LONDON PRIDE

OR

WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNGER

BY

M. E. BRADDON

_Author of "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET, " "VIXEN, " "ISHMAEL, " ETC. _

1896

CONTENTS

_CHAPTER I. _ A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM

_CHAPTER II. _ WITHIN CONVENT WALLS

_CHAPTER III. _ LETTERS FROM HOME

_CHAPTER IV. _ THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

_CHAPTER V. _ A MINISTERING ANGEL

_CHAPTER VI. _ BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD

_CHAPTER VII. _ AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION

_CHAPTER VIII. _ SUPERIOR TO FASHION

_CHAPTER IX. _ IN A PURITAN HOUSE

_CHAPTER X. _ THE PRIEST'S HOLE

_CHAPTER XL. _ LIGHTER THAN VANITY

_CHAPTER XII. _ LADY FAREHAM'S DAY

_CHAPTER XIII. _ THE SAGE OF SAYES COURT

_CHAPTER XIV. _ THE MILLBANK GHOST

_CHAPTER XV. _ FALCON AND DOVE

_CHAPTER XVI. _ WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE?

_CHAPTER XVII. _ THE MOTIVE--MURDER

_CHAPTER XVIII. _ REVELATIONS

_CHAPTER XIX. _ DIDO

_CHAPTER XX. _ PHILASTER

_CHAPTER XXI. _ GOOD-BYE, LONDON

_CHAPTER XXII. _ AT THE MANOR MOAT

_CHAPTER XXIII. _ PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE

_CHAPTER XXIV. _ "QUITE OUT OF FASHION"

_CHAPTER XXV. _ HIGH STAKES

_CHAPTER XXVI. _ IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH

_CHAPTER XXVII. _ BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE

_CHAPTER XXVIII. _ IN A DEAD CALM

CHAPTER I. 

A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM. 

The wind howled across the level fields, and flying showers of sleetrattled against the old leathern coach as it drove through the thickeningdusk. A bitter winter, this year of the Royal tragedy. 

A rainy summer, and a mild rainy autumn had been followed by the hardestfrost this generation had ever known. The Thames was frozen over, andtempestuous winds had shaken the ships in the Pool, and the steep gableends and tall chimney-stacks on London Bridge. A never-to-be-forgottenwinter, which had witnessed the martyrdom of England's King, and the exileof her chief nobility, while a rabble Parliament rode roughshod over acowed people. Gloom and sour visages prevailed, the maypoles were down, theplay-houses were closed, the bear-gardens were empty, the cock-pits weredesolate; and a saddened population, impoverished and depressed by thesacrifices that had been exacted and the tyranny that had been exercisedin the name of Liberty, were ground under the iron heel of Cromwell'sred-coats. 

The pitiless journey from London to Louvain, a journey of many daysand nights, prolonged by accident and difficulty, had been spun out touttermost tedium for those two in the heavily moving old leathern coach. Who and what were they, these wearied travellers, journeying togethersilently towards a destination which promised but little of pleasure orluxury by way of welcome--a destination which meant severance for thosetwo?

One was Sir John Kirkland, of the Manor Moat, Bucks, a notorious Malignant, a grey-bearded cavalier, aged by trouble and hard fighting; a soldier andservant who had sacrificed himself and his fortune for the King, and mustneeds begin the world anew now that his master was murdered, his own goodsconfiscated, the old family mansion, the house in which his parents diedand his children were born, emptied of all its valuables, and left to thecare of servants, and his master's son a wanderer in a foreign land, withlittle hope of ever winning back crown and sceptre. 

Sadness was the dominant expression of Sir John's stern, strongly markedcountenance, as he sat staring out at the level landscape through theunglazed coach window, staring blankly across those wind-swept Flemishfields where the cattle were clustering in sheltered corners, a monotonousexpanse, crossed by ice-bound dykes that looked black as ink, save wherethe last rays of the setting sun touched their iron hue with blood-redsplashes. Pollard willows indicated the edge of one field, gaunt poplarsmarked the boundary of another, alike leafless and unbeautiful, standingdarkly out against the dim grey sky. Night was hastening towards thetravellers, narrowing and blotting out that level landscape, field, dyke, and leafless wood. 

Sir John put his head out of the coach window, and looked anxiously alongthe straight road, peering through the shades of evening in the hope ofseeing the crocketed spires and fair cupolas of Louvain in the distance. But he could see nothing save a waste of level pastures and the gatheringdarkness. Not a light anywhere, not a sign of human habitation. 

Useless to gaze any longer into the impenetrable night. The traveller leantback into a corner of the carriage with folded arms, and, with a deep sigh, composed himself for slumber. He had slept but little for the last week. The passage from Harwich to Ostend in a fishing-smack had been a periloustransit, prolonged by adverse winds. Sleep had been impossible on boardthat wretched craft; and the land journey had been fraught with vexationand delays of all kinds--stupidity of postillions, dearth of horseflesh, badness of the roads--all things that can vex and hinder. 

Sir John's travelling companion, a small child in a cloak and hood, creptcloser to him in the darkness, nestled up against his elbow, and pushed herlittle cold hand into his leathern glove. 

