waltz. '

Don Gomez was at her elbow at this moment

'May I have the honour of this waltz with you, Lady Lesbia?' he asked;and then with a serio-comic glance at his stoutish friend, 'I don'tthink Smithson waltzes?'

'I have been told that nobody can waltz who has been born on this sideof the Pyrenees, ' answered Lesbia, withdrawing her arm from her lover's, and slipping, it through the Spaniard's, with the air of a slave whoobeys a master. 

Smithson looked daggers, and retired to a corner of the room glowering. Were a man twenty-two times millionaire, like the Parisian Rothschild, he could not find armour against the poisoned arrows of jealousy. DonGomez possessed many of those accomplishments which make men dangerous, but as a dancer he was _hors ligne_; and Horace Smithson knew that thereis no surer road to a girl's fancy than the magic circle of a waltz. 

Those two were floating round the room in the old slow legato step, which recalled to Smithson the picture of a still more spacious room inan island under the Southern Cross--the blue water of the bay shiningyonder under the starlight of the tropics, fire-flies gleaming andflashing in the foliage beyond the open windows, fire-flies flashingamidst the gauzy draperies of the dancers, and this same Gomez revolvingwith the same slow languid grace, his arm encircling the _svelte_ figureof a woman whose southern beauty outshone Lesbia's blonde Englishloveliness as the tropical stars outshine the lamps that light ourcolder skies. Yes, every detail of the scene flashed back into his mind, as if a curtain had been suddenly plucked back from a long-hiddenpicture. The Cuban's tall slim figure, the head gently bent towards hispartner's head, as at this moment, and those dark eyes looking up athim, intoxicated with that nameless, indefinable fascination which it isthe lot of some men to exercise. 

'He robbed me of _her_!' thought Smithson, gloomily. 'Will he rob me ofthis one too? Surely not! Havana is Havana--and this one is not aCreole. If I cannot trust that lovely piece of marble, there is no womanon earth to be trusted. '

He turned his back upon the dancers, and went out into the garden. Hissoul was wrung with jealousy, yet he could watch no longer. There wastoo much pain--there were too many bitter memories of shame, and loss, and ignominy evoked by that infernal picture. If he had been free hewould have asserted his authority as Lesbia's future husband; he wouldhave taken her away from the Orleans; he would have told her plainly andfrankly that Don Gomez was no fit person for her to know; and he wouldhave so planned that they two should never meet again. But HoraceSmithson was not free. He was bound hand and foot by those fetters whichthe chain of past events had forged--stern facts which the man himselfmay forget, or try to forget, but which other people never forget. Thereis generally some dark spot in the history of such men as Smithson--menwho climb the giddiest heights of this world with that desperaterapidity which implies many a perilous leap from crag to crag, many amoraine skimmed over, and many an awful gulf spanned by a hair-breadthbridge. Mr. Smithson's history was not without such spots; and thedarkest of all had relation to his career in Cuba. The story had beenknown by very few--perhaps completely known only by one man; and thatman was Gomez de Montesma. 

For the last fifteen years the most fervent desire of Horace Smithson'sheart had been the hope that tropical nature, in any one of her variousdisagreeable forms, would be obliging enough to make an end of Gomez. But the forces of nature had not worked on Mr. Smithson's side. Noloathsome leprosy had eaten his enemy's flesh; neither cayman norcrocodile, neither Juba snake nor poisonous spider had marked him forits prey. The tropical sun had left him unsmitten. He had lived and hehad prospered; and he was here, like a guilty conscience incarnate, tospoil Horace Smithson's peace. 

'I must be diplomatic, ' Smithson said to himself, as he walked up anddown an avenue of Irish yews, in a solitary part of the grounds, smokinghis cigarette, and hearing the music swell and sink in the distance. 'Iwill give her a hint as to that man's character, and I will keep themapart as much as I can. But if he forces himself upon me there is nohelp for it. I cannot afford to be uncivil to him. '

'Cannot afford' in this instance meant 'dare not, ' and Horace Smithson'sthoughts as he paced the yew-tree walk were full of gloom. 

During that long meditation he made up his mind on one point, namely, that, let him suffer what pangs he might, he must not betray hisjealousy. To do that would be to lower himself in Lesbia's eyes, and toplay into his rival's hand; for a jealous man is almost alwayscontemptible in the sight of his mistress. He would carry himself as ifhe were sure of her fidelity; and this very confidence, with a woman ofhonour, a girl reared as Lesbia had been reared, would render itimpossible for her to betray him. He would show himself high-minded, confident, generous, chivalrous, even; and he would trust to chance forthe issue. Chance were Mr. Smithson's only idea of Divinity; and Chancehad hitherto been kind to him. There had been dark hours in his life, but the darkness had not lasted long; and the lucky accidents of hiscareer had been of a nature to beguile him into the belief that amongthe favourites of Destiny he stood first and foremost. 

While Mr. Smithson mused thus, alone and in the darkness, Montesma andLady Lesbia were wandering arm in arm in another and lovelier part ofthe grounds, where golden lights were scattered like Cuban fire-fliesamong the foliage of seringa and magnolia, arbutus and rhododendron, while at intervals a sudden flush of rosier light was shed over gardenand river, as if by enchantment, surprising a couple here and there inthe midst of a flirtation which had begun in darkness. 

The grounds were lovely in the balmy atmosphere of a July night, theriver gliding with mysterious motion under the stars, great masses ofgloom darkening the stream with an almost awful look where the woods ofPetersham and Ham House cast their dense shadows on the water. Don Gomezand his companion wandered by the river side to a spot where a group ofmagnolias sheltered them from the open lawn, and where there were somerustic chairs close to the balustrade which protected the parapet. Inthis spot, which was a kind of island, divided from the rest of thegrounds by the intervening road, they found themselves quite alone, andin the midst of a summer stillness which was broken only by the low, lazy ripple of the tide running seawards. The lights of Richmond lookedfar away, and the little town with its variety of levels had an Italianair in the distance. 

From the ballroom, faint and fitful, came the music of a waltz. 

'I'm afraid I've brought you too far, ' said Don Gomez. 

'On the contrary, it is a relief to get away from the lights and thepeople. How delicious this river is! I was brought up on the shores of alake; but after all a lake is horribly tame. Its limits are alwaysstaring one in the face. There is no room for one's imagination towander. Now a river like this suggests an infinity of possibilities, drifting on and on and on into undiscovered regions, by ever-varyingshores. I feel to-night as if I should like to step into that littleboat yonder, ' pointing to a light skiff bobbing gently up and down withthe tide, at the bottom of a flight of steps, 'and let the stream takeme wherever it chose. '

'If I could but go with you, ' said Gomez, in that deep and musical tonewhich made the commonest words seem melody, 'I would ask for neithercompass nor rudder. What could it matter whither the boat took me? Thereis no place under the stars which would not be a paradise--with you. '

'Please don't make a dreamy aspiration the occasion for a compliment, 'exclaimed Lesbia, lightly. 'What I said was so silly that I don't wonderyou thought it right to say something just a little sillier. Butmoonlight and running water have a curious effect upon me; and I, who amthe most prosaic among women, become ridiculously sentimental. '

'I cannot believe that you are prosaic. '

'I assure you it is perfectly true. I am of the earth, earthy; a womanof the world, in my first season, ambitious, fond of pleasure, vain, proud, exacting, all those things which I am told a woman ought not tobe. '

'You pain me when you so slander yourself; and I shall make it thebusiness of my life to find out how much truth there is in thatself-slander. For my own part I do not believe a word of it; but as itis rude to contradict a lady I will only say that I reserve my opinion. '

'Are you to stay long in England?' asked Lesbia. 

She was leaning against the stone balustrade in a careless attitude, asof one who was weary, her elbow on the stone slab, and her head thrownhack against her arm. The white satin gown, moulded to her figure, had astatuesque air, and she looked like a marble statue in the dim light, every line of the graceful form expressive of repose. 

'That will depend. I am not particularly fond of London. A very littleof your English Babylon satisfies me, in a general way; but there areconditions which might make England enchanting. Where do you go at theend of the season?'

'First to Goodwood, and then to Cowes. Mr. Smithson is so kind as toplace his yacht at Lady Kirkbank's disposal, and I am to be her guest onboard the Cayman, just as I am in Arlington Street. '

'The Cayman! That name is a reminiscence of Mr. Smithson's SouthAmerican travels. '

'No doubt! Was he long in South America?'

'Three or four years. '

'But not in Cuba all that time, I suppose?'

'He had business relations with Cuba all that time, and oscillatedbetween our island and the main. He was rather fortunate in his littleadventures with us--made almost as much money as General Tacon, ofblessed memory. But I dare say Smithson has told you all his adventuresin that part of the world. '

'No, he very rarely talks about his travels: and I am not particularlyinterested in commercial speculations. There is always so much to thinkof and talk about in the business of the moment. Are you fond of Cuba?'

'Not passionately. I always feel as if I were an exile there, and yetone of my ancestors was with Columbus when be discovered the island, andmy race were among the earliest settlers. My family has given threeCaptain-generals to Cuba: but I cannot forget that I belong to an olderworld, and have forfeited that which ought to have been a brilliantplace in Europe for the luxurious obscurity of a colony. '

'But you must be attached to a place in which your family have lived forso many generations?'

'I like the stars and the sea, the mountains and savannas, the tropicalvegetation, and the dreamy, half-oriental life; but at best it is a kindof stagnation, and after a residence of a few months in the island of mybirth I generally spread my wings for the wider world of the oldcontinent or the new. '

'You must have travelled so much, ' said Lesbia, with a sigh. 'I havebeen nowhere and seen nothing. I feel like a child who has been shut upin a nursery all its life, and knows of no world beyond four walls. '

'Not to travel is not to live, ' said Don Gomez. 

'I am to be in Italy next November, I believe, ' said Lesbia, not caringto own that this Italian trip was to be her honeymoon. 

'Italy!' exclaimed the Spaniard, contemptuously. 'Once the finishingschool of the English nobility; now the happy hunting-ground of theCockney tourist and the prosperous Yankee. All the poetry of Italy hasbeen dried up, and the whole country vulgarised. If you want romance inthe old world go to Spain; in the new, try Peru or Brazil, Mexico orCalifornia. '

'I am afraid I am not adventurous enough to go so far. '

'No: women cling to beaten tracks. '

'We obey our masters, ' answered Lesbia, meekly. 

'Ah, I forgot. You are to have a master--and soon. I heard as muchbefore I saw you to-night. '

Lesbia half rose, as if to leave this cool retreat above the ripplingtide. 

'Yes, it is all settled, ' she said; 'and now I think I must go back. Lady Kirkbank will be wondering what has become of me. '

'Let her wonder a little longer, ' said Don Gomez. 'Why should we hurryaway from this delightful spot? Why break the spell of--the river? Lifehas so few moments of perfect contentment. If this is one with you--asit is with me--let us make the most of it. Lady Lesbia, do you see thoseweeds yonder, drifting with the tide, drifting side by side, touching asthey drift? They have met heaven knows how, and will part heaven knowswhere, on their way to the sea; but they let themselves go with thetide. We have met like those poor weeds. Don't let us part till the tideparts us. '

Lesbia gave a little sigh, and submitted. She had talked of womenobeying their masters; and the implication was that she meant to obeyMr. Smithson. But there is a fate in these things; and the man who wasto be her master, whose lightest breath was to sway her, whose lightestlook was to rule her, was here at her side in the silence of the summernight. 

They talked long, but of indifferent subjects; and their talk might havebeen heard by every member of the Orleans Club, and no harm done. Yetwords and phrases count for very little in such a case. It is the tone, it is the melody of a voice, it is the magic of the hour that tells. 

The tide came, in the person of Mr. Smithson, and parted these two weedsthat were drifting towards the great mysterious ocean of fate. 

'I have been hunting for you everywhere, ' he said, cheerfully. 'If youwant another waltz, Lady Lesbia, you had better take the next. I believeit is to be the last. At any rate our party are clamouring to be drivenhome. I found poor Lady Kirkbank fast asleep in a corner of thedrawing-room. '

'Will you give me that last waltz?' asked Don Gomez. 

Lady Lesbia felt that the long-suffering Smithson had endured enough. Womanly instinct constrained her to refuse that final waltz: but itseemed to her as if she were making a tremendous sacrifice in so doing. And yet she had waltzed to her heart's content during the season thatwas waning, and knew all the waltzes played by all the fashionablebands. She gave a little sigh, as she said--

'No, I must not indulge myself. I must go and take care of LadyKirkbank. '

Mr. Smithson offered his arm, and she took it and went away with him, leaving Don Gomez to follow at his leisure. There would be some delay nodoubt before the drag started. The lamps had gone out among the foliage, and the stars were waning a little, and there was a faint cold lightcreeping over the garden which meant the advent of morning. Don Gomezstrolled towards the lighted house, smoking a cigarette. 

'She is very lovely, and she is--well--not quite spoiled by her_entourage_, and they tell me she is an heiress--sure to inherit afine fortune from some ancient grandmother, buried alive inWestmoreland, ' he mused. 'What a splendid opportunity it would be if--ifthe business could be arranged on the square. But as it is--well--as itis there is the chance of an adventure; and when did a Montesma everavoid an adventure, although there were dagger or poison lurking in thebackground? And here there is neither poison nor steel, only a lovelywoman, and an infatuated stockbroker, about whom I know enough todisgrace and ruin an archbishop. Poor Smithson! How very unlucky that Ishould happen to come across your pathway in the heyday of your latestlove affair. We have had our little adventures in that line already, andwe have measured swords together, metaphorically, before to-night. Whenit comes to a question of actual swords my Smithson declines. _Pas sibête. _'

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

LORD HARTFIELD REFUSES A FORTUNE. 

A honeymoon among lakes and mountains, amidst the gorgeous confusion ofBorrowdale, in a little world of wild, strange loveliness, shut in andisolated from the prosaic outer world by the vast and towering masses ofSkiddaw and Blencathara--a world of one's own, as it were, a worldsteeped in romance and poetry, dear to the souls of poets. There aremany such honeymoons every summer; indeed, the mountain paths, thewaterfalls and lakes swarm with happy lovers; and this land of hills andwaters seems to have been made expressly for honeymoon travellers; yetnever went truer lovers wandering by lake and torrent, by hill andvalley, than those two whose brief honeymoon was now drawing to a close. 

It was altogether a magical time for Mary, this dawn of a new life. Theimmensity of her happiness almost frightened her. She could hardlybelieve in it, or trust in its continuance. 

'Am I really, really, really your wife?' she asked on their last day, bending down to speak to her husband, as he led her pony up the roughways of Skiddaw. 'It is all so dreadfully like a dream. '

'Thank God, it is the very truth, ' answered Lord Hartfield, lookingfondly at the fresh young face, brightened by the summer wind, whichfaintly stirred the auburn hair under the neat little hat. 

'And am I actually a Countess? I don't care about it one little bit, youknow, except as a stupendous joke. If you were to tell me that you hadbeen only making fun of poor grandmother and me, and that those diamondsare glass, and you only plain John Hammond, it wouldn't make thefaintest difference. Indeed, it would be a weight off my mind. It is anawfully oppressive thing to be a Countess. '

'I'm sorry I cannot relieve you of the burden. The law of the land hasmade you Lady Hartfield; and I hope you are preparing your mind for theduties of your position. '

'It is very dreadful, ' sighed Mary. 'If her ladyship were as well and asactive as she was when first you came to Fellside, she could have helpedme; but now there will be no one, except you. And you will help me, won't you Jack?'

'With all my heart. '

'My own true Jack, ' with a little fervent squeeze of his sunburnt hand. 'In society I suppose I shall have to call you Hartfield. "Hartfield, please ring the bell. " "Give me a footstool, Hartfield. " How odd itsounds. I shall be blurting out the old dear name. '

'I don't think it will much matter. It will pass for one of LadyHartfield's little ways. Every woman is supposed to have little ways, don't you know. One has a little way of dropping her friends; anotherhas a little way of not paying her dressmaker; another's little way isto take too much champagne. I hope Lady Hartfield's little way will beher devotion to her husband. '

'I'm afraid I shall end by being a nuisance to you, for I shall love youridiculously, ' answered Mary, gaily; 'and from what you have told meabout society, it seems to me that there can be nothing so unfashionableas an affectionate wife. Will you mind my being quite out of fashion, Jack?'

'I should very much object to your being in the fashion. '

'Then I am happy. I don't think it is in my nature to become a woman offashion; although I have cured myself, for your sake, of being a hoyden. I had so schooled myself for what I thought our new life was to be; sotrained myself to be a managing economical wife, that I feel quite atsea now that I am to be mistress of a house in Grosvenor Square and aplace in Kent. Still, I will bear with it all; yes, even endure theweight of those diamonds for your sake. '

She laughed, and he laughed. They were quite alone among thehills--hardy mountaineers both--and they could be as foolish as theyliked. She rested her head upon his shoulder, and he and she and thepony made one as they climbed the hill, close together. 

'Our last day, ' sighed Mary, as they went down again, after a couple ofblissful hours in that wild world between earth and sky. 'I shall beglad to go back to poor grandmother, who must be sadly lonely; but it isso sweet to be quite alone with you. '

They left the Lodore Hotel in an open carriage, after luncheon next day, and posted to Fellside, where they arrived just in time to assist atLady Maulevrier's afternoon tea. She received them both with warmaffection, and made Hartfield sit close beside her sofa; and every nowand then, in the pauses of their talk, she laid her wasted and toodelicate fingers upon the young man's strong brown hand, with acaressing gesture. 

'You can never know how sweet it is to me to be able to love you, ' shesaid tenderly. 'You can never know how my heart yearned to you from thevery first, and how hard it was to keep myself in check and not be tookind to you. Oh, Hartfield, you should have told me the truth. Youshould not have come here under false colours. '

'Should I not, Lady Maulevrier? It was my only chance of being lovedfor my own sake; or, at least of knowing that I was so loved. If I hadcome with my rank and my fortune in my hand, as it were--one of the goodmatches of the year--what security could I ever have felt in thedisinterested love of the girl who chose me? As plain John Hammond Iwooed and was rejected; as plain John Hammond I wooed and won; and theprize which I so won is a pearl above price. Not for worlds, were thelast year to be lived over again, would I have one day of my lifealtered. '

'Well, I suppose I ought to be satisfied, I wanted you for Lesbia, and Ihave got you for Mary. Best of all, I have got you for myself. RonaldHollister's son is mine; he is of my kin; he belongs to me; he will notforsake me in life; he will be near me, God grant, when I die. '

'Dear Lady Maulevrier, as far as in me lies, I will be to you as a son, 'said Lord Hartfield, very solemnly, stooping to kiss her hand. 

Mary came away from her tea-table to embrace her grandmother. 

'It makes me so happy to have won a little of your regard, ' shemurmured, 'and to know that I have married a man whom you can love. '

'Of course you have heard of Lesbia's engagement?' Lady Maulevrier saidpresently, when they were taking their tea. 

'Maulevrier wrote to us about it. '

'To us. ' How nice it sounded, thought Mary, as if they were a firm, anda letter written to one was written to both. 

'And do you know this Mr. Smithson?'

'Not intimately. I have met him at the Carlton. '

'I am told that he is very much esteemed by your party, and that he isvery likely to get a peerage when this Ministry goes out of office. '

'That is not improbable. Peerages are to be had if a man is rich enough;and Smithson is supposed to be inordinately rich. '

'I hope he has character as well as money, ' said Lady Maulevrier, gravely. 'But do you think a man can become inordinately rich in a shorttime, with unblemished honour?'

'We are told that nothing is impossible, ' answered Hartfield. 'Faith canremove a mountain; only one does not often see it done. However, Ibelieve Mr. Smithson's character is fairly good as millionaires go. Wedo not inquire too closely into these things nowadays. '

Lady Maulevrier sighed and held her peace. She remembered the day whenshe had protested vehemently, passionately, against Lesbia's marriagewith a poor man. And now she had an unhappy feeling about Mr. Smithson'swealth, a doubt, a dread that all might not be well with those millions, that some portion of that golden tide might flow from impure sources. She had lived remote from the world, but she had read the papersdiligently, and she knew how often the splendour of commercial wealthhas been suddenly obscured behind a black cloud of obloquy. She couldnot rejoice heartily at the idea of Lesbia's engagement. 

'I am to see the man early in August, ' she said, as if she were talkingof a butler. 'I hope I may like him. Lady Kirkbank tells me it is abrilliant marriage, and I must take her word. What can _I_ do for mygranddaughter--a useless log--a prisoner in two rooms?'

'It is very hard, ' murmured Mary, tenderly, 'but I do not see any reasonwhy Lesbia should not be happy. She likes a brilliant life; and Mr. Smithson can give her as much gaiety and variety as she can possiblydesire. And, after all, yachts, and horses, and villas, and diamonds_are_ nice things. '

'They are the things for which half the world is ready to cheat ormurder the other half, ' said Lady Maulevrier, bitterly. She had toldherself long ago that wealth was power, and she had sacrificed manythings, her own peace, her own conscience among them, in order that herchildren and grandchildren should be rich; and, knowing this, she feltit ill became her to be scrupulous, and to inquire too, closely as tothe sources of Mr. Smithson's wealth. He was rich, and the world had nofault to find with him. He had attended the last _levée_. He went intoreputable society. And he could give Lesbia all those things which theworld calls good. 

Fräulein Müller had packed her heavy old German trunks, and had goneback to the _Heimath_, laden with presents of all kinds from LadyMaulevrier; so Mary and her husband felt as if Fellside was really theirown. They dined with her ladyship, and left her for the night an hourafter dinner; and then they went down to the gardens, and roamed aboutin the twilight, and talked, and talked, and talked, as only true loverscan talk, be they Strephon and Daphne in life's glad morning, orgrey-haired Darby and Joan; and lastly they went down to the hike, androwed about in the moonlight, and talked of King Arthur's death, and ofthat mystic sword, Excalibur, 'wrought by the lonely maiden of thelake. '

They spent three happy days in wandering about the neighbourhood, revisiting in the delicious freedom of their wedded life those spotswhich they had seen together, when Mary was still in bondage, and theeye of propriety, as represented by Miss Müller, was always upon her. Now they were free to go where they pleased--to linger where theyliked--they belonged to each other, and were under no other dominion. 

The dogcart, James Steadman's dogcart, which he had rarely used duringthe last six months, was put in requisition and Lord Hartfield drove hiswife about the country. They went to the Langdale Pikes, and to DungeonGhyll; and, standing beside the waterfall, Mary told her husband howmiserable she had felt on that very spot a little less than a year ago, when she believed that he thought her plain and altogether horrid. Whereupon he had to console her with many kisses and sweet words, forthe bygone pain on her part, the neglect of his. 

'I was a wretch, ' he said, 'blind, besotted, imbecile. '

'No, no, no. Lesbia is very lovely--and I could not expect you wouldcare for me till she was gone away. How glad I am that she went, ' addedMary, naïvely. 

The sky, which had been cloudless all day, began to darken as LordHartfield drove back to Fellside, and Mary drew a little closer to thedriver's elbow, as if for shelter from an impending tempest. 

'You have no waterproof, of course, ' he said, looking down at her, asthe first big drops of a thunder shower dashed upon the splash-board. 'No young woman in the Lake country would think of being without awaterproof. '

Mary was duly provided, and with the help of the groom put herself intoa snug little tartan Inverness, while Hartfield sent the cart spinningalong twelve miles an hour. 

They were at Fellside before the storm developed its full power, but thesky was leaden, the landscape dull and blotted, the atmosphere heavy andstifling. The thunder grumbled hoarsely, far away yonder in the wildgorges of Borrowdale; and Mary and her husband made up their minds thatthe tempest would come before midnight. 