"You are crying again, father, " she said, full of pity. "You were cryinglast night. Do you always cry when it grows dark?"

"It does not become a man to shed tears in the daylight, little maid, " herfather answered gently. 

"Is it for the poor King you are crying--the King those wicked menmurdered?"

"Ay, Angela, for the King; and for the Queen and her fatherless childrenstill more than for the King, for he has crowned himself with a crown ofglory, the diadem of martyrs, and is resting from labour and sorrow, torise victorious at the great day, when his enemies and his murderers shallstand ashamed before him. I weep for that once so lovely lady--widowed, discrowned, needy, desolate--a beggar in the land where her father was agreat king. A hard fate, Angela, father and husband both murdered. "

"Was the Queen's father murdered too?" asked the silver-sweet voice out ofdarkness, a pretty piping note like the song of a bird. 

"Yes, love. "

"Did Bradshaw murder him?"

"No, dearest, 'twas in France he was slain--in Paris; stabbed to death by amadman. "

"And was the Queen sorry?"

"Ay, sweetheart, she has drained the cup of sorrow. She was but a childwhen her father died. She can but dimly remember that dreadful day. And nowshe sits, banished and widowed, to hear of her husband's martyrdom; herelder sons wanderers, her young daughter a prisoner. "

"Poor Queen!" piped the small sweet voice, "I am so sorry for her. "

Little had she ever known but sorrow, this child of the Great Rebellion, born in the old Buckinghamshire manor house, while her father was atFalmouth with the Prince--born in the midst of civil war, a stormy petrel, bringing no message of peace from those unknown skies whence she came, aharbinger of woe. Infant eyes love bright colours. This baby's eyes lookedupon a house hung with black. Her mother died before the child was afortnight old. They had christened her Angela. "Angel of Death, " said thefather, when the news of his loss reached him, after the lapse of manydays. His fair young wife's coffin was in the family vault under the parishchurch of St. Nicholas in the Vale, before he knew that he had lost her. 

There was an elder daughter, Hyacinth, seven years the senior, who had beensent across the Channel in the care of an old servant at the beginning ofthe troubles between King and Parliament. 

She had been placed in the charge of her maternal grandmother, the Marquisede Montrond, who had taken ship for Calais when the Court left London, leaving her royal mistress to weather the storm. A lady who had wealth andprestige in her own country, who had been a famous beauty when Richelieuwas in power, and who had been admired by that serious and sober monarch, Louis the Thirteenth, could scarcely be expected to put up with the shiftsand shortcomings of an Oxford lodging-house, with the ever-present fear offinding herself in a town besieged by Lord Essex and the rebel army. 

With Madame de Montrond, Hyacinth had been reared, partly in a mediaevalmansion, with a portcullis and four squat towers, near the Châteaud'Arques, and partly in Paris, where the lady had a fine house in theMarais. The sisters had never looked upon each other's faces, Angela havingentered upon the troubled scene after Hyacinth had been carried across theChannel to her grandmother. And now the father was racked with anxiety lestevil should befall that elder daughter in the war between Mazarin and theParliament, which was reported to rage with increasing fury. 

Angela's awakening reason became conscious of a world where all was fearand sadness. The stories she heard in her childhood were stories of thatfierce war which was reaching its disastrous close while she was in hercradle. She was told of the happy peaceful England of old, before darknessand confusion gathered over the land; before the hearts of the people wereset against their King by a wicked and rebellious Parliament. 

She heard of battles lost by the King and his partisans; cities besiegedand taken; a flash of victory followed by humiliating reverses; the King'sparty always at a disadvantage; and hence the falling away of the feebleand the false, the treachery of those who had seemed friends, the impotenceof the faithful. 

Angela heard so often and so much of these things--from old Lady Kirkland, her grandmother, and from the grey-haired servants at the manor--that shegrew to understand them with a comprehension seemingly far beyond hertender years. But a child so reared is inevitably older than her years. This little one had never known childish pleasures or play, childishcompanions or childish fancies. 

She roamed about the spacious gardens, full of saddest thoughts, burdenedwith all the cares that weighed down that kingly head yonder; or she stoodbefore the pictured face of the monarch with clasped hands and tearfuleyes, looking up at him with the adoring compassion of a child prone tohero-worship--thinking of him already as saint and martyr--whose martyrdomwas not yet consummated in blood. 

King Charles had presented his faithful servant, Sir John Kirkland, with ahalf-length replica of one of his Vandyke portraits, a beautiful head, witha strange inward look--that look of isolation and aloofness which we whoknow his story take for a prophecy of doom--which the sculptor Bernini hadremarked, when he modelled the royal head for marble. The picture hung inthe place of honour in the long narrow gallery at the Manor Moat, withtrophies of Flodden and Zutphen arranged against the blackened oakpanelling above it. The Kirklands had been a race of soldiers since thedays of Edward III. The house was full of war-like decorations--tatteredcolours, old armour, memorials of fighting Kirklands who had long beendust. 