Lady Maulevrier was suffering from the condition of the atmosphere. Shehad gone to bed, prostrate with a neuralgic headache, and had givenorders that no one but her maid should go near her. So Lord Hartfieldand his wife dined by themselves, in the room where Mary had eaten somany uninteresting dinners _tête-à-tête_ with Fräulein; and in spite ofthe storm which howled, pelted, and lightened every now and then, Maryfelt as if she were in Paradise. 

There was no chance of going out after dinner. The lake looked like apool of ink, the mountains were monsters of dark and threatening aspect, the rain rattled against the windows, and ran from the verandah inminiature water-spouts. There was nothing to do but stay in doors, inthe sultry, dusky house. 

'Let us go to my boudoir, ' said Mary. 'Let me enjoy the full privilegeof having a boudoir--my very own room. Wasn't it too good of grandmotherto have it made so smart for me?'

'Nothing can be too good for my Mary, ' answered her husband, still inthe doting stage, 'but it was very nice of her ladyship--and the room ischarming. '

Delightful as the new boudoir might be, they dawdled in the picturegallery, that long corridor on which all the upper rooms opened, and atone end of which was the door of Lady Maulevrier's bedroom, at rightangles with that red-cloth door, which was never opened, except to giveegress or ingress to James Steadman, who kept the key of it, as if theold part of Fellside House had been an enchanted castle. Lord Hartfieldhad not forgotten that summer midnight last year, when his meditationswere disturbed by a woman's piercing cry. He thought of it this evening, as Mary and he lowered their voices on drawing near Lady Maulevrier'sdoor. She was asleep within there now, perhaps, that strange old woman;and at any moment an awful shriek, as of a soul in mortal agony, mightstartle them in the midst of their bliss. 

The lamps were lighted below; but this upper part of the house waswrapped in the dull grey twilight of a stormy evening. A single lampburned dimly at the further end of the corridor, and all the rest wasshadow. 

Mary and her husband walked up and down, talking in subdued tones. Hewas explaining the necessity of his being in London next week, andpromising to come back to Fellside directly his business at the Housewas over. 

'It will be delightful to read your speeches, ' said Mary; 'but I amsilly and selfish enough to wish you were a country squire, with nobusiness in London. And yet I don't wish that either, for I am intenselyproud of you. '

'And some day, before we are much older, you will sit in your robes inthe peeress's gallery. '

'Oh, I couldn't, ' cried Mary. 'I should make a fool of myself, somehow. I should look like a housemaid in borrowed plumes. Remember, I have no_Anstand_--I have been told so all my life. '

'You will be one of the prettiest peeresses who ever sat in thatgallery, and the purest, and truest, and dearest, ' protested herlover-husband. 

'Oh, if I am good enough for you, I am satisfied. I married _you_, andnot the House of Lords. But I am afraid your friends will all say, "Hartfield, why in heaven's name did you marry that uncultivatedperson?" Look!'

She stopped suddenly, with her hand on her husband's arm. It was growingmomentarily darker in the corridor. They were at the end near the lamp, and that other end by Lady Maulevrier's door was in deeper darkness, yetnot too dark for Lord Hartfield to see what it was to which Marypointed. 

The red-cloth door was open, and a faint glimmer of light showed within. A man was standing in the corridor, a small, shrunken figure, bent andold. 

'It is Steadman's uncle, ' said Mary 'Do let me go and speak to him, poor, poor old man. '

'The madman!' exclaimed Hartfield. 'No, Mary; go to your room at once. I'll get him back to his own den. '

'But he is not mad--at any rate, he is quite harmless. Let me just say afew words to him. Surely I am safe with you. '

Lord Hartfield was not inclined to dispute that argument; indeed, hefelt himself strong enough to protect his wife from all the lunatics inBedlam. He went towards the end of the corridor, keeping Mary wellbehind him; but Mary did not mean to lose the opportunity of renewingher acquaintance with Steadman's uncle. 

'I hope you are better, poor old soul, ' she murmured, gently, lovinglyalmost, nestling at her husband's side. 

'What, is it you?' cried the old man, tremulous with joy. 

'Oh, I have been looking for you--looking--looking--waiting, waiting foryou. I have been hoping for you every hour and every minute. Why didn'tyou come to me, cruel girl?'

'I tried with all my might, ' said Mary, 'but people blocked up the doorin the stables, and they wouldn't let me go to you; and I have beenrather busy for the last fortnight, ' added Mary, blushing in thedarkness, 'I--I--am married to this gentleman. '

'Married! Ah, that is a good thing. He will take care of you, if he isan honest man. '

'I thought he was an honest man, but he has turned out to be an earl, 'answered Mary, proudly. 'My husband is Lord Hartfield. ''Hartfield--Hartfield, ' the old man repeated, feebly. 'Surely I haveheard that name before. '

There was no violence in his manner, nothing but imbecility: so LordHartfield made up his mind that Mary was right, and that the old man wasquite harmless, worthy of all compassion and kindly treatment. 

This was the same old man whom he had met on the Fell in the bleak Marchmorning. There was no doubt in his mind about that, although he couldhardly see the man's face in the shadowy corridor. 

'Come, ' said the man, 'come with me, my dear. You forgot me, but I havenot forgotten you. I mean to leave you my fortune. Come with me, andI'll show you your legacy. It is all for you--every rupee--every jewel. '

This word rupee startled Lord Hartfield. It had a strange sound from thelips of a Westmoreland peasant. 

'Come, child, come!' said the man impatiently. 'Come and see what I haveleft you in my will. I make a new will every day, but I leave everythingto you--every will is in your favour; But if you are married you hadbetter have your legacy at once. Your husband is strong enough to takecare of you and your fortune. '

'Poor old man, ' whispered Mary; 'pray let us humour him. '

It was the usual madman's fancy, no doubt. Boundless wealth, exaltedrank, sanctity, power--these things all belong to the lunatic. He is thelord of creation, and, fed by such fancies, he enjoys flashes of wildhappiness in the midst of his woe. 

'Come, come, both of you, ' said the old man, eagerly, breathless withimpatience. 

He led the way across the sacred threshold, looking back, beckoning tothem with his wasted old hand, and Mary for the first time in her lifeentered that house which had seemed to her from her very childhood as atemple of silence and mystery. The passage was dimly lighted by a littlelamp on a bracket. The old man crept along stealthily, looking back, with a face full of cunning, till he came to a broad landing, from whichan old staircase, with massive oak banisters, led down to the squarehall below. The ceilings were low, the passages were narrow. All thingsin the house were curiously different from that spacious mansion whichLady Maulevrier had built for herself. 

A door on the landing stood ajar. The old man pushed it open and wentin, followed by Mary and her husband. 

They both expected to see a room humble almost to poverty--an ironbedstead, perhaps, and such furniture as the under servants in anobleman's household are privileged to enjoy. Both were alike surprisedat the luxury of the apartment they entered, and which was evidentlyreserved exclusively for Steadman's uncle. 

It was a sitting-room. The furniture was old-fashioned, but almost ashandsome as any in Lady Maulevrier's apartments. There was a large sofaof most comfortable shape, covered with dark red velvet, and furnishedwith pillows and foot rugs, which would have satisfied a Sybarite of thefirst water. Beside the sofa stood a hookah, with all appliances in theOriental fashion; and half a dozen long cherry-wood pipes neatlyarranged above the mantelpiece showed that Mr. Steadman's uncle was asmoker of a luxurious type. 

In the centre of the room stood a large writing table, with a case ofpigeon-holes at the back, a table which would not have disgraced a PrimeMinister's study. A pair of wax candles, in tall silver candlesticks, lighted this table, which was littered with papers, in a wild confusionthat too plainly indicated the condition of the owner's mind. The oakfloor was covered with Persian prayer rugs, old and faded, but of therichest quality. The window curtains were dark red velvet; and throughan open doorway Mary and her husband saw a corresponding luxury in thearrangements of the adjoining bedroom. 

The whole thing seemed wild and strange as a fairy tale. The weird andwizened old man, grinning and nodding his head at them. The handsomeroom, rich with dark, subdued colour, in the dim light of four waxcandles, two on the table, two on the mantelpiece. The perfume ofstephanotis and tea-roses, blended faintly with the all-pervading odourof latakia and Turkish attar. All was alike strange, bearing in mindthat this old man was a recipient of Lady Maulevrier's charity, ahanger-on upon a confidential servant, who might be supposed to begenerously treated if he had the run of his teeth and the shelter of adecent garret. Verily, there was something regal in such hospitality asthis, accorded to a pauper lunatic. 

Where was Steadman, the alert, the watchful, all this time? Marywondered. They had met no one. The house was as mute as if it were underthe spell of a magician. It was like that awful chamber in the Arabianstory, where the young man found the magic horse, and started on hisfatal journey. Mary felt as if here, too, there, must be peril; here, too, fate was working. 

The old man went to the writing table, pushed aside the papers, and thenstooped down and turned a mysterious handle or winch under theknee-hole, and the writing-desk moved slowly on one side, while thepigeon-holes sank, and a deep well full of secret drawers was laid open. 

From one of these secret drawers the old man took a bunch of keys, nodding, chuckling, muttering to himself as he groped for them withtremulous hand. 

'Steadman is uncommonly clever--thinks he knows everything--but hedoesn't know the trick of this table. I could hide a regiment of Sepoysin this table, my dear. Well, well, perhaps not Sepoys--too big, toobig--but I could hide all the State papers of the Presidency. There aredrawers enough for that. '

Hartfield watched him intently, with thoughtful brow. There was amystery here, a mystery of the deepest dye; and it was for him--it mustneeds be his task, welcome or unwelcome, to unravel it. 

This was the Maulevrier skeleton. 

'Now, come with me, ' said the old man, clutching Mary's wrist, anddrawing her towards the half-open door leading into the bedroom. 

She had a feeling of shrinking, for there was something uncanny aboutthe old man, something that might be life or death, might belong to thisworld or the next; but she had no fear. In the first place, she wascourageous by nature, and in the second her husband was with her, atower of strength, and she could know no fear while he was at her side. 

The strange old man led the way across his bedroom to an inner chamber, oak pannelled, with very little furniture, but holding much treasure inthe shape of trunks, portmanteaux--all very old and dusty--and two largewooden cases, banded with iron. 

Before one of these cases the man knelt down, and applied a key to thepadlock which fastened it. He gave the candle to Lord Hartfield to hold, and then opened the box. It seemed to be full of books, which he beganto remove, heaping them on the floor beside him; and it was not till hehad cleared away a layer of dingy volumes that he came to a large metalstrong box, so heavy that he could not lift it out of the chest. 

Slowly, tremulously, and with quickened breathing, he unlocked the boxwhere it was, and raised the lid. 

'Look, ' he said eagerly, 'this is her legacy--this is my little girl'slegacy. '

Lord Hartfield bent down and looked at the old man's treasure, by thewavering light of the candle; Mary looking over his shoulder, breathlesswith wonder. 

The strong box was divided into compartments. One, and the largest, wasfilled with rouleaux of coin, packed as closely as possible. The otherscontained jewels, set and unset--diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires--which flashed back the flickering flame of the candle withglintings of rainbow light. 

'These are all for her--all--all, ' exclaimed the old man. 'They areworth a prince's ransom. Those rouleaux are all gold; those gems arepriceless. They were the dowry of a princess. But they are hersnow--yes, my dear, they are yours--because you spoke sweetly, and smiledprettily, and were very good to a lonely old man--and because you havemy mother's face, dear, a smile that recalls the days of my youth. Liftout the box and take it away with you, if you are strong enough, --you, you, ' he said, touching Lord Hartfield. 'Hide it somewhere--keep it from_her_. Let no one know--no one except your wife and you must be in thesecret. '

'My dear sir, it is out of the question--impossible that my wife or Ishould accept one of those coins--or the smallest of those jewels. '

'Why not, in the devil's name?'

'First and foremost, we do not know how you came in possession of them;secondly, we do not know who you are. '

'They came to me fairly enough--bequeathed to me by one who had theright to leave them. Would you have had all that gold left for anadventurer to wallow in?'

'You must keep your treasure, sir, however it may have come to you, 'answered Lord Hartfield firmly. 'My wife cannot take upon herself theburden of a single gold coin--least of all from a stranger. Remember, sir, to us your possession of this wealth--nay, your whole existence--isa mystery. '

'You want to know who I am?' said the old man drawing himself up, with asudden _hauteur_ which was not without dignity, despite his shrunkenform and grotesque appearence. 'Well, sir. I am----'

He checked himself abruptly, and looked round the room with a scaredexpression. 

'No, no, no, ' he muttered; 'caution, caution! They have not done with meyet; she warned me--they are lying in wait; I mustn't walk into theirtrap. ' And then turning to Lord Hartfield, he said, haughtily, 'I shallnot condescend to tell you who I am, sir. You must know that I am agentleman, and that is enough for you. There is my gift to yourwife'--pointing to the chest--'take it or leave it. '

'I shall leave it, sir, with all due respect. '

A frightful change came over the old man's face at this determinedrefusal. His eyes glowered at Lord Hartfield under the heavy scowlingbrows; his bloodless lips worked convulsively. 

'Do you take me for a thief?' he exclaimed. 'Are you afraid to touch mygold--that gold for which men and women sell their souls, blast theirlives with shame, and pain, and dishonour, all the world over? Do youstand aloof from it--refuse to touch it, as if it were infected? Andyou, too, girl! Have you no sense? Are you an idiot?'

'I can do nothing against my husband's wish, ' Mary answered, quietly;'and, indeed, there is no need for us to take your money. We are richwithout it. Please leave that chest to a hospital. It will be ever somuch better than giving it to us. '

'You told me you were going to marry a poor man?'

'I know. But he cheated me, and turned out to be a rich man. He was ahorrid impostor, ' said Mary, drawing closer to her husband, and smilingup at him. 

The old man flung down the lid of his strong box, which shut with asonorous clang. He locked it, and put the key in his pocket. 

'I have done with you. ' he said. 'You can go your ways, both of you. Fools, fools, fools! The world is peopled with rogues and fools; and, byheaven, I would rather have to do with the rogues!'

He flung himself into an arm-chair, one of the few objects of furniturein the room, and left them to find their way back alone. 

'Good-night, sir, ' said Lord Hartfield; but the old man made no reply. He sat frowning sullenly. 

'Good-night, sir, ' said Mary, in her gentle voice, breathing infinitepity. 

'Good-night, child, ' he growled. 'I am sorry you have married an ass. '

This was more than Mary could stand, and she was about to reply withsome acrimony, when her husband put his hand upon her lips and hurriedher away. 

On the landing they met Mrs. Steadman, a stout, commonplace person, whoalways had the same half-frightened look, as of one who lived in theshadow of an abiding terror, obviously cowed and brow beaten by herhusband, according to the Fellside household. 

At sight of Lord Hartfield and his wife she looked a little morefrightened than usual. 

'Goodness gracious, Lady Mary! how ever did you come here?' she gasped, not yet having quite realised the fact that Mary had been promoted. 

'We came to please Steadman's uncle--he brought us in here, ' Maryanswered, quietly. 

'But where did you find him?'

'In the corridor--just by her ladyship's room. '

'Then he must have taken the key out of Steadman's pocket, or Steadmanmust have left it about somewhere, ' muttered Mrs. Steadman, as ifexplaining the matter to herself, rather than to Mary. 'My poor husbandis not the man he was. And so you met him in the corridor, and hebrought you in here. Poor old gentleman! He gets madder and madder everyday. '

'There is method in his madness, ' said Lord Hartfield. 'He talked verymuch like sanity just now. Has your husband had the charge of him long?'

Mrs. Steadman answered somewhat confusedly. 

'A goodish time, sir. I can't quite exactly say--time passes so quiet ina place like this. One hardly keeps count of the years. '

'Forty years, perhaps?'

Mrs. Steadman blenched under Lord Hartfield's steadfast look--a lookwhich questioned more searchingly than his words. 

'Forty years, ' she repeated, with a faint laugh. 'Oh, dear no, sir, nota quarter as long. It isn't so many years, after all, since Steadman'spoor old uncle went a little queer in his head; and Steadman, havingsuch a quiet home here, and plenty of spare room, made bold to ask herladyship if he might give the poor old man a home, where he would be innobody's way. '

'And the poor old man seems to have a very luxurious home, ' answeredLord Hartfield. 'Pray when and where did Mr. Steadman's uncle learn tosmoke a hookah?'

Simple as the question was, it proved too much for Mrs. Steadman. Sheonly shook her head, and faltered some unintelligible reply. 

'Where is your husband?' asked Lord Hartfield: 'I should like to have alittle talk with him, if he is disengaged. '

'He is not very well, my lord, ' answered Mrs. Steadman. 'He has beenailing off and on for the last six months, but I couldn't get him to seethe doctor, or to tell her ladyship that he was in bad health. And abouta week ago he broke down altogether, and fell into a kind of drowsystate. He keeps about, and he does his work pretty much the same asusual, but I can see that it's too much for him. If you like to comedownstairs I can let you through the lower door into the hall; and if heshould have woke up since I have left him he'll be at your lordship'sservice. But I'd rather not wake him out of his sleep. '

'There is no occasion. What I have to say will keep till to-morrow. '

Lord Hartfield and his wife followed Mrs. Steadman downstairs to the lowdark hall, where an old eight-day clock ticked with hoarse and solemnheat, and a fine stag's head over each doorway gave evidence of someformer Haselden's sporting tastes. The door of a small panelled parlourstood half-way open; and within the room Lord Hartfield saw JamesSteadman asleep in an arm-chair by the fire, which burned as brightly asif it had been Christmas time. 

'He was so chilly and shivery this afternoon that I was obliged to lighta fire, ' said Mrs. Steadman. 

'He seems to be sleeping heavily, ' said Hartfield. 'Don't awaken him. I'll see him to-morrow morning before I go to London. '

'He sleeps half the day just as heavy as that, my lord, ' said the wife, with a troubled air. 'I don't think it can be right. '

'I don't think so either, ' answered Lord Hartfield. 'You had better callin the doctor. '

'I will, my lord, to-morrow morning. James will be angry with me, Idaresay; but I must take upon myself to do it without his leave. '

She led the way along a passage corresponding with the one above, andunlocked a door opening into a lobby near the billiard-room. 

'Come, Molly, see if you can beat me at a fifty game, ' said LordHartfield, with the air of a man who wants to shake off the impressionof some dominant idea. 

'Of course you will annihilate me, but it will be a relief to play, 'answered Mary. 'That strange old man has given me a shock. Everythingabout his surroundings is so different from what I expected. And howcould an uncle of Steadman's come by all that money--and thosejewels--if they were jewels, and not bits of glass which the poor oldthing has chopped up, in order to delude himself with an imaginarytreasure?'

'I do not think they are bits of glass, Molly. '

'They sparkled tremendously--almost as much as my--our--the familydiamonds, ' said Mary, puzzled how to describe that property which sheheld in right of her position as countess regnant; 'but if they are realjewels, and all those rouleaux real money, how could Steadman's unclebecome possessed of such wealth?'

'How, indeed?' said Lord Hartfield, choosing his cue

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

ON BOARD THE 'CAYMAN. '

Goodwood had come and gone, a brief bright season of loss and gain, finegowns, flirtation, lobster en mayonaise, champagne, sunshine, dust, glare, babble of many voices, successes, failures, triumphs, humiliations. A very pretty picture to contemplate from the outside, this little world in holiday clothes, framed in greenery! but just onthe Brocken, where the nicest girl among the dancers had the unpleasantpeculiarity of dropping a little red mouse out of her mouth--so too hereunder different forms there were red mice dropping about among thecompany. Here a hint of coming insolvency; there a whisper of athreatened divorce suit, staved off for awhile, compromises, familysecrets, little difficulties everywhere; betrothed couples smilinglyaccepting congratulations, who should never have been affianced weretruth and honour the rule of life; forsaken wives pretending to thinktheir husbands models of fidelity; jovial creatures with ruin staring intheir faces; households divided and shamming union; almost everybodyliving above his or her means; and the knowledge that nobody is anybetter or any happier than his neighbour society's only fountain ofconsolation. 

Lady Lesbia's gowns and parasols had been admired, her engagement hadfurnished an infinity of gossip, and the fact of Montesma's constantattendance upon her had given zest to the situation, just that flavourof peril and fatality which the soul of society loveth. 

'Is she going to marry them both?' asked an ancient dowager of theever-young type. 

'No, dear Lady Sevenoaks, she can only marry one, don't you know; butthe other is nice to go about with; and I believe it is the other shereally likes. '

'It is always the other that a woman likes, ' answered the dowager; 'I ammadly in love with this Peruvian--no, I think you said Cuban--myself. Iwish some good-natured creature would present him to me. If you knowanybody who knows him, tell them to bring him to my nextafternoon--Saturday. But why does--_chose_--_machin_--Smithson allowsuch a handsome hanger-on? After marriage I could understand that hemight not be able to help himself; but before marriage a man generallyhas some kind of authority. '

The world wondered a little, just as Lady Sevenoaks wondered, atSmithson's complacency in allowing a man so attractive as Montesma to beso much in the society of his future wife, yet even the censorious couldbut admit that the Cuban's manner offered no ground for offence. Hecame to Goodwood 'on his own hook, ' as society put it: and every man whowears a decent coat and is not a welsher has a right to enjoy theprettiest race-course in England. He spent a considerable part of theday in Lesbia's company; but since she was the centre of a little crowdall the time, there could be no offence in this. He was a stranger, knowing very few people, and having nothing to do but to amuse himself. Smithson was an old and familiar friend, and was in a measure bound togive him hospitality. 

Mr. Smithson had recognised that obligation, but in a somewhat sparingmanner. There were a dozen unoccupied bedchambers in the Park LaneRenaissance villa; but Smithson did not invite his Cuban acquaintance toshift his quarters from the Bristol to Park Lane. He was civil to DonGomez: but anyone who had taken the trouble to watch and study theconduct and social relations of these two men would have seen that hiscivility was a forced civility, and that he endured the Spaniard'ssociety under constraint of some kind. 

And now all the world was flocking to Cowes for the regatta, and Lesbiaand her chaperon were established on board Mr. Smithson's yacht, the_Cayman_; and the captain of the _Cayman_ and all her crew weredelivered over to Lesbia to be her slaves and to obey her lightestbreath. The _Cayman_ was to lie at anchor off Cowes for the regattaweek; and then she was to sail for Hyde, and lie at anchor there foranother regatta week; and she was to be a floating-hotel for Lady Lesbiaso long as the young lady would condescend to occupy her. 

The captain was an altogether exceptional captain, and the crew were apicked crew, ruddy faced, sandy whiskered for the most part, Englishmenall, honest, hardy fellows from between the Nore and the Wash, talkingin an honest provincial patois, dashed with sea slang. They were thevery pink and pattern of cleanliness, and the _Cayman_ herself from stemto stern was dazzling and spotless to an almost painful degree. 

Not content with the existing arrangements of the yacht, which were atonce elegant and luxurious, Mr. Smithson had sent down a Bond Streetupholsterer to refit the saloon and Lady Lesbia's cabin. The dark velvetand morocco which suited a masculine occupant would not have harmonisedwith girlhood and beauty; and Mr. Smithson's saloon, as originallydesigned, had something of the air of a _tabagie_. The Bond Street manstripped away all the velvet and morocco, plucked up the Turkey carpet, draped the scuttle-ports with pale yellow cretonne garnished with orangepompons, subdued the glare of the skylight by a blind of oriental silk, covered the divans with Persian saddlebags, the floor with a delicateIndian matting, and furnished the saloon with all that was most femininein the way of bamboo chairs and tea-tables, Japanese screens and fansof gorgeous colouring. Here and there against the fluted yellow draperyhe fastened a large Rhodes plate; and the thing was done. Lady Lesbia'scabin was all bamboo and embroidered India muslin. An oval glass, framedin Dresden biscuit, adorned the side, a large white bearskin covered thefloor. The berth was pretty enough for the cradle of a duchess's firstbaby. Even Lesbia, spoiled by much indulgence and unlimited credit, gavea little cry of pleasure at sight of the nest that had been made readyfor her. 

'Really, Mr. Smithson is immensely kind!' she exclaimed. 

'Smithson is always kind, ' answered Lady Kirkbank, 'and you don't halfenough appreciate him. He has given me his very own cabin--such a dearlittle den! There are his cigar boxes and everything lovely on theshelves, and his own particular dressing-case put open for me touse--all the backs of all the brushes _repoussé_ silver, and all thescent-bottles filled expressly for me. If the yacht would only standquite still, I should think it more delicious than the best house I everstayed in: only I don't altogether enjoy that little way it has ofgurgling up and down perpetually. '

Mr. Smithson's chief butler, a German Swiss, and a treasure ofintelligence, had come down to take the domestic arrangements of theyacht into his control. The Park Lane _chef_ was also on board, Mr. Smithson's steward acting as his subordinate. This great man grumbledsorely at the smallness of his surroundings; for the most luxuriousyacht was a poor substitute for the spacious kitchens and storerooms andstillrooms of the London mansion. There was a cabin for Lady Kirkbank'sRilboche and Lady Lesbia's Kibble, where the two might squabble at theirleisure; in a word, everything had been done that forethought could doto make the yacht as perfect a place of sojourn as any floatinghabitation, from Noah's Ark to the Orient steamers, had ever been made. 

It was between four and five upon a delicious July afternoon that LadyKirkbank and her charge came on board. The maids and the luggage hadbeen sent a day in advance, so that everything might be in its place, and the empty boxes all stowed away, before the ladies arrived. They hadnothing to do but walk on board and fling themselves into the lowluxurious chairs ready for them on the deck, a little wearied by theheat and dust of a railway journey, and with that delicious sense oflanguid indifference to all the cares of life which seems to be in thevery atmosphere of a perfect summer afternoon. 

A striped awning covered the deck, and great baskets of roses--pink, andred, and yellow--were placed about here and there. Tea was ready on alow table, a swinging brass kettle hissing merrily, with an air ofsupreme homeliness. 

Mr. Smithson had accompanied his _fiancée_ from town, and now satreading the _Globe_, and meekly waiting for his tea, while Lesbia took alanguid survey of the shore and the flotilla of boats, little and big, and while Lady Kirkbank rhapsodised about the yacht, praisingeverything, and calling everything by a wrong name. He was to be theirguest all day, and every day. They were to have enough of him, as Lesbiahad observed to her chaperon, with a spice of discontent, not quite sodelighted with the arrangement as her faithful swain. To him the ideawas rapture. 

'You have contrived somehow to keep me very much at a distancehitherto, ' he told Lesbia, 'and I feel sometimes as if we were almoststrangers; but a yacht is the best place in the world to bring twopeople together, and a week at Cowes will make us nearer to each otherand more to each other than three months in London;' and Lesbia had saidnothing, inwardly revolting at the idea of becoming any nearer anddearer to this man whom she had pledged herself to marry. She was to behis wife--yes, some day--and it was his desire the some day should besoon: but in the interval her dearest privilege was the power to keephim at a distance. 

And yet she could not make up her mind to break with him, to sayhonestly, 'I never liked you much, and now we are engaged I find myselfliking you less and less every day. Save me from the irrevocablewickedness of a loveless marriage. Forgive me, and let me go. ' No, thisshe could not bring herself to say. She did not like Mr. Smithson, butshe valued the position he was able to give her. She wanted to bemistress of that infinite wealth--she could not renounce that right towhich she fancied she had been born, her right to be one of the Queensof Society: and the only man who had offered to crown her as queen, tofind her a palace and a court, was Horace Smithson. Without Mr. Smithsonher first season would have resulted in dire failure. She might perhapshave endured that failure, and been content to abide the chances of asecond season, had it not been for Mary's triumph. But for Mary to be aCountess, and for Lesbia to remain Lesbia Haselden, a nobody, dependentupon the caprices of a grandmother whose means might after all be butlimited--no, such a concatenation as that was not to be endured. Lesbiatold herself that she could not go back to Fellside to remain thereindefinitely, a spinster and a dependent. She had learnt the true valueof money; she had found out what the world was like; and it seemed toher that some such person as Mr. Smithson was essential to herexistence, just as a butler is a necessity in a house. One may not likethe man, but the post must be filled. 

Again, if she were to throw over Mr. Smithson, and speculate upon herchances of next year, what hope had she of doing better in her secondseason than in her first? The horizon was blank. There was no great_parti_ likely to offer himself for competition. She had seen all thatthe market could produce. Wealthy bachelors, high-born lovers, could notdrop from the moon. Lesbia, schooled by Lady Kirkbank, knew her peerageby heart; and she knew that, having missed Lord Hartfield, there wasreally no one in the Blue Book worth waiting for. Thus, caring only forthose things which wealth can buy, she had made up her mind that shecould not do without Horace Smithson's money; and she must thereforeneeds resign herself to the disagreeable necessity of taking Smithsonand his money together. The great auctioneer Fate would not divide thelot. 

She told herself that for her a loveless marriage was, after all, noprodigious sacrifice. She had found out that heart made but a smallfigure in the sum of her life. She could do without love. A year ago shehad fancied herself in love with John Hammond. In her seclusion at St. Bees, in the long, dull August days, sauntering up and down by the edgeof the sea, in the melancholy sunset hour, she thought that her heartwas broken, that life was worthless without the man she loved. She hadthought and felt all this, but not strongly enough to urge her to anygreat effort, not keenly enough to make her burst her chains. She hadpreferred to suffer this loss than to sacrifice her chances of futureaggrandisement. And now she looked back and remembered those sunsetwalks by the sea, and all her thoughts and feelings in those silentsummer hours; and she smiled at herself, half in scorn, half in pity, for her own weakness. How easily she had learned to do without him whoat that hour seemed the better part of her existence. A good deal ofgaiety and praise, a little mild flirtation at Kirkbank Castle, and lo!the image of her first lover began to grow dim and blurred, like a fadedphotograph. A season at Cannes, and she was cured. A week in London, andthat first love was a thing of the past, a dream from which the dreamerawaketh, forgetting the things that he has dreamt. 

Remembering all this she told herself that she had no heart, that loveor no love was a question of very little moment, and that the personalqualities of the man whom she chose for a husband mattered nothing toher, provided that his lands and houses and social status came up to herstandard of merit. She had seen Mr. Smithson's houses and lands; and shewas distinctly assured that he would in due course be raised to thepeerage. She had, therefore, every reason to be satisfied. 

Having thus reasoned out the circumstances of her new life, she acceptedher fate with a languid grace, which harmonised with her delicate andpatrician beauty. Nobody could have for a moment supposed from hermanner that she loved Horace Smithson; but nobody had the right tothink that she detested him. She accepted all his attentions as a thingof course. The flowers which he strewed beneath her footsteps, thepearls which he melted in her wine--metaphorically speaking--were just'good enough' and no more. This afternoon, when Mr. Smithson asked herhow she liked the arrangements of the saloon and cabin, she said shethought they would do very nicely. 'They would do. ' Nothing more. 

'It is dreadfully small, of course, ' she said, 'when one is accustomedto rooms: but it is rather amusing to be in a sort of doll's house, andon deck it is really very nice. '

This was the most Mr. Smithson had for his pains, and he seemed to becontent therewith. If a man will marry the prettiest girl of the year hemust be satisfied with such scant civility as conscious perfection maygive him. We know that Aphrodite was not altogether the most comfortablewife, and that Helen was a cause of trouble. 

Mr. Smithson sat in a bamboo chair beside his mistress, and lookedineffably happy when she handed him a cup of tea. Sky and sea were oneexquisite azure--the colours of the boats glancing in the sunshine as ifthey had been jewels; here an emerald rudder, there a gunwale paintedwith liquid rubies. White sails, white frocks, white ducks made vividpatches of light against the blue. The landscape yonder shone andsparkled as if it had been incandescent. All the world of land and skyand sea was steeped in sunshine. A day on which to do nothing, readnothing, think nothing, only to exist. 

While they sat basking in the balmy atmosphere, looking lazily at thatbright, almost insupportable picture of blue sea under blue sky, therecame the dip of oars, making music, and a sound of coolness with everyplash of water. 

'How good it is of somebody to row about, just to give us that nicesoothing sound, ' murmured Lesbia. 

Lady Kirkbank, with her dear old head thrown back upon the cushion ofher luxurious chair, and her dear little cornflower hat just a thoughton one side, was sleeping the sleep of the just, and unconsciouslyrevealing the little golden arrangements which gave variety to her frontteeth. 

The soothing sound came nearer and nearer, close under the _Cayman's_quarter, and then a brown hand clasped the man-ropes, and a light slimfigure swung itself upon deck, while the boat bobbed and splashed below. 

It was Montesma, who had not been expected till the racing, which wasnot to begin for two days. A faint, faint rose bloom flushed LadyLesbia's cheek at sight of him; and Mr. Smithson gave a little look ofvexation, just one rapid contraction of the eyebrows, which resumedtheir conventional placidity the next instant. 

'So good of you, ' he murmured. 'I really did not expect you till thebeginning of the week. '

'London is simply insupportable in this weather--most of all for a manborn in the Havanas. My soul thirsted for blue water. So I said tomyself, This good Smithson is at Cowes; he will give me the run of hisyacht and a room at his villa. Why not go to Cowes at once?'

'The room is at your service. I have only two or three of my people atFormosa, but just enough to look after a bachelor friend. '

'I want very little service, my dear fellow, ' answered Montesma, pleasantly. 'A man who has crossed the Cordilleras and camped in theprimeval forest on the shores of the Amazon, learns to help himself. Sothis is the _Cayman_? _Muy deleitoso, mi amigo_. A floating Paradise inlittle. If the ark had been like this, I don't think any of thepassengers would have wanted the flood to dry up. '

He shook hands with Lady Lesbia as he spoke, and with Lady Kirkbank, wholooked at him as if he were part of her dream, and then he sank into thechair on Lesbia's left hand, with the air of being established for therest of the day. 

'I have left my portmanteaux at the end of the pier, ' he said lazily. 'Idare say one of your fellows will be good enough to take them to Formosafor me?'

Mr. Smithson gave the necessary order. All the beauty had gone out of thesea and the sky for him, all the contentment from his mind; and yet hewas in no position to rebel against Fate--in no position to say directlyor indirectly, 'Don Gomez de Montesma, I don't want you here, and I mustrequest you to transfer yourself elsewhither. '

Lesbia's feelings were curiously different. The very sight of thatnervous brown hand upon the rope just now had sent a strange thrillthrough her veins. She who believed herself heartless could scarce trustherself to speak for the vehement throbbing of her heart. A sense of joytoo deep for words possessed her as she reclined in her low chair, withdrooping eyelids, yet feeling the fire of those dark southern eyes uponher face, scorching her like an actual flame. 

'Lady Lesbia, may I have a cup of tea?' he asked; not because he wantedthe tea, but only for the cruel delight of seeing if she were able togive it to him calmly. 

Her hands shook, fluttered, wandered helplessly, as she poured out thatcup of tea and handed it to Montesma, a feminine office which she hadperformed placidly enough for Mr. Smithson. The Spaniard took the cupfrom her with a quiet smile, a subtle look which seemed to explore theinmost depth of her consciousness. 

Yes, this man was verily her master. She knew it, and he know it, asthat look of his told her. Vain to play her part of languidindifference--vain to struggle against her bondage. In heart and spiritshe was at his feet, an odalisque, recognising and bowing down to hersultan. 

Happily for the general peace, Mr. Smithson had been looking awayseaward, with a somewhat troubled brow, while that little cap and saucerepisode was being enacted. And in the next minute Lesbia had recoveredher self-command, and resumed that graceful languor which was one of hercharms. She was weak, but she was not altogether foolish; and she had noidea of succumbing to this new influence--of yielding herself up to thisconqueror, who seemed to take her life into his hand as if it were a bitof thistledown. Her agitation of those first few minutes was due to thesuddenness of his appearance--the reaction from dulness to delight. Shehad been told that he was not to be at Cowes till Monday, and lo! he washere at her side, just as she was thinking how empty and dreary life waswithout him. 

He dropped into his place so naturally and easily, made himself sothoroughly at home and so agreeable to every one, that it was almostimpossible for Horace Smithson to resent his audacity! Mr. Smithson'svitals might be devoured by the gnawing of the green-eyed monster, buthowever fierce that gnawing were, he did not want to seem jealous. Montesma was there as the very incarnation of some experiences in Mr. Smithson's past career, and he dared not object to the man's presence. 

And so the summer day wore on. They had the yacht all to themselves thatevening, for the racing yachts were fulfilling engagements in otherwaters, and the gay company of pleasure-seekers had not yet fullyassembled. They were dropping in one by one, all the evening, and Cowesroads grew fuller of life with every hour of the summer night. 

Mr. Smithson and his guests dined in the saloon, a snug little party offour, and sat long over dessert, deep into the dusk; and they talked ofall things under heaven, things frivolous, things grave, but most of allabout that fair, strange world in far-off southern waters, the sunnyislands of the Caribbean Sea, and the dreamy, luxurious life of thattropical clime, half Spanish, half Oriental, wholly independent ofEuropean conventionalities. Lesbia listened, enchanted by the picture. What were Park Lane palaces, and Berkshire manors, the petty splendoursof the architect and the upholsterer, weighed against a world in whichall nature is on a grander scale? Mr. Smithson might give her finehouses and costly upholstery; but only the Tropic of Cancer could giveher larger and brighter stars, a world of richer colouring, a land ofperpetual summer, nights luminous with fire-flies, gardens in which thefern and the cactus were as forest trees, and where humming-birdsflashed among the foliage like living flowers; nay, where the flowersthemselves took the forms of the animal world and seemed instinct withlife and motion. 

'Yes, ' said Mr. Smithson, with his gentlemanlike drawl, 'Spanish Americaand the West Indies are delightful places to talk about. There are somany things one leaves out of the picture--thieves, niggers, jiggers, snakes, mosquitoes, yellow Jack, creeping, crawling creatures of allkinds. I always feel very glad I have been to South America. '

'Why?'

'In order that I may never go there again, ' replied Mr. Smithson. 

'I was beginning to hope you would take me there some day, ' said Lesbia. 

'Never again, no, not even for your sake. No man should ever leaveEurope after he is five-and-thirty; indeed, I doubt if after that age heshould venture beyond the Mediterranean. That is the sea ofcivilisation. Anything outside it means barbarism. '

'I hope we are going to travel by-and-by, ' said Lesbia; 'I have beenmewed up in Grasmere half my life, and if you are going to confine me tothe shores of the Mediterranean, which is, after all, only a largerlake, for the other half of my life, my existence will be a dull pieceof work after all. I agree with what Don Gomez said the other night:"Not to travel is not to live. "'

They went on deck presently and sat in the summer darkness, lighted onlyby the stars, and by the lights of the yachts, and the faintly gleamingwindows of the lighted town, sat long and late, in a state of ineffablerepose. Lady Kirkbank. Fortified by the produce of Mr. Smithson'sparticular _clos_, and by a couple of glasses of green Chartreuse, sleptprofoundly. She had not enjoyed herself so much for the last threemonths. She had been stretched on Society's rack, and she had beenground in Society's mill; and neither mind nor body had been her own todo what she liked withal. She had toiled early and late, and had sparedherself in no wise. And now the trouble was over for a space. Here wererest and respite. She had done her duty as a chaperon, had provided hercharge with the very best thing the matrimonial market offered. She hadpaid her creditors something on account all round, and had left themappeased and trustful, if not content. Sir George had gone oft alone todrink the waters at Spa, and to fortify himself for Scotland and thegrouse season. She was her own mistress, and she could fold her handsand take her rest, eat and drink and sleep and be merry, all at Mr. Smithson's expense. 

The yachts came flocking in next day, like a flight of white-winged seabirds, and Mr. Smithson had enough to do receiving visitors upon the_Cayman_. He was fully occupied; but Montesma had nothing to do, exceptto amuse Lady Lesbia and her chaperon, and in this onerous task hesucceeded admirably. Lesbia found that it was too warm to be on the deckwhen there were perspiring people, whose breath must be ninety by thethermometer, perpetually coming on board; so she and Lady Kirkbank satin the saloon, and had the more distinguished guests brought down tothem as to a Court; and the shrewder of the guests were quick to divinethat no company beyond that of Don Gomez de Montesma was really wantedin that rose-scented saloon. 

The Spaniard taught Lady Kirkbank _monte_, which delighted her, andwhich she vowed she would introduce at her supper parties in the halfseason of November, when she should be in London for a week or two, as abird of passage, flitting southwards. He began to teach Lesbia Spanish, a language for which she had taken a sudden fancy; and it is curiouswhat tender accents, what hidden meanings even a grammar can take fromsuch a teacher. Spanish came easily enough to a learner who had beenthoroughly drilled in French and Italian, and who had been taught therudiments of Latin; so by the end of a lesson, which went on atintervals all day, the pupil was able to lisp a passage of Don Quixotein the sweetest Castilian, very sweet to the ear of Don Gomez--a kind ofbaby language, precious as the first half-formed syllables of infancy tomothers. 

Montesma had nothing to do but to amuse himself and his companions allday in the saloon, amidst odours of roses and peaches, in a shadowycoolness made by striped silken blinds; but Mr. Smithson was not so muchhis own master. That innumerable company of friends which are theportion of the rich man given to hospitality would not let the owner ofthe _Cayman_ go scot-free. 

At a place like Cowes, on the eve of the regatta week, the freelances ofsociety expect to find entertainment; and Mr. Smithson had to maintainhis character for princely hospitalities at the sacrifice of hisfeelings as a lover. Every ripple of Lesbia's silvery laughter, everydeep tone of Montesma's voice, from the cabin below, sent a pang to hisjealous soul; and yet he had to smile, and to order more champagne cup, and to be lavish of his best cigars, albeit insisting that his friendsshould smoke their cigars in the bows well to leeward, so that no foulbreathings of tobacco should pollute his Cleopatra galley. 

Cleopatra was very happy meanwhile, sublimely indifferent even to theodours of tobacco. She had her Antony at her feet, looking up at her, as she recited her lesson, with darkly luminous eyes, obviouslyworshipping her, obviously intent on winning her without counting thecost. When had a Montesma ever counted the cost to himself orothers--the cost in gold, in honour, in human life? The records of Cubain the palmy days of the slave trade would tell how lightly they heldthe last; and for honour, well, the private hells of island and maincould tell their tale of specially printed playing cards, in which theswords or stars on the back of each card had a secret language of theirown, and were as finger-posts for the initiated player. 

Mr. Smithson had business on shore, and was fain to leave the yacht foran hour or two before dinner. He invited Don Gomez to go with him, butthe offer was graciously declined. 

'Amigo, I don't care even to look at land in such weather. It is sodetestably dry, ' he pleaded. 'It is only the sound of the sea gurglingagainst the hull that reconciles one to existence. Go, and be happy atyour club, and send off those occult telegrams of yours, dearest. Ishall not leave the _Cayman_ till bed-time. '

He looked as fresh and cool as if utterly unaffected by the heat, whichto a Cuban must have been a merely lukewarm condition of the atmosphere. But he affected to be prostrate, and Smithson could not insist. He hadhis cards to play in a game which required extremest caution, and therewere no friendly indicators on the backs of his kings and aces. He wasfeeling his way in the dark, and did not know how much mischief Montesmawas prepared to do. 

When the owner of the yacht was gone Don Gomez proposed an adjournmentto the deck for afternoon tea, and the trio sat under the awning, tea-drinking and gossiping for the next hour. Lady Kirkbank told thesteward to say not at home to everybody, just as if she had a streetdoor. 

'There is a good deal of the _dolce far niente_ about this, ' saidMontesma, presently; 'but don't you think we have been anchored in sightof that shabby little town quite long enough, and that it would berather nice to spread our wings and sail round the island before theracing begins?'

'It would be exquisite, ' said Lesbia. 'I am very tired of inaction, though I dearly love learning Spanish, ' she added, with a lovely smile, and a look that was half submissive, half mutinous. 'But I have reallybeen beginning to wonder whether this boat can move. '

'You will see that she can, and at a smart pace, too, if I sail her. Shall we circumnavigate the island? We can set sail after dinner. '

'Will Mr. Smithson consent, do you think?'

'Why does Smithson exist, except to obey you?'

'I don't know if Lady Kirkbank would quite like it, ' said Lesbia, looking at her chaperon, who was waving a big Japanese fan, slowly, unsteadily, and with a somewhat drunken air, the while she slid intodreamland. 

'Quite like what?' she murmured, drowsily. 

'A little sail. '

'I should dearly love it, if it didn't make me sea-sick. '

'Sea-sick on a glassy lake like this! Impossible, ' said Montesma. 'Iconsider the thing settled. We set sail after dinner. '

Mr. Smithson came back to the yacht just in time to dress for dinner. Don Gomez excused himself from putting on his dress suit. He was goingto sail the yacht himself, and he was dressed for his work, picturesquely, in white duck trousers, white silk shirt, and blackvelvet shooting jacket. He dined with the permission of the ladies, inthis costume, in which he looked so much handsomer than in the livery ofpolite life. He had a red scarf tied round his waist, and when at hiswork by-and-by, he wore a little red silk cap, just stuck lightly on hisdark hair. The dinner to-day was all animation and even excitement, verydifferent from the languorous calm of yesterday. Lesbia seemed a newcreature. She talked and laughed and flashed and sparkled as she hadnever yet done within Mr. Smithson's experience. He contemplated thetransformation with wonder not unmixed with suspicion. Never for him hadshe been so brilliant--never in response to his glances had her violeteyes thus kindled, had her smile been so entrancingly sweet. He watchedMontesma, but in him he could find no fault. Even jealousy could hardlytake objection to the Spaniard's manner to Lady Lesbia. There was not alook, not a word that hinted at a private understanding between them, orwhich seemed to convey deeper meanings than the common language ofsociety. No, there was no ground for fault-finding; and yet Smithson wasmiserable. He knew this man of old, and knew his influence over women. 

Mr. Smithson handed over the management of the yacht without a murmer, albeit he pretended to be able to sail her himself, and was in the habitof taking the command for a couple of hours on a sunny afternoon, muchto the amusement of skipper and crew. But Montesma was a sailor born andbred--the salt keen breath of the sea had been the first breath in hisnostrils--he had managed his light felucca before he was twelve yearsold, had sailed every inch of the Caribbean Sea, and northward to thefurthermost of the Bahamas before he was fifteen. He had lived more onthe water than on the land in that wild boyhood of his; a boyhood inwhich books and professors had played but small part. Montesma's schoolhad been the world, and beautiful women his only professors. He hadlearnt arithmetic from the transactions of bubble companies; modernlanguages from the lips of the women who loved him. He was a crack shot, a perfect swordsman, a reckless horseman, and a dancer in whom dancingalmost rose to genius. Beyond these limits he was as ignorant as dirt;but he had a cleverness which served as a substitute for book learning, and he seldom failed in impressing the people he met with the idea thathe, Gomez de Montesma, was no ordinary man. 

Directly after dinner the preparations for an immediate start began;very much to the disgust of skipper and crew, who were not in the habitof working after dinner; but Montesma cared nothing for the shortanswers of the captain, or the black look of the men. 