There came an evil day when the rabble rout of Cromwell's crop-hairedsoldiery burst into the manor house to pillage and destroy, carrying offcurios and relics that were the gradual accumulation of a century and ahalf of peaceful occupation. 

The old Dowager's grey hairs had barely saved her from outrage on thatbitter day. It was only her utter helplessness and afflicted condition thatprevailed upon the Parliamentary captain, and prevented him from carryingout his design, which was to haul her off to one of those London prisons atthat time so gorged with Royalist captives that the devilish ingenuity ofthe Parliament had devised floating gaols on the Thames, where persons ofquality and character were herded together below decks, to the loss ofhealth, and even of life. 

Happily for old Lady Kirkland, she was too lame to walk, and her enemieshad no horse or carriage in which to convey her; so she was left at peacein her son's plundered mansion, whence all that was valuable and easilyportable was carried away by the Roundheads. Silver plate and family platehad been sacrificed to the King's necessities. 

The pictures, not being either portable or readily convertible into cash, had remained on the old panelled walls. 

Angela used to go from the King's picture to her father's. Sir John's wasa more rugged face than the Stuart's, with a harder expression; but thechild's heart went out to the image of the father she had never seen sincethe dawn of consciousness. He had made a hurried journey to that quietBuckinghamshire valley soon after her birth--had looked at the baby in hercradle, and then had gone down into the vault where his young wife waslying, and had stayed for more than an hour in cold and darkness alone withhis dead. That lovely French wife had been his junior by more than twentyyears, and he had loved her passionately--had loved her and left her forduty's sake. No Kirkland had ever faltered in his fidelity to crown andking. This John Kirkland had sacrificed all things, and, alone with hisbeloved dead in the darkness of that narrow charnel house, it seemed tohim that there was nothing left for him except to cleave to those fallenfortunes and patiently await the issue. 

He had fought in many battles and had escaped with a few scars; and he wascarrying his daughter to Louvain, intending to place her in the charge ofher great-aunt, Madame de Montrond's half sister, who was head of a conventin that city, a safe and pious shelter, where the child might be reared inher mother's faith. 

Lady Kirkland, the only daughter of the Marquise de Montrond, one of QueenHenrietta Maria's ladies-in-waiting, had been a papist, and, although SirJohn had adhered steadfastly to the principles of the Reformed Church, he had promised his bride, and the Marquise, her mother, that if theirnuptials were blessed with offspring, their children should be educatedin the Roman faith--a promise difficult of performance in a land where astormy tide ran high against Rome, and where Popery was a scarlet spectrethat alarmed the ignorant and maddened the bigoted. And now, duly providedwith a safe conduct from the regicide, Bradshaw, he was journeying to thecity where he was to part with his daughter for an indefinite period. Hehad seen but little of her, and yet it seemed as hard to part thus as ifshe had prattled at his knees and nestled in his arms every day of heryoung life. 

At last across the distance, against the wind-driven clouds of that stormywinter sky, John Kirkland saw the lights of the city--not many lights orbrilliant of their kind, but a glimmer here and there--and behind theglimmer the dark bulk of masonry, roofs, steeples, watch-towers, bridges. 

The carriage stopped at one of the gates of the city, and there werequestions asked and answered, and papers shown, but there was no obstacleto the entrance of the travellers. The name of the Ursuline Convent actedlike a charm, for Louvain was papist to the core in these days of Spanishdominion. It had been a city of refuge nearly a hundred years ago for allthat was truest and bravest and noblest among English Roman Catholics, inthe cruel days of Queen Elizabeth, and Englishmen had become the leadingspirits of the University there, and had attracted the youth of RomanistEngland to the sober old Flemish town, before the establishment of Dr. Allan's rival seminary at Douai, Sir John could have found no safer havenfor his little ewe lamb. 

The tired horses blundered heavily along the stony streets, and crossedmore than one bridge. The town seemed pervaded by water, a deep narrowstream like a canal, on which the houses looked, as if in feeble mockery ofVenice--houses with steep crow-step gables, some of them richly decorated;narrow windows for the most part dark, but with here and there the yellowlight of lamp or candle. 

The convent faced a broad open square, and had a large walled garden inits rear. The coach stopped in front of a handsome doorway, and after thetravellers had been scrutinised and interrogated by the portress through anopening in the door, they were admitted into a spacious hall, paved withblack and white marble, and adorned with a statue of the Virgin Mother, andthence to a parlour dimly lighted by a small oil lamp, where they waitedfor about ten minutes, the little girl shivering with cold, before theSuperior appeared. 

She was a tall woman, advanced in years, with a handsome, but melancholycountenance. She greeted the cavalier as a familiar friend. 

"Welcome to Flanders!" she said. "You have fled from that accursed countrywhere our Church is despised and persecuted----"

"Nay, reverend kinswoman, I have fled but to go back again as fast ashorses and sails can carry me. While the fortunes of my King are at stake, my place is in England, or it may be in Scotland, where there are stillthose who are ready to fight to the death in the royal cause. But I havebrought this little one for shelter and safe keeping, and tender usage, trusting in you who are of kin to her as I could trust no one else--and, furthermore, that she may be reared in the faith of her dead mother. "

"Sweet soul!" murmured the nun. "It was well for her to be taken from yourtroubled England to the kingdom of the saints and martyrs. "

"True, reverend mother; yet those blasphemous levellers who call us'Malignants' have dubbed themselves 'Saints. '"

"Then affairs go no better with you in England, I fear, Sir John?"