Lesbia wanted to learn all about everything--the name of every sail, ofevery rope. She stood near the helmsman, a slim graceful figure in awhite gown of some soft material, with never a jewel or a flower torelieve that statuesque simplicity. She wore no hat, and the richchesnut hair was rolled in a loose knot at the back of the smallGreek-looking head. Montesma came to her every now and then to explainwhat was being done; and by-and-by, when the canvas was all up, and theyacht was skimming over the water, like a giant swan borne by thecurrent of some vast strong river, he came and stayed by her side, andthey two sat making little baby sentences in Spanish, he as teacher andshe as pupil, with no one near them but the sailors. 

The owner of the _Cayman_ had disappeared mysteriously a quarter of anhour after the sails were unfurled, and Lady Kirkbank had tottered downto the saloon. 

'I am not going--cabin, ' she faltered, when Lesbia remonstrated withher, 'only--going--saloon--sofa--lie down--little--Smithson takecare--you, ' not perceiving that Smithson had vanished, 'shall be--quiteclose. '

So Lesbia and Don Gomez were alone under the summer stars, murmuringlittle bits of Spanish. 

'It is the only true way of learning a language, ' he said; 'grammars area delusion. '

It was a very delightful and easy way of learning, at any rate. Lesbiareclined in her bamboo chair, and fanned herself indolently, and watchedthe shadowy shores of the island, cliff and hill, down and wooded crest, flitting past her like dream-pictures, and her lips slowly shaped thewords of that soft lisping language--so simple, so musical--a languagemade for lovers and for song, one would think. It was wonderful whatrapid progress Lesbia made. 

She heard a church clock on the island striking, and asked Don Gomez thehour. 

'Ten, ' he said. 

'Ten! Surely it must be later. It was past eight before we began dinner, and we have been sailing for ever so long. Captain, kindly tell me thetime, ' she called to the skipper, who was lolling over the gunwale nearthe foremast smoking a meditative pipe. 

'Twelve o'clock, my lady. '

'Heavens, can I possibly have been sitting here so long. I should liketo stay on deck all night and watch the sailing; but I must really goand take care of poor Lady Kirkbank. I am afraid she is not very well. '

'She had a somewhat distracted air when she went below, but I daresayshe will sleep off her troubles. If I were you I should leave her toherself. '

'Impossible! What can have become of Mr. Smithson?'

'I have a shrewd suspicion that it is with Smithson as with poor LadyKirkbank. '

'Do you mean that he is ill?'

'Precisely. '

'What, on a calm summer night, sailing over a sea of glass. The owner ofa yacht!'

'Rather ignominious for poor Smithson, isn't it? But men who own yachtsare only mortal, and are sometimes wretched sailors. Smithson is feebleon that point, as I know of old. '

'Then wasn't it rather cruel of us to sail his yacht?'

'Yachts are meant for sailing, and again, sea-sickness is supposed to bea wholesome exercise. '

'Good-night. '

'Good-night, ' both good nights in Spanish, and with a touch oftenderness which the words could hardly have expressed in English. 

'Must you really go?' pleaded Montesma, holding her hand just a thoughtlonger than he had ever held it before. 

'Ah, the little more, and how much it is, ' says the poet. 

'Really and truly. '

'I am so sorry. I wish you could have stayed on deck all night. '

'So do I, with all my heart. This calm sea under the starlit sky is likea dream of heaven. '

'It is very nice, but if you stayed I think I could promise youconsiderable variety. We shall have a tempest before morning. '

'Of all things in the world I should love to see a thunderstorm at sea. '

'Be on the alert then, and Captain Parkes and I will try to oblige you. '

'At any rate you have made it impossible for me to sleep. I shall staywith Lady Kirkbank in the saloon. Good-night, again. '

'Good-night. '

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

IN STORM AND DARKNESS. 

Lesbia found Lady Kirkbank prostrate on a low divan in the saloon, sleepless, and very cross. The atmosphere reeked with red lavender, sal-volatile, eau de Cologne, and brandy, which latter remedy poorGeorgie had taken freely in her agonies. Kibble, the faithful Grasmeregirl, sat by the divan, fanning the sufferer with a large Japanese fan. Rilboche had naturally, as a Frenchwoman, succumbed utterly to her ownfeelings, and was moaning in her berth, wailing out every now and thenthat she would never have taken service with Miladi had she suspectedher to be capable of such cruelty as to take her to live for weeks uponthe sea. 

If this was the state of affairs now while the ocean was only gentlystirred, what would it be by-and-by if the tempest should really come?

'What can you be thinking of, staying on deck all night with those men?'exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, peevishly. 'It is hardly respectable. '

She would have been still more inclined to object had she known thatLesbia's companion had been 'that man' rather than 'those men. '

'What do you mean by all night?' Lesbia retorted, contemptuously; 'it isonly just twelve. '

'Only twelve. I thought we were close upon daylight. I have suffered aneternity of agony. '

'I am very sorry you should be ill; but really the sea has been sodeliciously calm. '

'I believe I should have suffered less if it had been diabolicallyrough. Oh, that monotonous flip-flap of the water, that slow heaving ofthe boat! Nothing could be worse. '

'I am glad to hear you say that, for Don Gomez says we are likely tohave a tempest. '

'A tempest!' shrieked Georgie. 'Then let him stop the boat this instantand put me on shore. Tell him to land me anywhere--on the Needles even. I could stop at the lighthouse till morning. A storm at sea will besimply my death. '

'Dear Lady Kirkbank, I was only joking, ' said Lesbia, who did not wantto be worried by her chaperon's nervous apprehensions: 'so far the nightis lovely. '

'Give me a spoonful more brandy, my good creature, '--to Kibble. 'Lesbia, you ought never to have brought me into this miserable state. Iconsented to staying on board the yacht; but I never consented tosailing on her. '

'You will soon be well, dear Lady Kirkbank; and you will have such anappetite for breakfast to-morrow morning. '

'Where shall we be at breakfast time?'

'Off St. Catherine's Point, I believe--just half way round the island. '

'If we are not at the bottom of the sea, ' groaned Georgie. 

They were now in the open Channel, and the boat dipped and rose tolarger billows than had encountered her course before. Lady Kirkbank layin a state of collapse, in which life seemed only sustainable byoccasional teaspoonfuls of cognac gently tilted down her throat by thepatient Kibble. 

Lesbia went to her cabin, but with no intention of remaining there. Shewas firmly convinced that the storm would come, and she meant to be ondeck while it was raging. What harm could thunder or lightning, hail orrain, do to her while he was by to protect her? He would be busy sailingthe boat, perhaps, but still he would have a moment now and then inwhich to think of her and care for her. 

Yes, the storm was coming. There was a livid look upon the waters, andthe atmosphere was heavy with heat; the sky to windward black as afuneral pall. Lesbia was almost fearless, yet she felt a thrill of aweas she looked into that dense blackness. To leeward the stars were stillvisible; but that gigantic mass of cloud came creeping slowly, solemnlyover the sky, while the shadow flitted fast across the water, swallowingup that ghastly electric glare. 

Lesbia wrapped herself in a white cashmere _sortie de bal_ and stole upthe companion. Montesma was working at the ropes with his own hands, calling directions to the sailors to shorten and take in the canvas, urging them to increased efforts by working at the ropes with his ownhands, springing up the rigging and on deck, flashing backwards andforwards amidst the rigging like a being of supernatural power. He hadtaken off his jacket, and was clad from top to toe in white, save forthat streak of scarlet which tightly girdled his waist. His tallflexible form, perfect in line as a Greek statue of Hermes, stood outagainst the background of black night. His voice, with its tones ofbrief imperious command, the proud carriage of his head, the easy graceof his rapid movements, all proclaimed the man born to rule over hisfellow-men. And it is these master spirits, these born rulers, whomwomen instinctively recognise as their sovereign lords, and for whomwomen count no sacrifice too costly. 

In the midst of his activity Montesma suddenly saw that white-robedfigure standing at the top of the companion, and flew to her side. Theboat was pitching heavily, dipping into the trough of the sea at anangle of forty-five degrees, as it seemed to Lesbia. 

'You ought not to be here, ' said Montesma; 'it is much rougher than Iexpected. '

'I am not afraid, ' she answered; 'but I will go back to my cabin if I amin your way. '

'In my way' (with deepest tenderness): 'yes, you are in my way, for Ishall think of nothing else now you are here. But I believe we have doneall that need be done to the yacht, and I can take care of you till thestorm is over. '

He put his arm round her as the stem dipped, and led her towards thestern, guiding her footsteps, supporting her as her light figure swayedagainst him with the motion of the boat. A vivid flash of lightningshowed him her face as they stood for an instant leaning against eachother, his arm encircling her. Ah, what deep feeling in thatcountenance, once so passionless; what a new light in those eyes. It waslike the awakening of a long dormant soul. 

He took the helm from the captain and stood steering the vessel, andcalling out his orders, with Lesbia close beside him, holding her withhis disengaged arm, drawing her near him as the vessel pitchedviolently, drawing her nearer still when they shipped a sea, and a greatfountain of spray enfolded them both in a dense cloud of salt water. 

The thunder roared and rattled, as if it began and ended close besidethem. Forked lightnings zigzagged amidst the rigging. Sheet lightningenwrapped those two in a luminous atmosphere, revealing faces that werepale with passion, lips that trembled with emotion. There were but scantopportunity for speech, and neither of these two felt the need of words. To be together, bound nearer to each other than they had ever been yet, than they might ever be again, in the midst of thunder and lightning anddense clouds of spray. This was enough. Once when the _Cayman_ pitchedwith exceptional fury, when the thunder crashed and roared loudest, Lesbia found her head lying on Montesma's breast and his arms round her, his lips upon her face. She did not wrench herself from that forbiddenembrace. She let those lips kiss hers as never mortal man had kissed herbefore. But an instant later, when Montesma's attention was distractedby his duties as steersman, and he let her go, she slipped away in thedarkness, and melted from his sight and touch like a modern Undine. Hedared not leave the helm and follow her then. He sent one of the sailorsbelow a little later, to make sure that she was safe in her cabin; buthe saw her no more that night. 

The storm abated soon after daybreak, and the morning was lovely; butDon Gomez and Lady Lesbia did not meet again till the church bells onthe island were ringing for morning service, and then the lady was safeunder the wing of her chaperon, with her affianced husband inattendance upon her at the breakfast table in the saloon. 

She received Montesma with the faintest inclination of the head, and shecarefully avoided all occasion of speech with him during the leisurely, long spun-out meal. She was as white as her muslin gown, and her eyestold of a sleepless night. She talked a little, very little to LadyKirkbank and Mr. Smithson; to the Spaniard not at all. And yet Montesmawas in no manner dashed by this appearance of deep offence. So mightFrancesca have looked the morning after that little scene over the book;yet she sacrificed her salvation for her lover all the same. It was afamiliar stage upon the journey which Montesma knew by heart. Here theinclination of the road was so many degrees more or less; for this hillyou are commanded to put on an extra horse; at this stage it isforbidden to go more than eight miles an hour, and so on, and so on. Montesma knew every inch of the ground. He put on a melancholy look, andtalked very little. He had been on deck all night, and so there was anexcuse for his being quiet. 

Lady Kirkbank related her impressions of the storm, and talked enoughfor four. She had suffered the pangs of purgatory, but her naturalcheeriness asserted itself, and she made no moaning about past agonieswhich had exercised a really delightful influence on her appetite. Mr. Smithson also was cheerful. He had paid his annual tribute to Neptune, and might hope to go scot-free for the rest of the season. 

'If I had stayed on deck I must have had my finger in the pie; so Ithought it better to go below and get a good night's rest in thesteward's cabin, ' he said, not caring to confess his sufferings asfrankly as Lady Kirkbank admitted hers. 

After breakfast, which was prolonged till noon, Montesma asked Smithsonto smoke a cigarette on deck with him. 

'I want to talk to you on a rather serious matter, ' he said. 

Lesbia heard the words, and looked up with a frightened glance. Could hemean to attempt anything desperate? Was he going to confess the fataltruth to Horace Smithson, to tell her affianced lover that she wasuntrue to her bond, that she loved him, Montesma, as fondly as he lovedher, that their two souls had mingled like two flames fanned by the samecurrent, and thence had risen to a conflagration which must end in ruin, if she were not set free to follow where her heart had gone, free tobelong to that man whom her spirit chose for lord and master. Her heartleapt at the hope that Montesma was going to do this, that he was strongenough to break her bonds for her, powerful and rich enough to secureher a brilliant future. Yet this last consideration, which hitherto hadbeen paramount, seemed now of but little moment. To be with _him_, tobelong to _him_, would be enough for bliss. Albeit that in such achoice she forfeited all that she had ever possessed or hoped for ofearthly prosperity. Adventurer, beggar, whatever he might be, she chosehim, and loved him with all the strength of a weak soul newly awakenedto passionate feeling. 

Unhappily for Lesbia Haselden, Montesma was not at all the kind of manto take so direct and open a course as that which she imagined possible. 

His business with Mr. Smithson was of quite a different kind. 

'Smithson, do you know that you have an utterly incompetent crew?' hesaid, gravely, when they two were standing aft, lighting theircigarettes. 

'Indeed I do not. The men are all experienced sailors, and the captainranks high among yachtsmen. '

'English yachtsmen are not particularly good judges of sailors. I tellyou your skipper is no sailor, and his men are fools. If it had not beenfor me the _Cayman_ would have gone to pieces on the rocks last night, and if you are to cross to St. Malo, as you talked of doing, for theregatta there, you had better sack these men and let me get you a SouthAmerican crew. I know of a fellow who is in London just now--the captainof a Rio steamer, who'll send you a crew of picked men, if you give meauthority to telegraph to him. '

'I don't like foreign sailors, ' said Smithson, looking perplexed andworried; 'and I have perfect confidence in Wilkinson. '

'Which is as much as to say that you consider me a liar! Go to thebottom your own way, _mon ami: ce n'est pas mon affaire, _' saidMontesma, turning on his heel, and leaving his friend to his owndevices. 

Had he pressed the point, Smithson would have suspected him of some evilmotive, and would have been resolute in his resistance; but as he saidno more about it, Smithson began to feel uncomfortable. 

He was no sailor himself, knew absolutely nothing about the navigationof his yacht, though he sometimes pretended to sail her; and he had nopower to judge of his skipper's capacity or his men's seamanship. He hadengaged the captain wholly on the strength of the man's reputation, guaranteed by certain certificates which seemed to mean a great deal. But after all such certificates might mean very little--such areputation might be no real guarantee. The sailors had been engaged bythe captain, and their ruddy faces and thoroughly British appearence, the exquisite cleanliness which they maintained in every detail of theyacht, had seemed to Mr. Smithson the perfection of seamanship. 

But it was not the less true that the cleanest of yachts, with deck ofspotless whiteness, sails of unsullied purity, brasses shining andsparkling like gold fresh from the goldsmith's, might be spiked upon arock, or might founder on a sand-bank, or heel over under too muchcanvas. Mr. Smithson was inclined to suspect any proposition ofMontesma's; yet he was not the less disturbed in mind by the assertion. 

The day wore on, and the yacht sailed merrily over a summer sea. Mr. Smithson fidgeted about the deck uneasily, watching every movement ofthe sailors. No boat could be sailing better, as it seemed to him; butin such weather and over such waters any boat must needs go easily. Itwas in the blackness of night, amidst the fury of the storm, thatMontesma's opinion had been formed. Smithson began to think that hisfriend was right. The sailors had honest countenances, but they lookedhorribly stupid. Could men with such vacuous grins, such an air ofimbecile good-nature, be capable of acting wisely in any terriblecrisis?--could they have nerve and readiness, quickness, decision, allthose grand qualites which are needed by the seaman who has to contendwith the fury of the elements?

Mr. Smithson and his guests had breakfasted too late for the possibilityof luncheon. They were in Cowes Roads by one o'clock. A fleet of yachtshad arrived during their absence, and the scene was full of life andgaiety. Lady Lesbia held a _levée_ at the afternoon tea, and had a crowdof her old admirers around her--adorers whose presence in no wisedisturbed Horace Smithson's peace. He would have been content that hiswife should go through life with a herd of such worshippers following inher footsteps. He knew the aimless innocence, the almost infantinesimplicity of the typical Johnnie, Chappie, _Muscadin, Petit Creve, Gommeux_--call him by what name you will. From these he feared no evil. But in that one follower who gave no outward token of his worship hedreaded peril. It was Montesma he watched, while dragoons withclose-cropped hair, and imbecile youths with heads rigid in four-inchcollars, were hanging about Lady Lesbia's low bamboo chair, andadministering obsequiously to the small necessities of the tea-table. 

It was while this tea-table business was going on that Mr. Smithson tookthe opportunity of setting his mind at rest, were it possible, as to themerits of Captain Wilkinson. Among his visitors this afternoon there wasthe owner of three or four racing yachts--a man renowned for hisvictories, at home and abroad. 

'I think you knew something of my captain, Wilkinson, before I engagedhim, ' said Smithson, with assumed carelessness. 

'I know every skipper on board every boat in the squadron, ' answered hisfriend. 'A good fellow, Wilkinson--thoroughly honest fellow. '

'Honest; oh yes, I know all about that. But how about his seamanship?His certificates were wonderfully good, but they are not everything. 

'Everything, my dear fellow, ' cried the other; 'they are next tonothing. But I believe Wilkinson is a tolerable sailor. '

This was not encouraging. 

'He has never been unlucky, I believe. '

'My dear Smithson, you are a great authority in the City, but you arenot very well up in the records of the yachting world, or you would knowthat your Captain Wilkinson was skipper on the _Orinoco_ when she ranaground on the Chesil Bank, coming home from Cherbourg Regatta, fifteenlives lost, and the yacht, in less than half an hour, ground to powder. That was rather a bad case, I remember; for though it was a tempestuousnight, the accident would never have happened if Wilkinson had notmistaken the lights. So you see his Trinity House papers didn't preventhis going wrong. '

Good heavens! This was the strongest confirmation of Montesma's charge. The man was a stupid man, an incapable man, a man to whose intelligenceand care human life should never be trusted. A fig for his honesty! Whatwould honesty be worth in a hurricane off the Chesil Beach? What wouldhonesty serve a ship spitted on the Jailors off Jersey? Montesma wasright. If the _Cayman_ was to make a trip to St. Malo she must benavigated by competent men. Horace Smithson hated foreign sailors, copper-faced ruffians, with flashing black eyes which seemed to threatenmurder, did you but say a rough word to them; sleek, raven-hairedscoundrels, with bowie-knives in their girdles, ready for mutiny. But, after all, life is worth too much to be risked for a prejudice, asentiment. 

Perhaps that St. Malo business might be avoided; and then there need beno change in captain or crew. The yacht must be safe enough lying atanchor in the roadstead. By-and-by, when the visitors had departed, andMr. Smithson was reposefully enjoying his tea by Lady Lesbia's side, heapproached the subject. 

'Do you really care about crossing to St. Malo after this--really preferthe idea to Ryde?'

'Infinitely, ' exclaimed Lesbia, quickly. 'Ryde would only be Cowes everagain--a lesser Cowes; and I thought when you first proposed it that theplan was rather stupid, though I did not want to be uncivil and say so. But I was delighted with Don Gomez de Montesma's amendment, substitutingSt. Malo for Ryde. In the first place the trip across will bedelicious'--Lady Kirkbank gave a faint groan--'and in the second place Iam dying to see Brittany. '

'I doubt if you will highly appreciate St. Malo. It is a town of manyand various smells. '

'But I want to smell those foreign smells of which one hears much. Atleast it is an experience. We need not be on shore any longer than welike. And I want to see that fine rocky coast, and Chateaubriand's tombon the what's-its-name. So nice to be buried in that way. '

'Then you have set your heart on going to St. Malo, and would not likeany change in our plan?'

'Any change will be simply detestable, ' answered Lesbia, all the moredecidedly since she suspected a desire for change on the part of Mr. Smithson. 

She was in no amiable humour this afternoon. All her nerves seemedstrained to their utmost tension. She was irritated, tremulous withnervous excitement, inclined to hate everybody, Horace Smithson most ofall. In her cabin a little later on, when she was changing her gown fordinner, and Kibble was somewhat slow and clumsy in the lacing of thebodice, she wrenched herself from the girl's hands, flung herself into achair, and burst into a flood of passionate tears. 

'O God! that I were on one of those islands in the Caribbean Sea--anisland where Europeans never come--where I might lie down among thepoisonous tropical flowers, and sleep the rest of my days away. I amsick to death of my life here; of the yacht, the people--everything. '

'This air is too relaxing, Lady Lesbia, ' the girl murmured, soothingly;'and you didn't have your natural rest last night. Shall I get you anice strong cup of tea?'

'Tea! no. I have been living upon tea for the last twenty-four hours. Ihave eaten nothing. My mouth is parched and burning. Oh, Kibble!'flinging her head upon the girl's buxom arm, and letting it rest there, 'what a happy creature you are--not a care--not a care. '

'I'm sure you can't have any cares, Lady Lesbia, ' said Kibble, with anincredulous smile, trying to smooth the disordered hair, anxious to makehaste with the unfinished toilet, for it was within a few minutes ofeight. 

'I am full of care. I am in debt--horribly in debt--getting deeper anddeeper every day--and I am going to sell myself to the only man who canpay my debts and give me fine houses, and finery like this, ' plucking atthe _crépe de chine_ gown, with its flossy fringe, its delicate lace, amarvel of artistic expenditure; a garment which looked simplicityitself, and yet was so cleverly contrived as to cost five-and-thirtyguineas. The greatest effects in it required to be studied with amicroscope. 

'But surely, dear Lady Lesbia, you won't marry Mr. Smithson, if youdon't love him?'

'Do you suppose love has anything to do with marriages in society?'

'Oh, Lady Lesbia, it would be so unkind to him, so cruel to yourself. '

'Cruel to myself. Yes, I am cruel to myself. I had the chance ofhappiness a year ago, and I lost it. I have the chance of happinessnow--yes, of consummate bliss--and haven't the courage to snatch at it. Take off this horrid gown, Kibble; my head is splitting: I shan't go todinner. '

'Oh, Lady Lesbia, you are treading on the pearl embroidery, 'remonstrated poor Kibble, as Lesbia kicked the new gown from under herfeet. 

'What does it matter!' she exclaimed with a bitter little laugh. 'It hasnot been paid for--perhaps it never will be. '

The dinner was silent and gloomy. It was as if a star had been suddenlyblotted out of the sky. Smithson, ordinarily so hospitable, had been toomuch disturbed in mind to ask any of his friends to stay to dinner; sothere were only Lady Kirkbank, who was too tired to be lively, andMontesma, who was inclined to be thoughtful. Lesbia's absence, and theidea that she was ill, gave the feast almost a funereal air. 

After dinner Smithson and Montesma sat on deck, smoking their cigars, and lazily watching the lights on sea, and the lights on shore; thesebrilliant in the foreground, those dim in the distance. 

'You can telegraph to your Rio Janeiro friend to-morrow morning, if youlike, ' said Smithson, presently, 'and tell him to send a first-rateskipper and crew. Lady Lesbia has made up her mind to see St. MaloRegatta, and with such a sacred charge I can't be too careful. '

'I'll wire before eight o'clock to-morrow, ' answered Montesma, 'You havedecided wisely. Your respectable English Wilkinson is an excellentman--but nothing would surprise me less than his reducing your _Cayman_to matchwood in the next gale. '

CHAPTER XL. 

A NOTE OF ALARM. 