"Nay, madam, they go so ill that they have reached the lowest depth ofinfamy. Hell itself hath seen no spectacle more awful, no murder morebarbarous, no horrider triumph of wickedness, than the crime which wasperpetrated this day se'nnight at Whitehall. "

The nun looked at him wistfully, with clasped hands, as one who halfapprehended his meaning. 

"The King!" she faltered, "still a prisoner?"

"Ay, reverend lady, but a prisoner in Paradise, where angels are hisguards, and saints and martyrs his companions. He has regained his crown;but it is the crown of martyrdom, the aureole of slaughtered saints. England, our little England that was once so great under the strong ruleof that virgin-queen who made herself the arbiter of Christendom, and thewonder of the world----"

The pious lady shivered and crossed herself at this praise of the hereticqueen--praise that could only come from a heretic. 

"Our blessed and peaceful England has become a den of thieves, given overto the ravening wolves of rebellion and dissent, the penniless soldiery whowould bring down all men's fortunes to their own level, seize all, eat anddrink all, and trample crown and peerage in the mire. They have slainhim, reverend mother, this impious herd--they gave him the mockery of atrial--just as his Master, Christ, was mocked. They spurned and spat uponhim, even as our Redeemer was spurned; and then, on the Sabbath day, theycried aloud in their conventicles, 'Lord, hast Thou not smelt a sweetsavour of blood?' Ay, these murderers gloried in their crime, braggedof their gory hands, lifted them up towards heaven as a token ofrighteousness!"

The cavalier was pacing to and fro in the dimness of the convent parlour, with quick, agitated steps, his nostrils quivering, grizzled browsbent over angry eyes, his hand trembling with rage as it clutched hissword-hilt. 

The reverend mother drew Angela to her side, took off the little black silkhood, and laid her hand caressingly on the soft brown hair. 

"Was it Cromwell's work?" she asked. 

"Nay, reverend mother, I doubt whether of his own accord Cromwell wouldhave done this thing. He is a villain, a damnable villain--but he is aglorious villain. The Parliament had made their covenant with the King atNewport--a bargain which gave them all, and left him nothing--save only hisbroken health, grey hairs, and the bare name of King. He would have beenbut a phantom of authority, powerless as the royal spectres Aeneas met inthe under-world. They had got all from him--all save the betrayal of hisfriends. There he budged not, but was firm as rock. "

"'Twas likely he remembered Strafford, and that he prospered no better forhaving flung a faithful dog to the wolves, " said the nun. 

"Remembered Strafford? Ay, that memory has been a pillow of thorns throughmany a sleepless night. No, it was not Cromwell who sought the King'sblood--it has been shed with his sanction. The Parliament had got all, andwould have been content; but the faction they had created was too strongfor them. The levellers sent their spokesman--one Pride, an ex-drayman, nowcolonel of horse--to the door of the House of Commons, who arrested themore faithful and moderate members, imposed himself and his rebel crewupon the House, and hurried on that violation of constitutional law, thattravesty of justice, which compelled an anointed King to stand before thelowest of his subjects--the jacks-in-office of a mutinous commonalty--toanswer for having fought in defence of his own inviolable rights. "

"Did they dare condemn their King?"

"Ah, madam, they found him guilty of high treason, in that he had takenarms against the Parliament. They sentenced their royal master todeath--and seven days ago London saw the spectacle of judicial murder--ablameless King slain by the minion of an armed rabble!"

"But did the people--the English people--suffer this in silence? The wisestand best of them could surely be assembled in your great city. Did thecitizens of London stand placidly by to see this deed accomplished?"

"They were like sheep before the shearer. They were dumb. Great God! canI ever forget that sea of white faces under the grey winter sky, or theuniversal groan that went up to heaven when the stroke of the axe soundedon the block, and men knew that the murder of their King was consummated;and when that anointed head with its grey hairs, whitened with sorrow, markyou, not with age, was lifted up, bloody, terrible, and proclaimed the headof a traitor? Ah, reverend mother, ten such moments will age a man by tenyears. Was it not the most portentous tragedy which the earth has everseen since He who was both God and Man died upon Calvary? Other judicialsacrifices have been, but never of a victim as guiltless and as noble. Hadyou but seen the calm beauty of his countenance as he turned it towards thepeople! Oh, my King, my master, my beloved friend, when shall I see thatface in Paradise, with the blood washed from that royal brow, with thesmile of the redeemed upon those lips!"