That strange scene in the old house at Fellside made a profoundimpression upon Lord Hartfield. He tried to disguise his trouble, anddid all in his power to seem gay and at perfect ease in his wife'scompany; but his mind was full of anxiety, and Mary loved him too wellto be for a moment in doubt as to his feelings. 

'There is something wrong, Jack, ' she said, while they were breakfastingat a table in the verandah, with the lake and the bills in front of themand the sweet morning air around them. 'You try to talk and to belively, but there is a little perpendicular wrinkle in your foreheadwhich I know as well as the letters of the alphabet, and that littleline means worry. I used to see it in the old days, when you werebreaking your heart for Lesbia. Why cannot you be frank and confide inme. It is your duty, sir, as my husband. '

'Is it my duty to halve my burdens as well as my joys? How do I know ifthose girlish shoulders are strong enough to bear the weight of them?'

'I can bear anything you can bear, and I won't be cheated out of myshare in your worries. If you were obliged to have a tooth out, I wouldhave one out too, for company. '

'I hope the dentist would be too conscientious to allow that. '

'Tell me your trouble, Hartfield, ' she said, earnestly, leaning acrossthe table, bringing her grave intelligent face near to him. 

They were quite alone, he and she. The servants had done theirministering. Behind them there was the empty dining-room, in front ofthem the sunlit panorama of lake and hill. There could not be a saferplace for telling secrets. 

'Tell me what it is that worries you, ' Mary pleaded again. 

'I will, dear. After all perfect trust is the best; nay, it is your due, for you are brave enough and true enough to be trusted with secrets thatmean life and death. In a word, then, Mary, the cause of my trouble isthat old man we saw the other night. '

'Steadman's uncle?'

'Do you really believe that he is Steadman's uncle?'

'My grandmother told me so, ' answered Mary, reddening to the roots ofher hair. 

To this girl, who was the soul of truth, there was deepest shame in theidea that her kinswoman, the woman whom of all the world she most owedreverence and honour, could be deemed capable of falsehood. 

'Do you think my grandmother would tell me an untruth?'

'I do not believe that man is a poor dependent, an old servant'skinsman, sheltered and cared for in this house for charity's sake. Forgive me, Mary, if I doubt the word of one you love; but there arepositions in life in which a man must judge for himself. Would Mr. Steadman's kinsman be lodged as that old man is lodged; would he talk asthat old man talks; and last and greatest perplexity of all, would hepossess a treasure of gold and jewels which must be worth manythousands?'

'But you cannot know for certain that those things are valuable; theymay be rubbish that this poor old man has scraped together and hoardedfor years, glass jewels bought at country fairs. Those rouleaux maycontain lead or coppers. '

'I do not think so, Mary. The stones had all the brilliancy of valuablegems, and then there were others in the finest filagreesettings--goldsmith's work which bore the stamp of an Eastern world. Take my word for it, that treasure came from India; and it must havebeen brought to England by Lord Maulevrier. It may have existed allthese years without your grandmother's knowledge. That is quitepossible; but it seems to me impossible that such wealth should bewithin the knowledge and the power of a pauper lunatic. '

'But if that unhappy old man is not a relation of Steadman's supportedhere by my grandmother's benevolence, who can he be, and why is hehere?' asked Mary. 

'Oh, Molly dear, these are two questions which I cannot answer, andwhich yet ought to be answered somehow. Since that night I have felt asif there were a dark cloud lowering over this house--a cloud almost asterrible in its menace of danger as the forshadowing of fate in a Greeklegend. For your sake, for the honour of your race, for my ownself-respect as your husband, I feel that this mystery ought to besolved, and all dark things made light before your grandmother's death. When she is gone the master-key to the past will be lost. '

'But she will be spared for many years, I hope, spared to sympathisewith my happiness, and with Lesbia's. '

My dearest girl, we cannot hope that. The thread of her life is wornvery thin. It may snap at any moment. You cannot look seriously in yourgrandmother's face, and yet delude yourself with the hope that she hasyears of life before her. '

'It will be very hard to part, just as she has begun to care for me, 'said Mary, with her eyes full of tears. 

'All such partings are hard, and your grandmother's life has been solonely and joyless that the memory of it must always have a touch ofpain. One cannot say of her as we can of the happy; she has lived herlife--all things have been given to her, and she falls asleep at theclose of a long and glorious day. For some reason which I cannotunderstand, Lady Maulevrier's life has been a prolonged sacrifice. '

'She has always given us to understand that she was fond of Fellside, and that this secluded life suited her, ' said Mary, meditatively. 

'I cannot help doubting her sincerity on that point. Lady Maulevrier istoo clever a woman, and forgive me, dear, if I add too worldly a woman, to be content to live out of the world. The bird must have chafed itsbreast against the bars of the cage many and many a time when youthought that all was peace. Be sure, Mary, that your grandmother had apowerful motive for spending all her days in this place, and I can butthink that the old man we saw the other night had some part in thatmotive. Do you remember telling me of her ladyship's vehement anger whenshe heard you had made the acquaintance of her pensioner?'

'Yes, she was very angry, ' Mary answered, with a troubled look. 'Inever saw her so angry--she was almost beside herself--said the harshestthings to me--talked as if I had done some dreadful mischief. '

'Would she have been so moved, do you think, unless there was some fatalsecret involved in that man's presence here?'

'I hardly know what to think. Tell me everything. What is it that youfear?--what is it that you suspect?'

'To tell you my fears and suspicions is to tell you a family secret thathas been kept from you out of kindness all the years of your life--and Ihardly think I could bring myself to that if I did not know what theworld is, and how many good-natured friends Lady Hartfield will meet insociety, by-and-by, ready to tell her, by hints and inuendoes, that hergrandfather, the Governor of Madras, came back to England under a cloudof disgrace. '

'My poor grandfather! How dreadful!' exclaimed Mary, pale with pity andshame. 'Did he deserve his disgrace, poor unhappy creature--or was hethe victim of false accusation?'

'I can hardly tell you that, Mary, any more than I can tell whetherWarren Hastings deserved the abuse that was wreaked upon him at onetime, or the acquittal that gave the lie to his slanderers in afteryears. The events occurred forty years ago--the story was only halfknown then, and like all such stories formed the basis for every kind ofexaggeration and perversion. '

'Does Maulevrier know?' faltered Mary. 

'Maulevrier knows all that is known by the general public, and no more. '

'And you have married the granddaughter of a disgraced man, ' said Mary, with a piteous look. 'Did you know--when you married me?'

'As much as I know now, dear love. If you had been Jonathan Wild'sgranddaughter you would have been just as dear to me. I married _you_, dearest; I love _you_; I believe in _you_. All the grandfathers inChristendom would not shake my faith by one tittle. '

She threw herself into his arms, and sobbed upon his breast. But sweetas this assurance of his love was to her, she was not the less strickenby shame at the thought of possible infamy in the past, a shamefulmemory for ever brooding over her name in the present. 

'Society never forgets a scandal, ' she said: 'I have heard Maulevriersay that. '

'Society has a long memory for other people's sins, but it only avengesits own wrongs. Give the wicked fairy Society a bad dinner, or leave herout of your invitation list for a ball, and she will twit you with thecrimes or the misfortunes of a remote ancestor--she will go abouttalking of your grandfather the leper, or your great aunt who ran awaywith her footman. But so long as the wicked fairy gets all she wants outof you, she cares not a straw for the misdeeds of past generations. '

He spoke lightly, laughingly almost, and then he ordered the dogcart tobe brought round immediately, and he drove Mary across the hills towardsLangdale, to bring the colour back to her blanched cheeks. He broughther home in time to give her grandmother an hour for letter-writingbefore luncheon, while he walked up and down the terrace below LadyMaulevrier's windows, meditating the course he was to take. 

He was to leave Westmoreland next day to take his place in the House ofLords during the last important debate of the session. He made up hismind that before he left he would seek an interview with LadyMaulevrier, and boldly ask her to explain the mystery of that old man'spresence at Fellside. He was her kinsman by marriage, and he had swornto honour her and to care for her as a son; and as a son he would urgeher to confide in him, to unburden her conscience of any dark secret, and to make the crooked things straight, before she was called away. 

While he was forecasting this interview, meeting imaginary objections, arguing points which might have to be argued, a servant came out to himwith an ochre envelope on a little silver tray--that unpleasant-lookingenvelope which seems always a presage of trouble, great or small. 

'Lord Maulevrier, Albany, to Lord Hartfield, Fellside, Grasmere. 

'For God's sake come to me at once. I am in great trouble; not on my ownaccount, but about a relation. '

A relation--except his grandmother and his two sisters Maulevrier had norelations for whom he cared a straw. This message must have relation toLesbia. Was she ill--dying, the victim of some fatal accident, runawayhorses, boat upset, train smashed? There was something; and Maulevrierappealed to his nearest and best friend. There was no withstanding suchan appeal. It must be answered, and immediately. 

Lord Hartfield went into the library and wrote his reply message, whichconsisted of six words. 

'Going to you by first train. '

The next train left Windermere at three. There was just time to get afresh horse put in the dogcart, and a Gladstone bag packed. 

CHAPTER XLI. 

PRIVILEGED INFORMATION. 

Lord Hartfield did not arrive at Euston Square until near eleven o'clockat night. A hansom deposited him at the entrance to the Albany just asthe clock of St. James's Church chimed the hour. He found onlyMaulevrier's valet. His lordship had waited indoors all the evening, andhad only gone out a quarter of an hour ago. He had gone to theCerberus, and begged that Lord Hartfield would be kind enough to followhim there. 

Lord Hartfield was not fond of the Cerberus, and indeed deemed thatlively place of rendezvous a very dangerous sphere for his friendMaulevrier; but in the face of Maulevrier's telegram there was no timeto be lost, so he walked across Piccadilly and down St. James's Streetto the fashionable little club, where the men were dropping in after thetheatres and dinners, and where sheafs of bank notes were beingexchanged for those various coloured counters which represented diversvalues, from the respectable 'pony' to the modest 'chip. '

Maulevrier was in the first room Hartfield looked into, standing behindsome men who were playing. 

'That's something like friendship, ' he exclaimed, when he saw LordHartfield, and then he hooked his arm through his friend's, and led himoff to the dining room. 

'Come and have some supper, old fellow, ' he said, 'and I can tell you mytroubles while you are eating it. James, bring us a grill, and alobster, and a bottle of Mumms, number 27, you know. '

'Yes, my lord. '

'Sorry to find you in this den, Maulevrier, ' said Lord Hartfield. 

'Haven't touched a card. Haven't done half an hour's punting thisseason. But it's a kind of habit with me to wander in here now and then. I know so many of the members. One poor devil lost nine thousand onenight last week. Bather rough upon him, wasn't it? All ready money atthis shop, don't you know. '

'Thank God, I know nothing about it. And now, Maulevrier, what is wrong, and with whom?'

'Everything is wrong, and with my sister Lesbia. '

'Good heavens! what do you mean?'

'Only this, that there is a fellow after her whose very name means ruinto women--a Spanish-American adventurer--reckless, handsome, a gambler, seducer, duellest, dare-devil. The man she is to marry seems to haveneither nous nor spunk to defend her. Everybody at Goodwood saw the gamethat was being played, everybody at Cowes is watching the cards, bettingon the result. Yes, great God, the men at the Squadron Club are stakingtheir money upon my sister's character--even monkeys that she bolts withMontesma--five to three against the marriage with Smithson ever comingoff. '

'Is this true. '

'It is as true as your marriage with Molly, as true as your loyalty tome. I was told of it all this morning at the Haute Gomme by a man I canrely upon, a really good fellow, who would not leave me in the darkabout my sister's danger when all the smoking-rooms in Pall Mall weresniggering about it. My first impulse was to take the train for Cowes;but then I knew if I went alone I should let my temper get the better ofme. I should knock somebody down--throw somebody out of the window--makea devil of a scene. And this would be fatal for Lesbia. I wanted yourcounsel, your cool head, your steady common-sense. "Not a step forwardwithout Jack, " I said to myself, so I bolted off and sent that telegram. It relieved my feeling a little, but I've had a wretched day. '

'Waiter, bring me a Bradshaw, or an A B C, ' said Lord Hartfield. 

He had eaten nothing but a biscuit since breakfast, but he was ready togo off at once, supperless, if there were a train to carry him. Unluckily there was no train. The mail had started. Nothing till seveno'clock next morning. 

'Eat your supper, old fellow, ' said Maulevrier. 'After all, the dangermay not be so desperate as I fancied this morning. Slander is thefavourite amusement of the age we live in. We must allow a margin forexaggeration. '

'A very liberal margin, ' answered Hartfield. 'No doubt the man whowarned you meant honestly, but this scandal may have grown out of themerest trifles. The feebleness of the Masher's brain is only exceeded bythe foulness of the Masher's tongue. I daresay this rumour about LadyLesbia has its beginning and end among the Masher species. '

'I hope so, but--I have seen those two together--I met them at Victoriaone evening after Goodwood. Old Kirkbank was shuffling on ahead, carrying Smithson with her, absorbing his attention by fussificationabout her carriage. Lesbia and that Cuban devil were in the rear. Theylooked as if they had all the world to themselves. Faust and Margueritein the garden were not in it for the expression of intense absorbingfeeling compared with those two. I'm not an intellectual party, but Iknow something of human nature, and I know when a man and woman are inlove with each other. It is one of the things that never has been, thatnever can be hidden. '

'And you say this Montesma is a dangerous man?'

'Deadly. '

'Well, we must lose no time. When we are on the spot it will be easy tofind out the truth; and it will be your duty, if there be danger, towarn Lesbia and her future husband. 

'I would much rather shoot the Cuban, ' said Maulevrier. 'I never knewmuch good come of a warning in such a case: it generally precipitatesmatters. If I could play _écarté_ with him at the club, find himsporting an extra king, throw my cards in his face, and accept hischallenge for an exchange of shots on the sands beyond Cherbourg--therewould be something like satisfaction'

'You say the man is a gambler?'

'Report says something worse of him. Report says he is a cheat. '

'We must not be dependent upon society gossip, ' replied Lord Hartfield. 'I have an idea, Maulevrier. The more we know about this man--Montesma, I think you called him----'

'Gomez de Montesma. '

'The more fully we are acquainted with Don Gomez de Montesma'santecedents the better we shall be able to cope with him, if we come tohandy-grips. It's too late to start for Cowes, but it is not too late todo something. Fitzpatrick, the political-economist, spent a quarter of acentury in South America. He is a very old friend--knew my father--and Ican venture to knock at his door after midnight--all the more as I knowhe is a night-worker. He is very likely to enlighten us about your Cubanhidalgo. '

'You shall finish your supper before I let you stir. After that you maydo what you like. I was always a child in your hands, Jack, whether itwas climbing a mountain or crossing the Horse-shoe Fall. I consider thebusiness in your hands now. I'll go with you wherever you like, and dowhat you tell me. When you want me to kick anybody, or fight anybody, you can give me the office and I'll do it. I know that Lesbia'sinterests are safe in your hands. You once cared very much for her. Youare her brother-in-law now, and, next to me, you are her naturalprotector, taking into account that her future husband is a cad anddoesn't score. '

'Meet me at Waterloo at ten minutes to seven to-morrow morning, andwe'll go down to Cowes together. I'm off to find Fitzpatrick. Goodnight. '

So they parted. Lord Hartfield walked across the Park to Great GeorgeStreet, where Mr. Fitzpatrick had chambers of a semi-official character, on the first floor of a solemn-looking old house, spacious, gloomywithout and within, walls sombre with the subdued colouring ofdecorations half a century old. 

The lighted windows of those first-floor rooms told Lord Hartfield thathe was not too late. He rang the bell, which was answered with thebriefest delay by a sleepy-looking clerk, who had been taking shorthandnotes for Mr. Fitzpatrick's great book upon 'Protection _versus_ FreeTrade. ' The clerk looked sleepy, but his employer had as brisk an air asif he were just beginning the day; although he had been working withoutintermission since nine o'clock that evening, and had done a long day'swork before dinner. He was walking up and down the spacious unluxuriousroom, half office, half library, smoking a cigar. Upon a large table inthe centre of the room stood two powerful reading lamps with greenshades, illuminating a chaotic mass of books and pamphlets, heaped andscattered all over the table, save just on that spot between the twolamps, which accommodated Mr. Fitzpatrick's blotting pad and inkpot, apewter inkpot which held about a pint. 

'How d'ye do, Hartfield? Glad you've looked me up at last, ' said theIrishman, as if a midnight call were the most natural thing in theworld. 'Just come from the House?'

'No; I've just come from Westmoreland. I thought I should find you amongthose everlasting books of yours, late as it is. Can I have a few wordsalone with you?'

'Certainly. Morgan, you can go away for a bit. '

'Home, sir?'

'Home--well--yes, I suppose it's late. You look sleepy. I should havebeen glad to finish the chapter on Beetroot Sugar to-night--but it maystand over for the morning. Be sure you're early. '

'Yes, sir, ' the clerk responded with a faint sigh. 

He was paid handsomely for late hours, liberally rewarded for hisshorthand services; and yet he wished the great Fitzpatrick had not beenquite so industrious. 

'Now, my dear Hartfield, what can I do for you?' asked Fitzpatrick, whenthe clerk had gone. 'I can see by your face that you've somethingserious in hand. Can I help you?'

'You can, I believe, in a very material way. You were five-and-twentyyears in Spanish America?'

'Rather more than less. '

'Here, there, and everywhere?'

'Yes; there is _not_ a city in South America that I have not livedin--for something between a day and a year. '

'You know something about most men of any mark in that part of theworld, I conclude?'

'It was my business to know men of all kinds. I had my mission from theSpanish Government. I was engaged to examine the condition of commercethroughout the colony, the working of protection as against free trade, and so on. Strange, by-the-bye, that Cuba, the last place to foster theslave trade, was of all spots of the earth the first to carry free-tradeprinciples into practical effect, long before they were recognised inany European country. '

'Strange to me that you should speak of Cuba so soon after my comingin, ' answered Lord Hartfield. 'I am here to ask you to help me to findout the antecedents of a man who hails from that island. '

'I ought to know something about him, whoever he is, ' replied Mr. Fitzpatrick, briskly. 'I spent six months in Cuba not very long beforemy return to England. Cuba is one of my freshest memories; and I have apretty tight memory for facts, names and figures. Never could remembertwo lines of poetry in my life. '

'Did you ever hear of, or meet with, a man called Montesma--Gomez deMontesma?'

'Couldn't have stopped a month in Havana without hearing something aboutthat gentleman, ' answered Fitzpatrick, 'I hope he isn't a friend ofyours, and that you have not lent him money?'

'Neither; but I want to know all you can tell me about him. '

'You shall have it in black and white, out of my Cuban note-book, 'replied the other, unlocking a drawer in the official table; 'I alwaystake notes of anything worth recording, on the spot. A man is a fool whotrusts to memory, where personal character is at stake. Montesma is aswell known at Havana as the Morro Fort or the Tacon Theatre. I haveheard stories enough about him to fill a big volume; but all the factsrecorded there'--striking the morocco cover of the note-book--'have beenthoroughly sifted; I can vouch for them. '

He looked at the index, found the page, and handed the book to LordHartfield. 

'Read for yourself, ' he said, quietly. 

Lord Hartfield read three or four pages of plain statement as to variousadventures by sea and land in which Gomez de Montesma had figured, andthe reputation which he bore in Cuba and on the Main. 

'You can vouch for this?' he said at last, after a long silence. 

'For every syllable. '

'The story of his marriage?'

'Gospel truth: I knew the lady. '

'And the rest?'

'All true. '

'A thousand thanks. I know now upon what ground I stand. I have to savean innocent, high-bred girl from the clutches of a consummatescoundrel. '

'Shoot him, and shoot her, too, if there's no better way of saving her. It will be an act of mercy, ' said Mr. Fitzpatrick, without hesitation. 

CHAPTER XLII. 

'SHALL IT BE?'

While Lord Hartfield sat in his friend's office in Great George Streetreading the life story of Gomez de Montesma, told with the cruelprecision and the unvarnished language of a criminal indictment, thehero of that history was gliding round the spacious ballroom of theCowes Club, with Lady Lesbia Haselden's dark-brown head almost recliningon his shoulder, her violet eyes looking up at his every now and then, shyly, entrancingly, as he bent his head to talk to her. 

The Squadron Ball was in full swing between midnight and the first hourof morning. The flowers had not lost their freshness, the odours of dustand feverish human breath had not yet polluted the atmosphere. Thewindows were open to the purple night, the purple sea. The stars seemedto be close outside the verandah, shining on purpose for the dancers;and these two--the man tall, pale, dark, with flashing eyes and short, sleek raven hair, small head, noble bearing; the girl divinely lovely inher marble purity of complexion, her classical grace of form--these twowere, as every one avowed and acknowledged, the handsomest couple in theroom. 

'We're none of us in it compared with them, ' said a young navalcommander to his partner, whereupon the young lady looked somewhatsourly, and replied that Lady Lesbia's features were undeniably regularand her complexion good, but that she was wanting in soul. 

'Is she?' asked the sailor, incredulously, 'Look at her now. What do youcall that, if it isn't soul?'

'I call it simply disgraceful, ' answered his partner, sharply turningaway her head. 

Lesbia was looking up at the Spaniard, her lips faintly parted, all herface listening eagerly as she caught some whispered word, breathed amongthe soft ripples of her hair, from lips that almost touched her brow. People cannot go on waltzing for ten minutes in a dead silence, likeautomatic dancers. There must be conversation. Only it is better thatthe lips should do most of the talking. When the eyes have so much tosay society is apt to be censorious. 

Mr. Smithson was smoking a cigarette on the lawn with a sporting peer. Aman to whom tobacco is a necessity cannot be always on guard; but it isquite possible that in the present state of Lady Lesbia's feelingsSmithson would have had no restraining influence had he been ever sowatchful. To what act in the passion drama had her love come to-night asshe floated round the room, with her head inclined towards her lover'sbreast, the strong pulsation of his heart sounding in her ear, like therhythmical beat of the basses yonder in Waldteufel's last waltz? Wasthere still the uncertainty as to the _denouement_ which marks the thirdact of a good play? or was there the dread foreboding, the sense ofimpending doom which should stir the spectators with pity and terror asthe fourth act hurries to its passionate close? Who could tell? She hadbeen full of life and energy to-day on board the yacht during theracing, in which she seemed to take an ardent interest. The _Cayman_ hadfollowed the racers for three hours through a freshening sea, much toLady Kirkbank's disgust, and Lesbia had been the soul of the party. The same yesterday. The yacht had only got back to Cowes in time for theball, and all had been hurry and excitement while the ladies dressed andcrossed to the club, the spray dashing over their opera mantles, poorLady Kirkbank's complexion yellow with _mal de mer_, in spite of adouble coating of _Blanc de Fedora_, the last fashionable cosmetic. 

To-night Lesbia was curiously silent, depressed even, as it seemed tothose who were interested in observing her; and all the world isinterested in a famous beauty. She was very pale, even her lips werecolourless, and the large violet eyes and firmly pencilled brows alonegave colour to her face. She looked like a marble statue, the eyes andeyebrows accentuated with touches of colour. Those lovely eyes had aheavy look, as of trouble, weariness; nay, absolute distress. 

Never had she looked less brilliant than to-night; never had she lookedmore beautiful. It was the loveliness of a newly-awakened soul. Thewonderful Pandora-casket of life, with its infinite evil, its littlegood, had given up its secret. She knew what passionate love reallymeans. She knew what such love mostly means--self-sacrifice, surrenderof the world's wealth, severance from friends, the breaking of all oldties. To love as she loved means the crossing of a river more fatal thanthe Rubicon, the casting of a die more desperate than that which Caesarflung upon the board when he took up arms against the Republic. 