He flung himself into a chair, covered his face with those weather-stainedhands, which had broadened by much grasping of sword and pistol, pike andgun, and sobbed aloud, with a fierce passion that convulsed the strongmuscular frame. Of all the King's servants this one had been the moststeadfast, was marked in the black book of the Parliament as a notoriousMalignant. From the raising of the standard on the castle-hill atNottingham--in the sad evening of a tempestuous day, with but scantyattendance, and only evil presages--to the treaty at Newport, and theprison on the low Hampshire coast, this man had been his master's constantcompanion and friend; fighting in every battle, cleaving to King and Princein spite of every opposing influence, carrying letters between fatherand son in the teeth of the enemy, humbling himself as a servant, andperforming menial labours, in those latter days of bitterness and outrage, when all courtly surroundings were denied the fallen monarch. 

And now he mourned his martyred King more bitterly than he would havemourned his own brother. 

The little girl slipped from the reverend mother's lap, and ran across theroom to her father. 

"Don't cry, father!" she murmured, with her own eyes streaming. "It hurtsme to see you. "

"Nay, Angela, " he answered, clasping her to his breast. "Forgive me thatI think more of my dead King than of my living daughter. Poor child, thouhast seen nothing but sorrow since thou wert born; a land racked by civilwar; Englishmen changed into devils; a home ravaged and made desolate;threatenings and curses; thy good grandmother's days shortened by sorrowand rough usage. Thou wert born into a house of mourning, and hast seennothing but black since thou hadst eyes to notice the things around thee. Those tender ears should have heard only loving words. But it is over, dearest; and thou hast found a haven within these walls. You will take careof her, will you not, madam, for the sake of the niece you loved?"

"She shall be the apple of my eye. No evil shall come near her that my careand my prayers can avert. God has been very gracious to our order--in alltroublous times we have been protected. We have many pupils from the bestfamilies of Flanders--and some even from Paris, whence parents are glad toremove their children from the confusion of the time. You need fear nothingwhile this sweet child is with us; and if in years to come she shoulddesire to enter our order----"

"The Lord forbid!" cried the cavalier. "I want her to be a good and piouspapist, madam, like her sweet mother; but never a nun. I look to her as thestaff and comfort of my declining years. Thou wilt not abandon thy father, wilt thou, little one, when thou shalt be tall and strong as a bulrush, andhe shall be bent and gnarled with age, like the old medlar on the lawn atthe Manor? Thou wilt be his rod and staff, wilt thou not, sweetheart?"

The child flung her arms round his neck and kissed him. It was her onlyanswer, but that mute reply was a vow. 

"Thou wilt stay here till England's troubles are over, Angela, and thatbase herd yonder have been trampled down. Thou wilt be happy here, and wiltmind thy book, and be obedient to those good ladies who will teach thee;and some day, when our country is at peace, I will come back to fetchthee. "

"Soon, " murmured the child, "soon, father?"

"God grant it may be soon, my beloved! It is hard for father and childrento be scattered, as we are scattered; thy sister Hyacinth in Paris, andthou in Flanders, and I in England. Yet it must needs be so for a while!"

"Why should not Hyacinth come to us and be reared with Angela?" asked thereverend mother. 

"Nay, madam, Hyacinth is well cared for with your sister, Madame deMontrond. She is as dear to her maternal grandmother as this little onehere was to my good mother, whose death last year left us a house ofmourning. Hyacinth will doubtless inherit a considerable portion of Madamede Montrond's wealth, which is not insignificant. She is being brought upin the precincts of the Court. "

"A worldly and a dangerous school for one so young, " said the nun, with asigh. "I have heard my father talk of what life was like at the Louvre whenthe Béarnais reigned there in the flower of his manhood, newly master ofParis, flushed with hard-won victory, and but lately reconciled to theChurch. "

"Methinks that great captain's court must have been laxer than that ofQueen Anne and the Cardinal. I have been told that the child-king is beingreared, as it were, in a cloister, so strict are mother and guardian. Myonly fear for Hyacinth is the troubled state of the city, given over tocivil warfare only less virulent than that which has desolated England. Ihear that the Fronde is no war of epigrams and pamphlets, but that men areas earnest and bloodthirsty as they were in the League. I shall go fromhere to Paris to see my first-born before I make my way back to London. "

"I question if you will find her at Paris, " said the reverend mother. "Ihad news from a priest in the diocese of the Coadjutor. The Queen-motherleft the city secretly with her chosen favourites in the dead of the nighton the sixth of this month, after having kept the festival of Twelfth Nightin a merry humour with her Court. Even her waiting-women knew nothingof her plans. They went to St. Germain, where they found the chateauunfurnished, and where all the Court had to sleep upon was a few loads ofstraw. Hatred of the Cardinal is growing fiercer every day, and Paris isin a state of siege. The Princes are siding with Mathieu Molé and hisParliament, and the Provincial Parliaments are taking up the quarrel. Godgrant that it may not be in France as it has been with you in your unhappyEngland; but I fear the Spanish Queen and her Italian minister scarce knowthe temper of the French people. "