The river was not yet crossed, but her feet were on the margin, wet withthe ripple of the stream. The fatal die was not yet cast, but thedice-box was in her hand ready for the throw. Lesbia and Montesma dancedtogether--not too often, three waltzes out of sixteen--but when theywere so waltzing they were the cynosure of the room. That betting ofwhich Maulevrier had heard was rife to-night, and the odds upon theCuban had gone up. It was nine to four now that those two would be overthe border before the week was out. 

Mr. Smithson was not neglectful of his affianced. He took her into thesupper-room, where she drank some Moselle cup, but ate nothing. He satout three or four waltzes with her on the lawn, listening to the murmerof the sea, and talking very little. 

'You are looking wretchedly ill to-night, Lesbia, ' he said, after adismal silence. 

'I am sorry that I should put you to shame by my bad looks, ' sheanswered, with that keen acidity of tone which indicates irritatednerves. 

'You know that I don't mean anything of the kind; you are always lovely, always the loveliest everywhere; but I don't like to see you so ghastlypale. '

'I suppose I am over-fatigued: that I have done too much in London andhere. Life in Westmoreland was very different, ' she added, with a sigh, and a touch of wonder that the Lesbia Haselden, whose methodical lifehad never been stirred by a ruffle of passion, could have been the sameflesh and blood--yes, verily, the same woman, whose heart throbbed sovehemently to-night, whose brain seemed on fire. 

'Are you sure there is nothing the matter?' he asked, with a faintquiver in his voice. 

'What should there be the matter?'

'Who can say? God knows that I know no cause for evil. I am honestenough, and faithful enough, Lesbia. But your face to-night is like apresage of calamity, like the dull, livid sky that goes before athunderstorm. '

'I hope there is no thunderbolt coming, ' she answered, lightly. 'Whatvery tall talk about a headache, for really that is all that ails me. Hark, they have begun "My Queen. " I am engaged for this waltz. '

'I am sorry for that. '

'So am I. I would ever so much rather have stayed out here. '

Two hours later, in the steely morning light, when sea and land and skyhad a metallic look as if lit by electricity, Lady Lesbia stood with herchaperon and her affianced husband on the landing stage belonging to theclub, ready to step into the boat in which six swarthy seamen in redshirts and caps were to row them back to the yacht. Mr. Smithson drewthe warm _sortie de bal_, with its gold-coloured satin lining and whitefox border, closer round Lesbia's slender form. 

'You are shivering, ' he said; 'you ought to have warmer wraps. 

'This is warm enough for St. Petersburg. I am only tired--very tired. '

'The _Cayman_ will rock you to sleep. '

Don Gomez was standing close by, waiting for his host. The two men wereto walk up the hill to Formosa, a village with a classic portico, delightfully situated above the town. 

'What time are we to come to breakfast? asked Mr. Smithson. 

'Not too early, in mercy's name. Two o'clock in the afternoon, three, four;--why not make it five--combine breakfast with afternoon tea, 'exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, with a tremendous yawn. 'I never was sothoroughly fagged; I feel as if I had been beaten with sticks, basti--what's its name. '

She was leaning all her weight upon Mr. Smithson, as he handed her downthe steps and into the boat. Her normal weight was not a trifle, andthis morning she was heavy with champagne and sleep. Carefully asSmithson supported her she gave a lurch at the bottom of the steps, andplunged ponderously into the boat, which dipped and careened under her, whereat she shrieked, and implored Mr. Smithson to save her. 

All this, occupied some minutes, and gave Lesbia and the Cuban justtime for a few words that had to be said somehow. 

'Good-night, ' said Montesma, as they clasped hands; 'good-night;' andthen in a lower voice he said, 'Well, have you decided at last? Shall itbe?'

She looked at him for a moment or so, pale in the starlight, and thenmurmured an almost inaudible syllable. 

'Yes. '

He bent quickly and pressed his lips upon her gloved hand, and when Mr. Smithson looked round they two were standing apart, Montesma in alistless attitude, as if tired of waiting for his host. 

It was Smithson who handed Lesbia into the boat and arranged her wraps, and hung over her tenderly as he performed those small offices. 

'Now really, ' he asked, just before the boat put off, 'when are we to bewith you to-morrow?'

'Lady Kirkbank says not till afternoon tea, but I think you may come afew hours earlier. I am not at all sleepy. '

'You look as if you needed sleep badly, ' answered Smithson. 'I'm afraidyou are not half careful enough of yourself. Good-night. '

The boat was gliding off, the oars dipping, as he spoke. How swiftly itshot from his ken, flashing in and out among the yachts, where the lampswere burning dimly in that clear radiance of new-born day. 

Montesma gave a tremendous yawn as he took out his cigar-case, and heand Mr. Smithson did not say twenty words between them during the walkto Formosa, where servants were sitting up, lamps burning, a greatsilver tray, with brandy, soda, liqueurs, coffee, in readiness. 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

'ALAS, FOR SORROW IS ALL THE END OF THIS'

Lady Kirkbank retired to her cabin directly she got on board the_Cayman_. 

'Good-night, child! I am more than half asleep, ' she said; 'and I thinkif there were to be an earthquake an hour hence I should hardly hear it. Go to your berth directly, Lesbia; you look positively awful. I haveseen girls look bad after balls before now, but I never saw such aspectre as you look this morning. '

Poor Georgie's own complexion left something to be desired. The _Blancde Fedora_ had been a brilliant success for the first two hours: afterthat the warm room began to tell upon it, and there came a greasiness, then a streakiness, and now all that was left of an alabaster skin was alivid patch of purplish paint here and there, upon a crow's-foot ground. The eyebrows, too, had given in, and narrow lines of Vandyke brownmeandered down Lady Kirkbank's cheeks. The frizzy hair had gonealtogether wrong, and had a wild look, suggestive of the witches inMacbeth, and the scraggy neck and poor old shoulders showed every yearof their age in the ghastly morning light. 

Lesbia waited in the saloon till Lady Kirkbank had bolted herself intoher cabin, and then she went up to the deck wrapped in her satin-lined, fur-bordered cloak, and coiled herself in a bamboo arm-chair, andnestled her bare head into a Turkish pillow, and tried to sleep, therewith the cool morning breeze blowing upon her burning forehead, and theplish-plash of seawater soothing her ear. 

There were only three or four sailors on deck, weird, almostdiabolical-looking creatures, Lesbia thought, in striped shirts, withbare arms, of a shining bronze complexion, flashing black eyes, sleekraven hair, a sinister look. What species of men they were--Mestizoes, Coolies, Yucatekes--she knew not, but she felt that they were somethingwild and strange, and their presence filled her with a vague fear. _He_, whose influence now ruled her life, had told her that these men wereborn mariners, and that she was twenty times safer with them than whenthe yacht had been under the control of those honest, grinningred-whiskered English Jack Tars. But she liked the English sailors best, all the same; and she shrank from the faintest contact with thesetawny-visaged strangers, plucking away the train of her gown as theypassed her chair, lest they should brush against her drapery. 

On deck this morning, with only those dark faces near, she had a senseof loneliness, of helplessness, of abandonment even. Unbidden the imageof her home at Grasmere flashed into her mind--all things so calm, soperfectly ordered, such a sense of safety, of home--no peril, notemptation, no fever--only peace: and she had grown sick to death ofpeace. She had prayed for tempest: and the tempest had come. 

There was a heavenly quiet in the air in the early summer morning, onlythe creaking of a spar, the scream of a seagull now and then. How palethe lamps were growing on board the yachts. Paler still, yellow, anddim, and blurred yonder in the town. The eastward facing windows weregolden with the rising sun. Yes, this was morning. The yachts weremoving away yonder, majestical, swan-like, white sails shining againstthe blue. 

She closed her eyes, and tried to sleep; but sleep would not come. Shewas always listening--listening for the dip of oars, listening for asnatch of melody from a mellow baritone whose every accent she knew sowell. 

It came at last, the sound her soul longed for. She lay among hercushions with closed eyes, listening, drinking in those rich ripe notesas they came nearer and nearer, to the measure of dipping oars, _'Ladonna e mobile--'_

Nearer and nearer, until the little boat ground against the hull. Shelifted her heavy eyelids as Montesma leapt over the gunwale, almost intoher arms. He was at her side, kneeling by her low chair, kissing thelittle hands, chill with the freshness of morning. 

'My own, my very own, ' he murmured, passionately. 

He cared no more for those copper-faced Helots yonder than if they hadbeen made of wood. He had fate in his own hands now, as it seemed tohim. He went to the skipper and gave him some orders in Spanish, andthen the sails were unfurled, the _Cayman_ spread her broad white wings, and moved off among those other yachts which were gliding, gliding, gliding out to sea, melting from Cowes Roads like a vision that fadethwith the broad light of morning. 

When the sails were up and the yacht was running merrily through thewater, Montesma went back to Lady Lesbia, and they two sat side by side, gilded and glorified in the vivid lights of sunrise, talking as they hadnever talked before, her head upon his shoulder, a smile of ineffablepeace upon her lips, as of a weary child that has found rest. 

They were sailing for Havre, and at Havre they were to be married by theEnglish chaplain, and from Havre they were to sail for the Havana, andto live there ever afterwards in a fairy-tale dream of bliss, brokenonly by an annual visit to Paris, just to buy gowns and bonnets. Surrendered were all Lesbia's ambitious hopes--forgotten--gone; herdesire to reign princess paramount in the kingdom of fashion--her thirstto be wealthiest among the wealthy--gone--forgotten. Her dreams now wereof the _dolce far niente_ of a tropical climate, a boudoir giving on theCaribbean sea, cigarettes, coffee, nights spent in a foreign operahouse, the languid, reposeful existence of a Spanish dama--with him, with him. It was for his sake that she had modified all her ideas oflife. To be with him she would have been content to dwell in the tentsof the Patagonians, on the wild and snow-clad Pampas. A love which wasstrong enough to make her sacrifice duty, the world, her fair fame as awell-bred woman, was a love that recked but little of the paths alongwhich her lover's hand was to lead. For him, to be with him, sherenounced the world. The rest did not count. 

The summer hours glided past them. The _Cayman_ was far out at sea; allthe other yachts had vanished, and they were alone amidst the blue, with only a solitary three-master yonder, on the edge of the horizon. More than once Lesbia had talked of going below to change her ball gownfor the attire of everyday life; but each time her lover had detainedher a little longer, had pleaded for a few more words. Lady Kirkbankwould be astir presently, and there would be no more solitude for themtill they were married, and could shake her off altogether. So Lesbiastayed, and those two drank the cup of bliss, hushed by the monotonoussing-song of the sea, the rhythm of the swinging sails. But now it wasbroad morning. The hour when society, however late it may keep itsrevels overnight, is apt to awaken, were it only to call for a cup ofstrong tea and to turn again on the pillow of lassitude, after thatrefreshment, like the sluggard of Holy Writ. At ten o'clock the sun senthis golden arrows across the silken coverlet of her berth and awakenedLady Kirkbank, who opened her eyes and looked about languidly. Thelittle cabin was heaving itself up and down in a curious way; Mr. Smithson's cigar-cases were sloping as if they were going to fall uponLady Kirkbank's couch, and the looking-glass, with all its daintyappliances, was making an angle of forty-five degrees. There was moreswirling and washing of water against the hull than ever GeorgieKirkbank had heard in Cowes Roads. 

'Mercy on me! this horrid thing must be moving, ' she exclaimed to theempty air. 'It must have broken loose in the night. '

She had no confidence in those savage-looking sailors, and she had avision of the yacht drifting at the mercy of winds and waves, driftingfor days, weeks, and months; drifting to the German Ocean, drifting tothe North Pole. Mr. Smithson and Montesma on shore--no one on board toexercise authority over those fearful men. 

Perhaps they had mutinied, and were carrying off the yacht as theirbooty, with Lesbia and her chaperon, and all their gowns. 

'I am almost glad that harpy Seraphine has my diamonds, ' thought poorGeorgie, 'or I should have had them with me on board this hateful boat. '

And then she rapped vehemently against the panel of the cabin, andscreamed for Rilboche, whose den was adjacent. 

Rilboche, who detested the sea, made her appearance after some delay, looking even greener than her mistress, who, in rising from her berth, already began to suffer the agonies of sea-sickness. 

'What does this mean?' exclaimed Lady Kirkbank; 'and where are wegoing?'

'That's what I should like to know, my lady. But I daresay Lady Lesbiaand Mr. Montesma can tell you. They are both on deck. '

'Montesma! Why, we left him on shore!'

'Yes, my lady, but he came on board at five o'clock this morning. Ilooked at my watch when I heard him land, and he and Lady Lesbia havebeen sitting on deck ever since. '

'And now it is ten. Five hours on deck--impossible!'

'Time doesn't seem long when one is happy, my lady, ' murmured Rilboche, in her own language. 

'Help me to dress this instant, ' screamed her mistress: 'that dreadfulSpaniard is eloping with us. '

Despite the hideous depression of that malady which strikes down Kaiserand beggar with the same rough hand, Lady Kirkbank contrived to getherself dressed decently, and to stagger up the companion to that partof the deck where the Persian carpet was spread, and the bamboo chairsand tables were set out under the striped awning. Lesbia and her loverwere sitting together, he giving her a first lesson in the art ofsmoking a cigarette. He had told her playfully that every man, woman, and child in Cuba was a smoker, and she had besought him to let herbegin, and now, with infinite coquetry, was taking her first lesson. 

'You shameless minx!' exclaimed Georgie, pale with anger. 

'Where is Smithson--my poor, good Smithson?'

'Fast asleep in his bed at Formosa, I hope, dear Lady Kirkbank, ' theCuban answered, with perfect _sang froid_. 'Smithson is out of it, asyou idiomatic English say. I hope, Lady Kirkbank, you will be as kind tome as you have been to Smithson; and depend upon it I shall make LadyLesbia as good a husband as ever Smithson could have done. '

'You!' exclaimed the matron, contemptuously. 'You!--a foreigner, anadventurer, who may be as poor as Job, for anything I know about you. '

'Job was once rather comfortably off, Lady Kirkbank; and I can answerfor it that Montesma's wife will know none of the pangs of poverty. '

'If you were a beggar I would not care, ' said Lesbia, drawing nearer tohim. 

They had both risen at Lady Kirkbank's approach, and were standing sideby side, confronting her. Lesbia had shrunk from the idea of povertywith John Hammond; yet, for this man's sake, she was ready to facepenury, ruin, disgrace, anything. 

'Do you mean to tell me that Lord Maulevrier's sister, a young ladyunder my charge, answerable to me for her conduct, is capable of jiltingthe man to whom she has solemnly bound herself, in order to marry you?'demanded Lady Kirkbank, turning to Montesma. 

'Yes; that is what I am going to do, ' answered Lesbia, boldly. 'It wouldbe a greater sin to keep my promise than to break it. I never liked thatman, and you know it. You badgered me into accepting him, against my ownbetter judgment. You drifted me so deeply into debt that I was willingto marry a man I loathed in order to get my debts paid. _This_ is whatyou did for the girl placed under your charge. But, thank God, I havereleased myself from your clutches. I am going far away to a new world, where the memory of my old life cannot follow me. People may be angry orpleased! I do not care. I shall be the wife of the man I have chosen outof all the world for my husband--the man God made to be my master. '

'You are----' gasped Lady Kirkbank. 'I can't say what you are. I neverin my life felt so tempted to use improper language. '

'Dear Lady Kirkbank, be reasonable, ' pleaded Montesma; 'you can have nointerest in seeing Lesbia married to a man she dislikes. '

Georgia reddened a little, remembering that she was interested to theamount of some thousands in the Smithson and Haselden alliance; but shetook a higher ground than mercenary considerations. 

'I am interested in doing the very best for a young lady who has beenentrusted to my care, the granddaughter of an old friend, ' she answered, with dignity. 'I have no objection to you in the abstract, Don Gomez. You have always been vastly civil, I am sure----'

'Stand by us in our day of need, Lady Kirkbank, and you will find me thestaunchest friend you ever had. '

'I am bound in honour to consider Mr. Smithson, Lesbia, ' said LadyKirkbank. 'I wonder that a decently-brought up girl can behave soabominably. '

'It would be more abominable to marry a man I detest. I have made up mymind, Lady Kirkbank. We shall be at Havre to-morrow morning, and weshall be married to-morrow--shall we not, Gomez?'

She let her head sink upon his breast, and his arm enfold her. Thussheltered, she felt safe, thus and thus only. She had thrown her capover the mills; snapped her fingers at society; cared not a jot what theworld might think or say of her. This man would she marry and no other;this man's fortune would she follow for good or evil. He had that kindof influence with women which is almost 'possession. ' It smells ofbrimstone. 

'Come, my dear good soul, ' said Montesma, smiling at the angry matron, 'why not take things quietly? You have had a good many girls under yourwing; and you must know that youth and maturity see life from adifferent standpoint. In your eyes my old friend Smithson is anadmirable match. You measure him by his houses, his stable, his banker'sbook; but Lesbia would rather marry the man she loves, and take therisks of his fate. I am not a pauper, Lady Kirkbank, and the home towhich I shall take my love is pretty enough for a princess of the bloodroyal, and for her sake I shall grow richer yet, ' he added, with hiseyes kindling; 'and if you care to pay us a visit next February in ourParisian apartment I will promise you as pleasant a nest as you can wishto occupy. '

'How do I know that you will ever bring her back to Europe?' said LadyKirkbank, piteously. 'How do I know that you will not bury her alive inyour savage country, among blackamoors, like those horrid sailors, overthere--kill her, perhaps, when you are tired of her?'

At these words of Lady Kirkbank's, flung out at random, Montesmablanched, and his deep black eye met hers with a strangely sinisterlook. 

'Yes, ' she cried, hysterically--'kill her, kill her! You look as if youcould do it. '

Lesbia nestled closer to her lover's heart. 

'How dare you say such things to him, ' she cried, angrily. '_I_ trusthim, don't you see; trust him with my whole heart, with all my soul. Ishall be his wife to-morrow, for good or evil. '

'Very much for evil, I'm afraid, ' said Lady Kirkbank. 'Perhaps you willbe kind enough to come to your cabin and take off that ball gown, andmake yourself just a little less disreputable in outward appearance, while I get a cup of tea. '

Lesbia obeyed, and went down to her cabin, where Kibble was waiting witha fresh white muslin frock and all its belongings, laid out ready forher mistress, sorely perplexed at the turn which affairs were taking. She had never liked Horace Smithson, although he had given her tipswhich were almost a provision for her old age; but she had thought it agood thing that her mistress, who was frightfully extravagant, shouldmarry a millionaire; and now they were sailing over the sea with a lotof coloured sailors, and the millionaire was left on shore. 

Lady Kirkbank went into the saloon, where breakfast was laid ready, andwhere the steward was in attendance with that air of being absolutelyunconscious of any domestic disturbance, which is the mark of awell-trained servant. 

Lesbia appeared in something less than an hour, newly dressed and freshlooking, in her pure white gown, her brown hair bound in a coronet roundher small Greek head. She sat down by Lady Kirkbank's side, and tried tocoax her into good humour. 

'Why can't you take things pleasantly, dear?' she pleaded. 'Do now, likea good soul. You heard him say he was well off, and that he will take meto Paris next winter, and you can come to us there on your way fromCannes, and stay with us till Easter. It will be so nice when the Princeand all the best people are in Paris. We shall only stay in Cuba tillthe fuss about my running away is all over, and people have forgotten, don't you know. As for Mr. Smithson, why should I have any morecompunction about jilting him than he had about that poor Miss Trinder?By-the-bye, I want you to send him back all his presents for me. Theyare almost all in Arlington Street. I brought nothing with me except myengagement ring, ' looking down at the half-hoop of diamonds, and pullingit off her fingers as she talked. 'I had a kind of presentiment----'

'You mean that you had made up your mind to throw him over. '

'No. But I felt there were breakers ahead. It might have come tothrowing myself into the sea. Perhaps you would have liked that betterthan what has happened. '

'I don't know, I'm sure. The whole thing is disgraceful. London willring with the scandal. What am I to say to Lady Maulevrier, to yourbrother? And pray how do you propose to get married at Havre? You cannotbe married in a French town by merely holding up your finger. There areno registry offices. I am sure I have no idea how the thing is done. '

'Don Gomez has arranged all that--everything has been thoughtof--everything has been planned. A steamer will take us to St. Thomas, and another steamer will take us on to Cuba. '

'But the marriage--the licence?'

'I tell you everything has been provided for. Please take this ring andsend it to Mr. Smithson when you go back to England. '

'Send it to him yourself. I will have nothing to do with it. '

'How dreadfully disagreeable you are, ' said Lesbia, pouting, 'justbecause I am marrying to please myself, instead of to please you. It isfrightfully selfish of you. '

Montesma came in at this moment. He, too, had dressed himself freshly, and was looking his handsomest, in that buccaneer style of costume whichhe wore when he sailed the yacht. He and Lesbia breakfasted at theirease, while Lady Kirkbank reclined in her bamboo arm-chair, feeling veryunhappy in her mind and far from well. Neptune and she could notaccommodate themselves. 

After a leisurely breakfast, enlivened by talk and laughter, the cabinwindows open, the sun shining, the freshening breeze blowing in, Lesbiaand Don Gomez went on deck, and he reclined at her feet while she readto him from the pages of her favourite Keats, read languidly, lazily, yet exquisitely, for she had been taught to read as well as to sing. Thepoetry seemed to have been written on purpose for them; and the sky andthe atmosphere around them seemed to have been made for the poetry. Andso, with intervals of strolling on the deck, and an hour or so dawdledaway at luncheon, and a leisurely afternoon tea, the day wore on tosunset, and they went back to Keats, while Lady Kirkbank sulked andslept in a corner of the saloon. 

'This is the happiest day of my life, ' Lesbia murmured, in a pause oftheir reading, when they had dropped Endymion's love to talk of theirown. 

'But not of mine, my angel. I shall be happier still when we are faraway on broader waters, beyond the reach of all who can part us. '

'Can any one part us, Gomez, now that we have pledged ourselves to eachother?' she asked, incredulously. 

'Ah, love, such pledges are sometimes broken. All women are notlion-hearted. While the sea is smooth and the ship runs fair, all iseasy enough; but when tempest and peril come--that is the test, Lesbia. Will you stand by me in the tempest, love?'

'You know that I will, ' she answered, with her hand locked in his twohands, clasped as with a life-long clasp. 

She could not imagine any severe ordeal to be gone through. IfMaulevrier heard of her elopement in time for pursuit, there would be afuss, perhaps--an angry bother raging and fuming. But what of that? Shewas her own mistress. Maulevrier could not prevent her marryingwhomsoever she pleased. 

'Swear that you will hold to me against all the world, ' he said, passionately, turning his head to look across the stern of the vessel. 

'Against all the world, ' she answered, softly. 

'I believe your courage will be tested before long, ' he said; and thenhe cried to the skipper, 'Crowd on all sail, Tomaso. That boat ischasing us. '

Lesbia sprang to her feet, looking as he looked to a spot of vivid whiteon the horizon. Montesma had snatched up a glass and was watching thatdistant spot. 

'It is a steam-yacht, ' he said. 'They will catch us. '

He was right. Although the _Cayman_ strained every timber so that herkeel cut through the water like a boomerang, wind and steam beat windwithout steam. In less than an hour the steam-yacht was beside the_Cayman_, and Lord Maulevrier and Lord Hartfield had boarded Mr. Smithson's deck. 

'I have come to take you and Lady Kirkbank back to Cowes, Lesbia, ' saidMaulevrier. 'I'm not going to make any undue fuss about this littleescapade of yours, provided you go back with Hartfield and me at once, and pledge yourself never to hold any further communication with DonGomez de Montesma. '

The Spaniard was standing close by, silent, white as death, but ready tomake a good fight. That pallor of the clear olive skin was not from wantof pluck; but there was the deadly knowledge of the ground he stoodupon, the doubt that any woman, least of all such a woman as Lady LesbiaHaselden, could be true to him if his character and antecedents wererevealed to her. And how much or how little these two men could tell herabout himself or his past life was the question which the next fewminutes would solve. 

'I am not going back with you, ' answered Lesbia. 'I am going to Havrewith Don Gomez de Montesma. We are to be married there as soon as wearrive. '

'To be married--at Havre, ' cried Maulevrier. 'An appropriate place. Asailor has a wife in every port, don't you know. '

'We had better go down to the cabin, ' said Hartfield, laying his handupon his friend's shoulder. 'If Lady Lesbia will be good enough to comewith us we can tell her all that we have to tell quietly there. '

Lord Hartfield's tone was unmistakeable. Everything was known. 

'You can talk at your ease here, ' said Montesma, facing the two men witha diabolical recklessness and insolence of manner. 'Not one of thesefellows on board knows a dozen sentences of English. '

'I would rather talk below, if it is all the same to you, Señor; and Ishould be glad to speak to Lady Lesbia alone. '

'That you shall not do unless she desires it, ' answered Montesma. 

'No, he shall hear all that you have to say. He shall hear how I answeryou, ' said Lesbia. 

Lord Hartfield shrugged his shoulders. 

'As you please, ' he said. 'It will make the disclosure a little morepainful than it need have been; but that cannot be helped. '

CHAPTER XLIV. 

'OH, SAD KISSED MOUTH, HOW SORROWFUL IT IS!'

They all went down to the saloon, where Lady Kirkbank sat, looking theimage of despair, which changed to delighted surprise at sight of LordHartfield and his friend. 

'Did you give your consent to my sister's elopement with this man, LadyKirkbank?' Maulevrier asked, brusquely. 

'I give my consent! Good gracious! no. He has eloped with me ever somuch more than with your sister. She knew all about it, I've no doubt:but the wretch ran away with me in my sleep. '

'I am glad, for your own self-respect, that you had no hand in thisdisgraceful business, ' replied Maulevrier; and then turning to LordHartfield, he said, 'Hartfield, will you tell my sister who and whatthis man is? Will you make her understand what kind of pitfall she hasescaped? Upon my soul, I cannot speak of it. '

'I recognise no right of Lord Hartfield's to interfere with my actions, and I will hear nothing that he may have to say, ' said Lesbia, standingby her lover's side, with head erect and eyes dark with anger. 

'Your sister's husband has the strongest right to control your actions, Lady Lesbia, when the family honour is at stake, ' answered Hartfield, with grave authority. 'Accept me at least as a member of your family, ifyou will not accept me as your disinterested and devoted friend. '

'Friend!' echoed Lesbia, scornfully. 'You might have been my friendonce. Your friendship then would have been of some value to me, if youhad told me the truth, instead of approaching me with a lie upon yourlips. You talk of honour, Lord Hartfield; you, who came to mygrandmother's house as an impostor, under a false name!'

'I went there as a man standing on his own merits, assuming no rank savethat which God gave him among his fellow-men, claiming to be possessedof no fortune except intellect and industry. If I could not win a wifewith such credentials, it were better for me never to marry at all, LadyLesbia. But we have no time to speak of the past. I am here as yourbrother's friend, here to save you. '

'To part me from the man to whom I have given my heart. That you cannotdo. Gomez, why do you not speak? Tell him, tell him!' cried Lesbia, witha voice strangled by sobs; 'tell him that I am to be your wifeto-morrow, at Havre. Your wife!'

'Dear Lady Lesbia, that cannot be, ' said Lord Hartfield, sorrowfully, pitying her in her helplessness, as he might have pitied a young bird inthe fowler's net. 'I am assured upon undeniable authority that SeñorMontesma has a wife living at Cuba; and even were this not so--were hefree to marry you--his character and antecedents would for ever forbidsuch a marriage. '

'A wife! No, no, no!' shrieked Lesbia, looking wildly from one to theother. 'It is a lie--a lie, invented by my brother, who always hatedme--by you, who fooled and deceived me! It is a lie, an infamousinvention! Don Gomez, speak to them: for pity's sake answer them! Don'tyou see that they are driving me mad?'

She flung herself into his arms, she buried her dishevelled head uponhis breast; she clung to him with hands that writhed convulsively in heragony. 

Maulevrier sprang across the cabin and wrenched her from her lover'sgrasp. 

'You shall not pollute her with your touch, ' he cried; 'you havepoisoned her mind already. Scoundrel, seducer, slave-dealer! Do youhear, Lesbia? Shall I tell you what this man is--what trade he followedyonder, on his native island--this Spanish hidalgo--thisall-accomplished gentleman--lineal descendant of the Cid--fine flowerof Andalusian chivalry? It was not enough for him to cheat at cards, tofloat bubble companies, bogus lotteries. His profligate extravagance, his love of sybarite luxury, required a larger resource than the pettyschemes which enrich smaller men. A slave ship, which could earn nearlytwenty thousand pounds on every voyage, and which could make two runs ina year--that was the trade for Don Gomez de Montesma, and he carried iton merrily for six or seven years, till the British cruisers got tookeen for him, and the good old game was played out. You see that scarupon the hilalgo's forehead, Lesbia--a token of knightly prowess, youthink, perhaps. No, my girl, that is the mark of an English cutlass in ascuffle on board a slaver. A merry trade, Lesbia--the living cargostowed close under hatches have rather a bad time of it now andthen--short rations of food and water, yellow Jack. They die like rottensheep sometimes--bad then for the dealer. But if he can land the bulk ofhis human wares safe and sound the profits are enormous. TheCaptain-General takes his capitation fee, the blackies are drafted offto the sugar plantations, and everybody is satisfied; but I think, Lesbia, that your British prejudices would go against marriage with aslave-trader, were he ever so free to make you his wife, which thisparticular dealer in blackamoors is not. '

'Is this true, this part of their vile story?' demanded Lesbia, lookingat her lover, who stood apart from them all now, his arms folded, hisface deadly pale, the lower lip quivering under the grinding of hisstrong white teeth. 

'There is some truth in it, ' he answered, hoarsely. 'Everybody in Cubahad a finger in the African trade, before your British philanthropyspoiled it. Mr. Smithson made sixty thousand pounds in that line. It wasthe foundation of his fortune. And yet he had his misfortunes in runninghis cargo--a ship burnt, a freight roasted alive. There are some veryblack stories in Cuba against poor Smithson. He will never go thereagain. '

'Mr. Smithson may be a scoundrel; indeed, I believe he is a pretty badspecimen in that line, ' said Lord Hartfield. 'But I doubt if there isany story that can be told of him quite so bad as the history of yourmarriage, and the events that went before it. I have been told the storyof the beautiful Octoroon, who loved and trusted you, who shared yourgood and evil fortunes for the most desperate years of your life, wasalmost accepted as your wife, and whose strangled corpse was found inthe harbour while the bells were ringing for your marriage with a richplanter's heiress--the lady who, no doubt, now patiently awaits yourreturn to her native island. '

'She will wait a long time, ' said Montesma, 'or fare ill if I go back toher. Lesbia, his lordship's story of the Octoroon is a fable--aninvention of my Cuban enemies, who hate us old Spaniards with apoisonous hatred. But this much is true. I am a married man--bound, fettered by a tie which I abhor. Our Havre marriage would have beenbigamy on my part, a delusion on yours. I could not have taken you toCuba. I had planned our life in a fairer, more civilised world. I amrich enough to have surrounded you with all that makes life worthliving. I would have given you love as true and as deep as ever man gaveto woman. All that would have been wanting would have been the legalityof the tie: and as law never yet made a marriage happy which lacked theelements of bliss, our lawless union need not have missed happiness. Lesbia, you said that you would hold by me, come what might. The worsthas come, love; but it leaves me not the less your true lover. '

She looked at him with wild despairing eyes, and then, with a hoarsestrange cry, rushed from the cabin, and up the companion, with adesperate swiftness which seemed like the flight of a bird. Montesma, Hartfield, Maulevrier, all followed her, heedless of everything exceptthe dire necessity of arresting her flight. Each in his own mind haddivined her purpose. 

They were not too late. It was Hartfield's strong arm that caught her, held her as in a vice, dragged her away from the edge of the deck, justwhere there was a space open to the waves. Another instant and she wouldhave flung herself overboard. She fell back into Lord Hartfield's arms, with a wild choking cry: 'Let me go! Let me go!' Another moment, and aflood of crimson stained his shirt-front, as she lay upon his breast, with closed eyelids and blood-bedabbled lips, in blessedunconsciousness. 

They carried her on to the steam-yacht, and down to the cabin, wherethere was ample accommodation and some luxury, although not the eleganceof Bond Street upholstery. Rilboche, Lady Kirkbank, Kibble, luggage ofall kinds were transferred from one yacht to the other, even to thevellum bound Keats which lay face downwards on the deck, just whereLesbia had flung it when the _Cayman_ was boarded. The crew of thesteam-yacht _Philomel_ helped in the transfer: there were plenty ofhands, and the work was done quickly; while the Meztizoes, Yucatekes, Caribs, or whatever they were, looked on and grinned; and while Montesmastood leaning against the mast, with folded arms and sombre brow, acigarette between his lips. 

When the women and all their belongings were on board the _Philomel_, Lord Hartfield addressed himself to Montesma. 

'If you consider yourself entitled to call me to account for thisevening's work you know where to find me, ' he said. 

Montesma shrugged his shoulders, and threw away his cigarette with acontemptuous gesture. 

_'Ce n'est pas la peine, '_ he said; 'I am a dead shot, andshould be pretty sure to send a bullet through you if you gave methe chance; but I should not be any nearer winning her if I killedyou: and it is she and she only that I want. You may think me anadventurer--swindler--gambler--slave-dealer--what you will--but I love heras I never thought to love a woman, and I should have been true as steel, if she had been plucky enough to trust me. But, as I told her an hour ago, women have not lion hearts. They can talk tall while the sky is clear andthe sun shines, but at the first crack of thunder--_va te promener_. '

'If you have killed her--' began Hartfield. 

'Killed her! No. Some small bloodvessel burst in the agitation of thatterrible scene. She will be well in a week, and she will forget me. ButI shall not forget her. She is the one flower that has sprung on thebarren plain of my life. She was my Picciola. '

He turned his back on Lord Hartfield and walked to the other end of thedeck. Something in his face, in the vibration of his deep voice, convinced Hartfield of his truth. A bad man undoubtedly--steeped to thelips in evil--and yet so far true that he had passionately, deeply, devotedly loved this one woman. 

It was the dead of night when Lesbia recovered consciousness, and eventhen she lay silent, taking no heed of those around her, in a state ofutter prostration. Kibble nursed her carefully, tenderly, all throughthe night; Maulevrier hardly left the cabin, and Lady Kirkbank, alwaysmore or less a victim to the agonies of sea-sickness, still found timeto utter lamentations and wailings over the ruin of her protégée'sfortune. 

'Never had a girl such a chance, ' she moaned. 'Quite the best match insociety. The house in Park Lane alone cost a fortune. Her diamonds wouldhave been the finest in London. '

'They would have been stained with the blood of the niggers he traded inout yonder, ' answered Maulevrier. 'Do you think I would have let mysister marry a slave-dealer?'

'I don't believe a syllable of it, ' protested Lady Kirkbank, dabbing herbrow with a handkerchief steeped in eau de Cologne. 'A vile fabricationof Montesma's, who wanted to blacken poor Smithson's character in orderto extenuate his own crimes. '

'Well, we won't go into that question, ' said Maulevrier wearily. 'TheSmithson match is off, anyhow; and it matters very little to us whetherhe made most money out of niggers or bubble companies, or lotteries orgaming hells. '

'I am convinced that Smithson made his fortune in a thoroughlygentlemanlike manner, ' argued Lady Kirkbank. 'Look at the people whovisit him, and the houses he goes to. And I don't see why the match needbe off. I'm sure, if Lesbia plays her cards properly, he will look overthis--this--little escapade. '

Maulevrier contemplated the worldly old face with infinite scorn. 

'Does she look like a girl who will play her cards in your fashion?' heasked, pointing to his sister, whose white face upon the pillow seemedlike a mask cut out of marble. 'Upon my soul, Lady Kirkbank, I considermy sister's elopement with this Spanish adventurer, with whom she wasover head and ears in love, a far more respectable act than herengagement to Smithson, for whom she cared not a straw. '

'Well, I hope if you so approve of her conduct you will help her to payher dressmaker, and the rest of them, ' retorted Lady Kirkbank. 'She hasbeen plunging rather deeply, I believe, under the impression thatSmithson would pay all her bills when she was married. Your grandmothermay not quite like the budget. '

'I will do all I can for her, ' answered Maulevrier. 'I would do a greatdeal to save her from the degradation to which your teaching has broughther. '

Lady Kirkbank looked at him for a moment or so with reproachful eyes, and then shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. 

'If I ever expected gratitude from people I might feel theinjustice--the insolence--of your last remark, ' she said; 'but as Inever do expect gratitude, I am not disappointed in this case. And now Ithink if there is a cabin which I can have to myself I should like toretire to it, ' she added. 'My cares are thrown away here. '

There was a cabin at Lady Kirkbank's disposal. It had been alreadyappropriated by Rilboche, and smelt of cognac; but Rilboche resigned herberth to her mistress, and laid herself meekly on the floor for the restof the voyage. 

They were in Cowes Roads at eight o'clock next morning, and LordHartfield went on shore for a doctor, whom he brought back before nine, and who pronounced Lady Lesbia to be in a very weak and prostratecondition, and forbade her being moved within the next two days. HappilyLord Hartfield had borrowed the _Philomel_ and her crew from a friendwho had given him _carte blanche_ as to the use he made of her, and whofreely left her at his disposal so long as he and his party should needthe accommodation. Lesbia could nowhere be better off than on the yacht, where she was away from the gossip and tittle-tattle of the town. 

The roadstead was quiet enough now. All the racing yachts had meltedaway like a dream, and most of the pleasure yachts were off to Ryde. Lady Lesbia lay in her curtained cabin, with Kibble keeping watch besideher bed, while Maulevrier came in every half-hour to see how shewas--sitting by her a little now and then, and talking of indifferentthings in a low kind voice, which was full of comfort. 

She seemed grateful for his kindness, and smiled at him once in a way, with a piteous little smile; but she had the air of one in whom themainspring of life is broken. The pallid face and heavy violet eyes, the semi-transparent hands which lay so listlessly upon the crimsoncoverlet, conveyed an impression of supreme despair. Hartfield, lookingdown at her for the last time when he came to say good-bye beforeleaving for London, was reminded of the story of one whose life had beenthus rudely broken, who had loved as foolishly and even more fondly, andfor whom the world held nothing when that tie was severed. 

 'She looked on many a face with vacant eye, On many a token without knowing what; She saw them watch her, without asking why, And recked not who around her pillow sat. '

But Lesbia Haselden belonged to a wider and more sophisticated worldthan that of the daughter of the Grecian Isle, and for her existenceoffered wider horizons. It might be prophesied that for her the darkending of a girlish dream would not be a life-long despair. Thepassionate love had been at fever point; the passionate grief must haveits fever too, and burn itself out. 

'Do all you can to cheer her, ' said Lord Hartfield to Maulevrier, 'andbring her to Fellside as soon as ever she is strong enough to bear thejourney. You and Kibble, with your own man, will be able to do all thatis necessary. '

'Quite able. '

'That's right. I must be in the House for the expected divisionto-night, and I shall go back to Grasmere to-morrow morning. Poor Maryis horribly lonely. '

Lord Hartfield went off in the boat to catch the Southampton steamer;and Maulevrier was now sole custodian of the yacht and of his sister. Heand the doctor had agreed to keep her on board, in the fresh sea air, till she was equal to the fatigue of the journey to Grasmere. There wasnothing to be gained by taking her on to the island or by carrying herto London. The yacht was well found, provided with all things needfulfor comfort, and Lesbia could be nowhere better off until she was safein her old home:--that home she had left so gaily, in the freshness ofher youthful inexperience, nearly a year ago, and to which she wouldreturn so battered and broken, so deeply degraded by the knowledge ofevil. 

Lady Kirkbank had started for London on the previous day. 

'I am evidently not wanted _here_, ' she said, with an offended air; 'andI must have everything at Kirkbank ready for a house full of peoplebefore the twelfth of August, so the sooner I get to Scotland thebetter. I shall make a _détour_ in order to go and see Lady Maulevrieron my way down. It is due to myself that I should let her know that _I_am entirely blameless in this most uncomfortable business. '

'You can tell her ladyship what you please, ' answered Maulevrier, bluntly. 'I shall not gainsay you, so long as you do not slander mysister; but as long as I live I shall regret that I, knowing somethingof London society, did not interfere to prevent Lesbia being given overto your keeping. '

'If I had known the kind of girl she is I would have had nothing to dowith her, ' retorted Lady Kirkbank with exasperation; and so they parted. 

The _Philomel_ had been lying off Cowes three days before Mr. Smithsonappeared upon the scene. He had got wind somehow from a sailor, who hadtalked with one of the foreign crew, of the destination of the _Cayman_, and he had crossed from Southampton to Havre on the steamer _Wolf_during that night in which Lesbia had been carried back to Cowes on the_Philomel_. 

He was at Havre when the _Cayman_ arrived, with Montesma and histawny-visaged crew on board, no one else. 

'You may examine every corner of your ship, ' Montesma cried, scornfully, when Smithson came on board and swore that Lesbia must be hiddensomewhere in the vessel. 'The bird has flown: she will shelter inneither your nest nor in mine, Smithson. You have lost her--and so haveI. We may as well be friends in misfortune. '

He was haggard, livid with grief and anger. He looked ten years olderthan he had looked the other night at the ball, when his dash andswagger, and handsome Spanish head had been the admiration of the room. 

Smithson was very angry, but he was not a fighting man. He had enjoyedvarious opportunities for distinguishing himself in that line in theisland of Cuba; but he had always avoided such opportunities. So now, after a good deal of bluster and violent language, which Montesma tookas lightly as if it had been the whistling of the wind in the shrouds, poor Smithson calmed down, and allowed Gomez de Montesma to leave theyacht, with his portmanteaux, unharmed. He meant to take the firststeamer for the Spanish Main, he told Smithson. He had had quite enoughof Europe. 

'I daresay it will end in your marrying her, ' he said, at the lastmoment. 'If you do, be kind to her. '

His voice faltered, choked by a sob, at those last words. After all, itis possible for a man without principle, without morality, to begin tomake love to a woman in a mere spirit of adventure, in sheer devilry, and to be rather hard hit at the last. 

Horace Smithson sailed his yacht back to Cowes without loss of time, andsent his card to Lord Maulevrier on board the _Philomel_. His lordshipreplied that he would wait upon Mr. Smithson that afternoon at fouro'clock, and at that hour Maulevrier again boarded the _Cayman_; butthis time very quietly, as an expected guest. 

The interview that followed was very painful. Mr. Smithson was willingthat this unhappy episode in the life of his betrothed, this folly intowhich she had been beguiled by a man of infinite treachery, a man ofall other men fatal to women, should be forgotten, should be as if ithad never been. 

'It was her very innocence which made her a victim to that scoundrel, 'said Smithson, 'her girlish simplicity and Lady Kirkbank's folly. But Ilove your sister too well to sacrifice her lightly, Lord Maulevrier; andif she can forget this midsummer madness, why, so can I. '

'She cannot forget, Mr. Smithson, ' answered Maulevrier, gravely. 'Shehas done you a great wrong by listening to your false friend'saddresses; but she did you a still greater wrong when she accepted youas her husband without one spark of love for you. She and you are bothhappy in having escaped the degradation, the deep misery of a lovelessunion. I am glad--yes, glad even of this shameful escapade withMontesma--though it has dragged her good name through the gutter, --gladof the catastrophe that has saved her from such a marriage. You are verygenerous in your willingness to forget my sister's folly. Let yourforgetfulness go a step further, and forget that you ever met her. '

'That cannot be, Lord Maulevrier. She has ruined my life. '

'Not at all. An affair of a season, ' answered Maulevrier, lightly. 'Nextyear I shall hear of you as the accepted husband of some new beauty. Aman of Mr. Smithson's wealth--and good nature--need not languish insingle blessedness. '

With this civil speech Lord Maulevrier went back to the _Philomel's_gig, and this was his last meeting with Mr. Smithson, until they met ayear later in the beaten tracks of society. 

CHAPTER XLV. 

'THAT FELL ARREST, WITHOUT ALL BAIL. '

It was the beginning of August before Lesbia was pronounced equal to thefatigue of a long journey; and even then it was but the shadow of herformer self which returned to Fellside, the pale spectre of joysdeparted, of trust deceived. 

Maulevrier had been very good to her, patient, unselfish as a woman, inhis ministering to the broken-hearted girl. That broken heart would bewhole again, no doubt, in the future, as many other broken hearts havebeen; but the grief, the despair, the sense of hopelessness andaimlessness in life were very real in the present. If the picturesqueseclusion of Fellside had seemed dull and joyless to Lesbia in days goneby, it was much duller to her now. She was shocked at the change in hergrandmother, and she showed a good deal of feeling and affection in herintercourse with the invalid; but once out of her presence LadyMaulevrier was forgotten, and Lesbia's thoughts drifted back into theold current. They dwelt obstinately, unceasingly upon Montesma, the manwhose influence had awakened the slumbering soul from its torpor, hadstirred the deeps of a passionate nature. 

Slave-dealer, gambler, adventurer, liar--his name blackened by thesuspicion of a still darker crime. She shuddered at the thought of thevillain from whose snare she had been rescued: and yet, his image as hehad been to her in the brief golden time when she believed him noble, and chivalrous, and true, haunted her lonely days, mixed itself with hertroubled dreams, came between her and every other thought. 

Everybody was good to her. That pale and joyless face, that look ofpatient, hopeless suffering which she tried to disguise every now andthen with a faint forced smile; and silvery little ripple of societylaughter, seemed unconsciously to implore pity and pardon. LadyMaulevrier uttered no word of reproach. 'My dearest, Fate has not beenkind to you, ' she said, gently, after telling Lesbia of Lady Kirkbank'svisit. 'The handsomest women are seldom the happiest. Destiny seems tohave a grudge against them. And if things have gone amiss it is I who ammost to blame. I ought never to have entrusted you with such a woman asGeorgina Kirkbank. But you will be happier next season, I hope, dearest. You can live with Mary and Hartfield. They will take care of you. '

Lesbia shuddered. 

'Do you think I am going back to the society treadmill?' she exclaimed. 'No, I have done with the world. I shall end my days here, or in aconvent. '

'You think so now, dear, but you will change your mind by-and-by. Afancy that has lasted only a few weeks cannot alter your life. It willpass as other dreams have passed. At your age you have the future beforeyou. '

'No, it is the past that is always before me, ' answered Lesbia. 'Myfuture is a blank. '

The bills came pouring in; dressmaker, milliner, glover, bootmaker, tailor, stationer, perfumer; awful bills which made Lady Maulevrier'sblood run cold, so degrading was their story of selfish self-indulgence, of senseless extravagance. But she paid them all without a word. Shetook upon her shoulders the chief burden of Lesbia's wrongdoing. It washer indulgence, her weak preference which had fostered hergranddaughter's selfishness, trained her to vanity and worldly pride. The result was ignominious, humiliating, bitter beyond all commonbitterness; but the cup was of her own brewing, and she drank it withouta murmur. 