"Alas, good friend, we have fallen upon evil days, and the spirit of revoltis everywhere; but if there is trouble at the French Court, there is allthe more need that I should make my way thither, be it at St. Germain orat Paris, and so assure myself of my pretty Hyacinth's safety. She was sosweet an infant when my good and faithful steward carried her across thesea to Dieppe. Never shall I forget that sad moment of parting; when thebaby arms were wreathed round my sweet saint's neck; she so soon to becomeagain a mother, so brave and patient in her sorrow at parting with herfirst-born. Ah, sister, there are moments in this life that a man mustneeds remember, even amidst the wreck of his country. " He dashed away atear or two, and then turned to his kinswoman with outstretched hands andsaid, "Good night, dear and reverend mother; good night and good-bye. Ishall sleep at the nearest inn, and shall be on the road again at daybreak. Good-bye, my soul's delight"

He clasped his daughter in his arms, with something of despair in thefervour of his embrace, telling himself, as the soft cheek was pressedagainst his own, how many years might pass ere he would again so clasp thattender form and feel those innocent kisses on his bearded lips. She andthe elder girl were all that were left to him of love and comfort, and theelder sister had been taken from him while she was a little child. He wouldnot have known her had he met her unawares; nor had he ever felt for hersuch a pathetic love as for this guiltless death-angel, this baby whosecoming had ruined his life, whose love was nevertheless the only drop ofsweetness in his cup. 

He plucked himself from that gentle embrace, and walked quickly to thedoor. 

"You will apply to me for whatever money is needed for the child'smaintenance and education, " he said, and in the next moment was gone. 

CHAPTER II. 

WITHIN CONVENT WALLS. 

More than ten years had come and gone since that bleak February eveningwhen Sir John Kirkland carried his little daughter to a place of safety, inthe old city of Louvain, and in all those years the child had grown likea flower in a sheltered garden, where cold winds never come. The bud hadmatured into the blossom in that mild atmosphere of piety and peace; andnow, in this fair springtide of 1660, a girlish face watched from theconvent casement for the coming of the father whom Angela Kirkland had notlooked upon since she was a child, and the sister she had never seen. 

They were to arrive to-day, father and sister, on a brief visit to thequiet Flemish city. Yonder in England there had been curious changes sincethe stern Protector turned his rugged face to the wall, and laid down thatgolden sceptre with which he had ruled as with a rod of iron. Kingly titlewould he none; yet where kings had chastised with whips, he had chastisedwith scorpions. Ireland could tell how the little finger of Cromwell hadbeen heavier than the arm of the Stuarts. She had trembled and had obeyed, and had prospered under that scorpion rule, and England's armaments hadbeen the terror of every sea while Cromwell stood at the helm; but now thatstrong brain and bold heart were in the dust, and it had taken Englandlittle more than a year to discover that Puritanism and the Rump were amistake, and that to the core of her heart she was loyal to her hereditaryKing. 

She asked not what manner of man this hereditary ruler might be; asked notwhether he were wise or foolish, faithful or treacherous. She forgot allof tyranny and of double-dealing she had suffered from his forbears. Sheforgot even her terror of the scarlet spectre, the grim wolf of Rome, inher disgust at Puritan fervour which had torn down altar-rails, usurpedchurch pulpits, destroyed the beauty of ancient cathedrals. Like a womanor a child, she held out her arms to the unknown, in a natural recoilfrom that iron rule which had extinguished her gaiety, silenced her nobleliturgy, made innocent pleasures and elegant arts things forbidden. Shewanted her churches, and her theatres, her cock-pits and taverns, andbear-gardens and maypoles back again. She wanted to be ruled by the law, and not by the sword; and she longed with a romantic longing for that youngwanderer who had fled from her shores in a fishing-boat, with his life inhis hand, to return in a glad procession of great ships dancing over summerseas, eating, drinking, gaming, in a coat worth scarce thirty shillings, and with empty pockets for his loyal subjects to make haste and fill. 

Angela had the convent parlour all to herself this fair spring morning. Shewas the favourite pupil of the nuns, had taken no vows, pledged herself tono noviciate, ever mindful of her promise to her father. She had lived ashappily and as merrily in that abode of piety as she could have lived inthe finest palace in Europe. There were other maidens, daughters of theFrench and Flemish nobility, who were taught and reared within those sombreprecincts, and with them she had played and worked and laboured at suchstudies as became a young lady of quality. Like that fair daughter ofaffliction, Henrietta of England, she had gained in education by thetroubles which had made her girlhood a time of seclusion. She had beenfirst the plaything of those elder girls who were finishing their educationin the convent, her childishness appealing to their love and pity; andthen, after being the plaything of the nuns and the elder pupils, shebecame the favourite of her contemporaries, and in a manner their queen. She was more thoughtful than her class-fellows, in advance of her yearsin piety and intelligence; and they, knowing her sad story--how she wassevered from her country and kindred, her father a wanderer with his King, her sister bred up at a foreign Court--had first compassionated and thenadmired her. From her twelfth year upwards her intellectual superiority hadbeen recognised in the convent, alike by the nuns and their pupils. Heraptitude at all learning, and her simple but profound piety, had impressedeverybody. At fourteen years of age they had christened her "the littlewonder;" but later, seeing that their praises embarrassed and evendistressed her, they had desisted from such loving flatteries, and werecontent to worship her with a silent adulation. 