Parliament was prorogued; the season was over; and Lord Hartfield wasestablished at Fellside for the autumn--he and his wife utterly happy intheir affection for each other, but not without care as to theirsurroundings, which were full of trouble. First there was Lesbia'ssorrow. Granted that it was a grief which would inevitably wear itselfout, as other such griefs have done from time immemorial; but still thesorrow was there, at their doors. Next, there was the state of LadyMaulevrier's health, which gave her old medical adviser the gravestfears. At Lord Hartfield's earnest desire a famous doctor was summonedfrom London; but the great man could only confirm Mr. Horton's verdict. The thread of life was wearing thinner every day. It might snap at anyhour. In the meantime the only regime was repose of body and mind, anall-pervading calm, the avoidance of all exciting topics. One moment ofviolent agitation might prove fatal. 

Knowing this, how could Lord Hartfield call her ladyship to account forthe presence of that mysterious old man under Steadman's charge?--howventure to touch upon a topic which, by Mary's showing, had exercised amost disturbing influence upon her ladyship's mind on that solitaryoccasion when the girl ventured to approach the subject?

He felt that any attempt at an explanation was impossible. It was notfor him to precipitate Lady Maulevrier's end by prying into her secrets. Granted that shame and dishonour of some kind were involved in theexistence of that strange old man, he, Lord Hartfield, must endure hisportion in that shame--must be content to leave the dark riddleunsolved. 

He resigned himself to this state of things, and tried to forget thecloud that hung over the house of Haselden; but the sense of a mystery, a fatal family secret, which must come to light sooner or later--sinceall such secrets are known at last--known, sifted, and bandied aboutfrom lip to lip, and published in a thousand different newspapers, andcried aloud in the streets--the sense of such a secret, the dread ofsuch a revelation weighed upon him heavily. 

Maulevrier, the restless, was off to Argyleshire for the grouse shootingas soon as he had deposited Lady Lesbia comfortably at Fellside. 

'I should only be in your way if I stopped, ' he said, 'for you and Mollyhave hardly got over the honeymoon stage yet, though you put on the airsof Darby and Joan. I shall be back in a week or ten days. '

'In Lady Maulevrier's state of health I don't think you ought to stayaway very long, ' said Hartfield. 

'Poor Lady Maulevrier! She never cared much for me, don't you know. ButI suppose it would seem unkind if I were to be out of the way when theend comes. The end! Good heavens! how coolly I talk of it; and a yearago I thought she was as immortal as Fairfield yonder. '

He went away, his spirits dashed by that awful thought of death, andLord and Lady Hartfield had the house to themselves, since Lesbia hardlycounted. She seldom left her own rooms, except to sit with hergrandmother for an hour. She lay on her sofa--or sat in a low arm-chairby the window, reading Keats or Shelley--or only dreaming--dreaming overthe brief golden time of her life, with its fond delusions, its falsebrightness. Mr. Horton went to see her every day--felt the feeble littlepulse which seemed hardly to have force enough to beat--urged her tostruggle against apathy and inertia, to walk a little, to go for a longdrive every day, to live in the open air--to which instructions she paidnot the slightest attention. The desire for life was gone. Disappointedin her ambition, betrayed in her love, humiliated, duped, degraded--asocial failure. What had she to live for? She felt as if it would havebeen a good thing, quite the best thing that could happen, if she couldturn her face to the wall and die. All that past season, its triumphs, its pleasures, its varieties, was like a garish dream, a horror to lookback upon, hateful to remember. 

In vain did Mary and Hartfield urge Lesbia to join in their simplepleasures, their walks and rides and drives, and boating excursions. Shealways refused. 

'You know I never cared much for roaming about these everlasting hills, 'she told Mary. 'I never had your passion for Lakeland. It is very goodof you to wish to have me, but it is quite impossible. I have hardlystrength enough for a little walk in the garden. '

'You would have more strength if you went out more, ' pleaded Mary, almost with tears. 'Mr. Horton says sun and wind are the best doctorsfor you. Lesbia, you frighten me sometimes. You are just lettingyourself fade away. '

'If you knew how I hate the world and the sky, Mary, you wouldn't urgeme to go out of doors, ' Lesbia answered, moodily. 'Indoors I can read, and get away from my own thoughts somehow, for a little while. But outyonder, face to face with the hills and the lake--the scenes I haveknown all my life--I feel a heart-sickness that is worse than death. Itmaddens me to see that old, old picture of mountain and water, the samefor ever and ever, no matter what hearts are breaking. '

Mary crept close beside her sister's couch, put her arm round her neck, laid her cheek--rich in the ruddy bloom of health--against Lesbia'spallid and sunken cheek, and comforted her as much as she could withtender murmurs and loving kisses. Other comfort, she could give none. All the wisdom in the world will not cure a girl's heart-sickness whenshe has flung away the treasures of her love upon a worthless object. 

And so the days went by, peacefully, but sadly; for the shadow of doomhung heavily over the house upon the Fell. Nobody who looked upon LadyMaulevrier could doubt that her days were numbered, that the oil waswaxing low in the lamp of life. The end, the awful, mysterious end, wasdrawing near; and she who was called was making no such preparations asthe Christian makes to answer the dread summons. As she had lived, shemeant to die--an avowed unbeliever. More than once Mary had takencourage, and had talked to her grandmother of the world beyond, theblessed hope of re-union with the friends we have lost, in a new andbrighter life, only to be met by the sceptic's cynical smile, thematerialist's barren creed. 

'My dearest, we know nothing except the immutable laws of material life. All the rest is a dream--a beautiful dream, if you like--a consolationto that kind of temperament which can take comfort from dreams; but foranyone who has read much, and thought much, and kept as far as possibleon a level with the scientific intellect of the age--for such an one, Mary, these old fables are too idle. I shall die as I have lived, thevictim of an inscrutable destiny, working blindly, evil to some, good toothers. Ah! love, life has begun very fairly for you. May the fates bekind always to my gentle and loving girl!'

There was more talk between them on this dark mystery of life and death. Mary brought out her poor little arguments, glorified by the light ofperfect faith; but they were of no avail against opinions which had beenthe gradual growth of a long and joyless life. Time had attuned LadyMaulevrier's mind to the gospel of Schopenhauer and the Pessimists, andshe was contented to see the mystery of life as they had seen it. Shehad no fear, but she had some anxiety as to the things that were tohappen after she was gone. She had taken upon herself a heavy burden, and she had not yet come to the end of the road where her burden mightbe laid quietly down, her task accomplished. If she fell by the waysideunder her load the consequences for the survivors might be full oftrouble. 

Her anxieties were increased by the fact that her faithful servant andadviser, James Steadman, was no longer the man he had been. The changein him was painfully evident--memory failing, energy gone. He came tohis mistress's room every morning, received her orders, answered herquestions; but Lady Maulevrier felt that he went through the old dutiesin a mechanical way, and that his dull brain but half understood theirimportance. 

One evening at dusk, just as Hartfield and Mary were leaving LadyMaulevrier's room, after dinner, an appalling shriek ran through thehouse--a cry almost as terrible as that which Lord Hartfield heard inthe summer midnight just a year ago. But this time the sound came fromthe old part of the house. 

'Something has happened, ' exclaimed Hartfield, rushing to the door ofcommunication. 

It was bolted inside. He knocked vehemently; but there was no answer. Heran downstairs, followed by Mary, breathless, in an agony of fear. Justas they approached the lower door, leading to the old house, it wasflung open, and Steadman's wife stood before them pale with terror. 

'The doctor, ' she cried; 'send for Mr. Horton, somebody, for God's sake. Oh, my lord, ' with a sudden burst of sobbing, 'I'm afraid he's dead. '

'Mary, despatch some one for Horton, ' said Lord Hartfield. Keeping hiswife back with one hand, he closed the door against her, and thenfollowed Mrs. Steadman through the long low corridor to her husband'ssitting-room. 

James Steadman was lying upon his back upon the hearth, near the spotwere Lord Hartfield had seen him sleeping in his arm-chair a month ago. 

One look at the distorted face, dark with injected blood, the dreadfulglassy glare of the eyes, the foam-stained lips, told that all was over. The faithful servant had died at his post. Whatever his charge had been, his term of service was ended. There was a vacancy in Lady Maulevrier'shousehold. 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

THE DAY OF RECKONING. 

Lord Hartfield stayed with the frightened wife while she knelt besidethat awful figure on the hearth, wringing her hands with piteousbewailings and lamentations over the unconscious clay. He had alwaysbeen a good husband to her, she murmured; hard and stern perhaps, but agood man. And she had obeyed him without a question. Whatever he did orsaid she had counted right. 

'We have not had a happy life, though there are many who have envied usher ladyship's favour, ' she said in the midst of her lamentations. 'Noone knows where the shoe pinches but those who have to wear it. PoorJames! Early and late, early and late, studying her ladyship'sinterests, caring and thinking, in order to keep trouble away from her. Always on the watch always on the listen. That's what wore him out, poorfellow!'

'My good soul, your husband was an old man, ' argued Lord Hartfield, ina consolatory tone, 'and the end must come to all of us somehow. '

'He might have lived to be a much older man if he had had less worry, 'said the wife, bending her face to kiss the cold dead brow. 'His dayswere full of care. We should have been happier in the poorest cottage inGrasmere than we ever were in this big grand house. '

Thus, in broken fragments of speech, Mrs. Steadman lamented over herdead, while the heavy pendulum of the eight-day clock in the hallsounded the slowly-passing moments, until the coming of the doctor brokeupon the quiet of the house, with the noise of opening doors andapproaching footsteps. 

James Steadman was dead. Medicine could do nothing for that lifelessclay, lying on the hearth by which he had sat on so many winter nights, for so many years of faithful unquestioning service. There was nothingto be done for that stiffening form, save the last offices for the dead;and Lord Hartfield left Mr. Horton to arrange with the weeping woman asto the doing of these. He was anxious to go to Lady Maulevrier, to breakto her, as gently as might be, the news of her servant's death. 

And what of that strange old man in the upper rooms? Who was to attendupon him, now that the caretaker was laid low?

While Lord Hartfield lingered on the threshold of the door that led fromthe old house to the new, pondering this question, there came the soundof wheels on the carriage drive, and then a loud ring at the hall door. 

It was Maulevrier, just arrived from Scotland, smelling of autumn rainand cool fresh air. 

'Dreadfully bored on the moors, ' he said, as they shook hands. 'Nobirds--nobody to talk to--couldn't stand it any longer. How are thesisters? Lesbia better? Why, man alive, how queer you look! Nothingamiss, I hope?'

'Yes, there is something very much amiss. Steadman is dead. '

'Steadman! Her ladyship's right hand. That's rather bad. But you willdrop into his stewardship. She'll trust your long head, I know. Muchbetter that she should look to her granddaughter's husband for advice inall business matters than to a servant When did it happen?'

'Half an hour ago. I was just going to Lady Maulevrier's room when yourang the bell. Take off your Inverness, and come with me. '

'The poor grandmother, ' muttered Maulevrier. 'I'm afraid it will be ablow. '

He had much less cause for fear than Lord Hartfield, who knew of deepand secret reasons why Steadman's death should be a calamity of direimport for his mistress, Maulevrier had been told nothing of that scenewith the strange old man--the hidden treasures--the Anglo-Indianphrases--which had filled Lord Hartfield's mind with the darkest doubts. 

If that half-lunatic old man, described by Lady Maulevrier as a kinsmanof Steadman's, were verily the person Lord Hartfield believed, hispresence under that roof, unguarded by a trust-worthy attendant, wasfraught with danger. It would be for Lady Maulevrier, helpless, aprisoner to her sofa, at death's door, to face that danger. The verythought of it might kill her. And yet it was imperative that the truthshould be told her without delay. 

The two young men went to her ladyship's sitting room. She was alone, avolume of her favourite Schopenhauer open before her, under the light ofthe shaded reading-lamp. Sorry comfort in the hour of trouble!

Maulevrier went over to her and kissed her; and then dropped silentlyinto a chair near at hand, his face in shadow. Hartfield seated himselfnearer the sofa, and nearer the lamp. 

'Dear Lady Maulevrier, I have come to tell you some very bad news--'

'Lesbia?' exclaimed her ladyship, with a frightened look. 

'No, there is nothing wrong with Lesbia. It is about your old servantSteadman. '

'Dead?' faltered Lady Maulevrier, ashy pale, as she looked at him in thelamplight. 

He bent his head affirmatively. 

'Yes. He was seized with apoplexy--fell from his chair to the hearth, and never spoke or stirred again. '

Lady Maulevrier uttered no word of sorrow or surprise. She lay, lookingstraight before her into vacancy, the pale attenuated features rigid asif they had been marble. What was to be done--what must be told--whomcould she trust? Those were the questions repeating themselves in hermind as she stared into space. And no answer came to them. 

No answer came, except the opening of the door opposite her couch. Thehandle turned slowly, hesitatingly, as if moved by feeble fingers; andthen the door was pushed slowly open, and an old man came with shufflingfootsteps towards the one lighted spot in the middle of the room. 

It was the old man Lord Hartfield had last seen gloating over histreasury of gold and jewels--the man whom Maulevrier had neverseen--whose existence for forty years had been hidden from everycreature in that house, except Lady Maulevrier and the Steadmans, untilMary found her way into the old garden. 

He came close up to the little table in front of Lady Maulevrier'scouch, and looked down at her, a strange, uncanny being, withered andbent, with pale, faded eyes in which there was a glimmer of unholylight. 

'Good-evening to you, Lady Maulevrier, ' he said in a mocking voice. 'Ishouldn't have known you if we had met anywhere else. I think, of thetwo of us, you are more changed than I. '

She looked up at him, her features quivering, her haughty head drawnback; as a bird shrinks from the gaze of a snake, recoiling, but toofascinated to fly. Her eyes met his with a look of unutterable horror. For some moments she was speechless, and then, looking at LordHartfield, she said, piteously--

'Why did you let him come here? He ought to be taken care of--shut up. It is Steadman's old uncle--a lunatic--I sheltered. Why is he allowed tocome to my room?'

'I am Lord Maulevrier, ' said the old man, drawing himself up andplanting his crutch stick upon the floor; 'I am Lord Maulevrier, and thiswoman is my wife. Yes, I am mad sometimes, but not always, I have my badfits, but not often. But I never forget who and what I am, Algernon, Earl of Maulevrier, Governor of Madras. '

'Lady Maulevrier, is this horrible thing true?' cried her grandson, vehemently. 

'He is mad, Maulevrier. Don't you see that he is mad?' she exclaimed, looking from Hartfield to her grandson, and then with a look of loathingand horror at her accuser. 

'I tell you, young man, I am Maulevrier, ' said the accuser; 'there is noone else who has a right to be called by that name, while I live. Theyhave shut me up--she and her accomplice--denied my name--hidden me fromthe world. He is dead, and she lies there--stricken for her sins. '

'My grandfather died at the inn at Great Langdale, faltered Maulevrier. 

'Your grandfather was brought to this house--ill--out of his wits. Allcloud and darkness here, ' said the old man, touching his forehead. 'Howlong has it been? Who can tell? A weary time--long, dark nights, full ofghosts. Yes, I have seen him--the Rajah, that copper-faced scoundrel, seen him as she told me he looked when she gave the signal to her slavesto strangle him, there in the hall, where the grave was dug ready forthe traitor's carcass. She too--yes, she has haunted me, calling upon meto give up her treasure, to restore her son. '

'Yes, ' cried the paralytic woman, suddenly lifted out of herself, as itwere, in a paroxysm of fury, every feature convulsed, every nervestrained to its utmost tension; 'yes, this is Lord Maulevrier. You haveheard the truth, and from his own lips. You, his only son's only son. You his granddaughter's husband. You hear him avow himself theinstigator of a diabolical murder; you hear him confess how hisparamour's husband was strangled at his false wife's bidding, in his ownpalace, buried under the Moorish pavement in the hall of many arches. You hear how he inherited the Rajah's treasures from a mistress whodied strangely, swiftly, conveniently, as soon so he had wearied of her, and a new favourite had begun to exercise her influence. Such things aredone in the East--dynasties annihilated, kingdoms overthrown, poison orbowstring used at will, to gratify a profligate's passion, or pay for aspendthrift's extravagances. Such things were done when that man wasGovernor of Madras as were never done by an Englishman in India beforehis time. He went there fettered by no prejudices--he was more Mussulmanthan the Mussulmen themselves--a deeper, darker traitor. And it was tohide such crimes as these--to interpose the great peacemaker Deathbetween him and the Government which was resolved upon punishing him--tosave the honour, the fortune of my son, and the children who were tocome after him, the name of a noble race, a name that was ever stainlessuntil he defiled it--it was for this great end I took steps to hide thatfeeble, useless life of his from the world he had offended; it was forthis end that I caused a peasant to be buried in the vault of theMaulevriers, with all the pomp and ceremony that befits the funeral ofone of England's oldest earls. I screened him from his enemies--I savedhim from the ignominy of a public trial--from the execration of hiscountrymen. His only punishment was to eat his heart under this roof, inluxurious seclusion, his comfort studied, his whims gratified so far asthey could be by the most faithful of servants. A light penance for thedark infamies of his life in India, I think. His mind was all but gonewhen he came here, but he had his rational intervals, and in these theburden of his lonely life may have weighed heavily upon him. But it wasnot such a heavy burden as I have borne--I, his gaoler, I who havedevoted my existence to the one task of guarding the family honour. '

He, whom she thus acknowledged as her husband, had sunk exhausted into achair near her. He took out his gold snuff-box, and refreshed himselfwith a leisurely pinch of snuff, looking about him curiously all thewhile, with a senile grin. That flash of passion which for a few minuteshad restored him to the full possession of his reason had burnt itselfout, and his mind had relapsed into the condition in which it had beenwhen he talked to Mary in the garden. 

'My pipe, Steadman, ' he said, looking towards the door; 'bring me mypipe, ' and then, impatiently, 'What has become of Steadman? He has beengetting inattentive--very inattentive. '

He got up, and moved slowly to the door, leaning on his crutch-stick, his head sunk upon his breast, muttering to himself as he went; and thushe vanished from them, like the spectre of some terrible ancestor whichhad returned from the grave to announce the coming of calamity to adoomed race. His grandson looked after him, with an expression ofintense displeasure. 

'And so, Lady Maulevrier, ' he exclaimed, turning to his grandmother, 'Ihave borne a title that never belonged to me, and enjoyed the possessionof another man's estates all this time, thanks to your pretty littleplot. A very respectable position for your grandson to occupy, upon mylife!'

Lord Hartfield lifted his hand with a warning gesture. 

'Spare her, ' he said. 'She is in no condition to endure yourreproaches. '

Spare her--yes. Fate had not spared her. The beautiful face--beautifuleven in age and decay--changed suddenly as she looked at them--the mouthbecame distorted, the eyes fixed: and then the heavy head fell back uponthe pillow--the paralysed form, wholly paralysed now, lay like a thingof stone. It never moved again. Consciousness was blotted out for everin that moment. The feeble pulses of heart and brain throbbed withgradually diminishing power for a night and a day; and in the twilightof that dreadful day of nothingness the last glimmer of the light diedin the lamp, and Lady Maulevrier and the burden of her sin were beyondthe veil. 

Viscount Haselden, _alias_ Lord Maulevrier, held a long consultationwith Lord Hartfield on the night of his grandmother's death, as to whatsteps ought to be taken in relation to the real Earl of Maulevrier: andit was only at the end of a serious and earnest discussion that bothyoung men came to the decision that Lady Maulevrier's secret ought to bekept faithfully to the end. Assuredly no good purpose could be achievedby letting the world know of old Lord Maulevrier's existence. Ahalf-lunatic octogenarian could gain nothing by being restored to rightsand possessions which he had most justly forfeited. All that justicedemanded was that the closing years of his life should be made ascomfortable as care and wealth could make them; and Hartfield andHaselden took immediate steps to this end. But their first act was tosend the old earl's treasure chest under safe convoy to the India House, with a letter explaining how this long-hidden wealth, brought from Indiaby Lord Maulevrier, had been discovered among other effects in alumber-room at Lady Maulevrier's country house. The money so deliveredup might possibly have formed part of his lordship's private fortune;but, in the absence of any knowledge as to its origin, his grandson, thepresent Lord Maulevrier, preferred to deliver it up to the authoritiesof the India House, to be dealt with as they might think fit. 

The old earl made no further attempt to assert himself. He seemedcontent to remain in his own rooms as of old, to potter about thegarden, where his solitude was as complete as that of a hermit's cell. The only moan be made was for James Steadman, whose services he missedsorely. Lord Hartfield replaced that devoted servant by a cleverAustrian valet, a new importation from Vienna, who understood verylittle English, a trained attendant upon mental invalids, and who wasquite capable of dealing with old Lord Maulevrier. 

Lord Hartfield went a step farther; and within a week of those twofunerals of servant and mistress, which cast a gloom over the peacefulvalley of Grasmere, he brought down a famous mad-doctor to diagnose hislordship's case. There was but little risk in so doing, he argued withhis friend, and it was their duty so to do. If the old man should asserthimself to the doctor as Lord Maulevrier, the declaration would pass asa symptom of his lunacy. But it happened that the physician arrived atFellside on one of Lord Maulevrier's bad days, and the patient neveremerged from the feeblest phase of imbecility. 

'Brain quite gone, ' pronounced the doctor, 'bodily health very poor. Take him to the South of France for the winter--Hyères, or any quietplace. He can't last long. '

To Hyères the old man was taken, with Mrs. Steadman as nurse, and theAustrian valet as body-servant and keeper. Mary, for whom, in hisbrighter hours he showed a warm affection, went with him under herhusband's wing. 

Lord Hartfield rented a chateau on the slope of an olive-clad hill, where he and his young wife, whose health was somewhat delicate at thistime, spent a winter in peaceful seclusion; while Lesbia and her brothertravelled together in Italy. The old man's strength improved in thatlovely climate. He lived to see the roses and orange blossoms of theearly spring, and died in his arm-chair suddenly, without a pang, whileMary sat at his feet reading to him: a quiet end of an evil and troubledlife. And now he whom the world had known as Lord Maulevrier was verilythe earl, and could hear himself called by his title once more without atouch of shame. 

The secret of Lady Maulevrier's sin had been so faithfully kept by thetwo young men that neither of her granddaughters knew the true story ofthat mysterious person whom Mary had first heard of as James Steadman'suncle. She and Lesbia both knew that there were painful circumstances ofsome kind connected with this man's existence, his hidden life in theold house at Fellside; but they were both content to learn no more. Respect for their grandmother's memory, sorrowful affection for thedead, prevailed over natural curiosity. 

Early in February Maulevrier sent decorators and upholsterers into theold house in Curzon Street, which was ready before the middle of May toreceive his lordship and his young wife, the girlish daughter of aFlorentine nobleman, a gazelle-eyed Italian, with a voice whose everytone was music, and with the gentlest, shyest, most engaging manners ofany girl in Florence. Lady Lesbia, strangely subdued and changed by thegriefs and humiliations of her last campaign, had been her brother'scounsellor and confidante throughout his wooing of his fair Italianbride. She was to spend the season under her brother's roof, to help toinitiate young Lady Maulevrier in the mysterious rites of Londonsociety, and to warn her of those rocks and shoals which had wrecked herown fortunes. 

The month of May brought a son and heir to Lord Hartfield; and it wasnot till after his birth that Mary, Countess of Hartfield, was presentedto her sovereign, and began her career as a matron of rank and standing, very much overpowered by the weight of her honours, and looking forwardwith delight to the end of the season and a flight to Argyleshire withher husband and baby. 

THE END.