Her father's visits to the Flemish city had been few and far apart, fondlythough he loved his motherless girl. He had been a wanderer for the mostpart during those years, tossed upon troubled seas, fighting with Condéagainst Mazarin and Anne of Austria, and reconciled with the Court later, when peace was made, and his friends the Princes were forgiven; an exilefrom France of his own free will when Louis banished his first cousin, theKing of England, in order to truckle to the triumphant usurper. He had ledan adventurous life, and had cared very little what became of him in atopsy-turvy world. But now all things were changed. Richard Cromwell'sbrief and irresolute rule had shattered the Commonwealth, and madeEnglishmen eager for a king. The country was already tired of him whosesuccession had been admitted with blank acquiescence; and Monk and thearmy were soon to become masters of the situation. There was hope that theGeneral was rightly affected, and that the King would have his own again;and that such of his followers as had not compounded with the ParliamentaryCommission would get back their confiscated estates; and that all who hadsuffered in person or pocket for loyalty's sake would be recompensed fortheir sacrifices. 

It was five years since Sir John's last appearance at the convent, andAngela's heart beat fast at the thought that he was so near. She was to seehim this very day; nay, perhaps this very hour. His coach might have passedthe gate of the town already. He was bringing his elder daughter with him, that sister whose face she had never seen, save in a miniature, and whowas now a great lady, the wife of Baron Fareham, of Chilton Abbey, Oxon, Fareham Park, in the County of Hants, and Fareham House, London, a noblemanwhose estates had come through the ordeal of the Parliamentary Commissionwith a reasonable fine, and to whom extra favour had been shown by theCommissioners, because he was known to be at heart a Republican. In themean time, Lady Fareham had a liberal income allowed her by the Marquise, her grandmother, and she and her husband had been among the most splendidforeigners at the French Court, where the lady's beauty and wit had placedher conspicuously in that galaxy of brilliant women who shone and sparkledabout the sun of the European firmament--Le roi soleil, or "the King, " parexcellence, who took the blazing sun for his crest. The Fronde had been atime of pleasurable excitement to the high-spirited girl, whose mixedblood ran like quicksilver, and who delighted in danger and party strife, stratagem and intrigue. The story of her courage and gaiety of heart in thesiege of Paris, she being then little more than a child, had reached theFlemish convent long after the acts recorded had been forgotten at Parisand St. Germain. 

Angela's heart beat fast at the thought of being restored to these dearones, were it only for a short span. They were not going to carry her awayfrom the convent; and, indeed, seeing that she so loved her aunt, the goodreverend mother, and that her heart cleaved to those walls and to the holyexercises which filled so great a part of her life, her father, in replyingto a letter in which she had besought him to release her from her promiseand allow her to dedicate herself to God, had told her that, although hecould not surrender his daughter, to whom he looked for the comfort of hisclosing years, he would not urge her to leave the Ursulines until he shouldfeel himself old and feeble, and in need of her tender care. Meanwhile shemight be a nun in all but the vows, and a dutiful niece to her kind aunt, Mother Anastasia, whose advanced years and failing health needed allconsideration. 

But now, before he went back to England, whither he hoped to accompany theKing and the Princes ere the year was much older, Sir John Kirkland wascoming to visit his younger daughter, bringing Lady Fareham, whose husbandwas now in attendance upon His Majesty in Holland, where there were seriousnegotiations on hand--negotiations which would have been full of peril tothe English messengers two years ago, when that excellent preacher and holyman, Dr. Hewer, of St. Gregory, was beheaded for having intelligence withthe King, through the Marquess of Ormond. 

The parlour window jutted into the square over against the town hall, andAngela could see the whole length of the narrow street along which herfather's carriage must come. 

The tall, slim figure and the fair, girlish face stood out in full reliefagainst the grey stone mullion, bathed in sunlight. The graceful form wasundisguised by courtly apparel. The soft brown hair fell in loose ringlets, which were drawn back from the brow by a band of black ribbon. The girl'sgown was of soft grey woollen stuff, relieved by a cambric collar coveringthe shoulders, and by cambric elbow-sleeves. A coral and silver rosary washer only ornament; but face and form needed no aid from satins or velvets, Venetian lace or Indian filagree. 

The sweet, serious face was chiefly notable for eyes of darkest grey, underbrows that were firmly arched and almost black. The hair was a dark brown, the complexion somewhat too pale for beauty. Indeed, that low-tonedcolouring made some people blind to the fine and regular modelling of thehigh-bred face; while there were others who saw no charm in a countenancewhich seemed too thoughtful for early youth, and therefore lacking in oneof youth's chief attractions--gladness. 

The face lighted suddenly at this moment, as four great grey Flandershorses came clattering along the narrow street and into the square, dragging a heavy painted wooden coach after them. The girl opened thecasement and craned out her neck to look at the arrival The coach stoppedat the convent door, and a footman alighted and rang the convent bell, tothe interested curiosity of two or three loungers upon the steps of thetown hall over the way. 

Yes, it was her father, greyer but less sad of visage than at his lastvisit. His doublet and cloak were handsomer than the clothes he had wornthen, though they were still of the same fashion, that English mode whichhe had affected before the beginning of the troubles, and which he hadnever changed. 

Immediately after him there alighted a vision of beauty, the loveliest ofladies, in sky-blue velvet and pale grey fur, and with a long white featherencircling a sky-blue hat, and a collar of Venetian lace veiling a bosomthat scintillated with jewels. 

"Hyacinth!" cried Angela, in a flutter of delight. 

The portress peered at the visitors through her spy-hole, and beingsatisfied that they were the expected guests, speedily opened theiron-clamped door. 

There was no one to interfere between father and daughter, sister andsister, in the convent parlour. Angela had her dear people all to herself, the Mother Superior respecting the confidences and outpourings of love, which neither father nor children would wish to be witnessed even by akinswoman. Thus, by a rare breach of conventual discipline, Angela wasallowed to receive her guests alone. 

The lay-sister opened the parlour door and ushered in the visitors, andAngela ran to meet her father, and fell sobbing upon his breast, her facehidden against his velvet doublet, her arms clasping his neck. 

"What, mistress, hast thou so watery a welcome, now that the clouds havepassed away, and every loyal English heart is joyful?" cried Sir John, in avoice that was somewhat husky, but with a great show of gaiety. 

"Oh, sir, I have waited so long, so long for this day. Sometimes I thoughtit would never come, that I should never see my dear father again. "

"Poor child! it would have been only my desert hadst thou forgotten mealtogether. I might have come to you sooner, pretty one; indeed, I wouldhave come, only things went ill with me. I was down-hearted and hopelessof any good fortune in a world that seemed given over to psalm-singingscoundrels; and till the tide turned I had no heart to come nigh you. Butnow fortunes are mended, the King's and mine, and you have a father onceagain, and shall have a home by-and-by, the house where you were born, andwhere your angel-mother made my life blessed. You are like her, Angela!"holding back the pale face in his strong hands, and gazing upon itearnestly. "Yes, you favour your mother; but your face is over sad for youryears. Look at your sister here! Would you not say a sunbeam had takenwoman's shape and come dancing into the room?"

Angela looked round and greeted the lady, who had stood aside while fatherand daughter met. Yes, such a face suggested sunlight and summer, birds, butterflies, all things buoyant and gladsome. A complexion of dazzlingfairness, pearly, transparent, with ever-varying carnations; eyes ofheavenliest blue, liquid, laughing, brimming with espiéglerie; a slimlittle nose with an upward tilt, which expressed a contemptuous gaiety, aninquiring curiosity; a dimpled chin sloping a little towards the full roundthroat; the bust and shoulders of a Venus, the waist of a sylph, set off bythe close-fitting velvet bodice, with its diamond and turquoise buttons;hair of palest gold, fluffed out into curls that were traps for sunbeams;hands and arms of a milky whiteness emerging from the large looseelbow-sleeves--a radiant apparition which took Angela by surprise. She hadseen Flemish vraus in the richest attire, and among them there had beenwomen as handsome as Helena Forment; but this vision of a fine lady fromthe court of the "roi soleil" was a revelation. Until this moment, the girlhad hardly known what grace and beauty meant. 

"Come and let me hug you, my dearest Puritan, " cried Hyacinth, holding outher arms. "Why do you suffer your custodians to clothe you in that odiousgrey, which puts me in mind of lank-haired psalm-singing scum, and alltheir hateful works? I would have you sparkling in white satin and silver, or blushing in brocade powdered with forget-me-nots and rosebuds. Whatwould Fareham say if I told him I had a Puritan in grey woollen stuff formy sister? He sends you his love, dear, and bids me tell you there shall bealways an honoured place in our home for you, be it in England or France, in town or country. And why should you not fill that place at once, sister?Your education is finished, and to be sure you must be tired of these stonewalls and this sleepy town. "

"No, Hyacinth, I love the convent and the friends who have made it my home. You and Lord Fareham are very kind, but I could not leave our reverendmother; she is not so well or so strong as she used to be, and I think shelikes to have me with her, because though she loves us all, down to thehumblest of the lay-sisters, I am of her kin, and seem nearest to her. Idon't want to forsake her; and if it was not against my father's wish Ishould like to end my days in this house, and to give my thoughts to God. "

"That is because thou knowest nought of the world outside, sweetheart, "protested Hyacinth. "I admire the readiness with which folks will renouncea banquet they have never tasted. A single day at the Louvre or the PalaisRoyal would change your inclinations at once and for ever. "

"She is too young for a court life, or a town life either, " said Sir John. "And I have no mind to remove her from this safe shelter till the Kingshall be firm upon his throne, and our poor country shall have settled intoa stable and peaceful condition. But there must be no vows, Angela, norenunciation of kindred and home. I look to thee for the comfort of my oldage!"

"Dear father, I will never disobey you. I shall remember always that myfirst duty is to you; and when you want me, you have but to summon me; andwhether you are at home or abroad, in wealth and honour, or in exile andpoverty, I will go to you, and be glad and happy to be your daughter andyour servant. "

"I knew thou wouldst, dearest. I have never forgotten how the soft littlearms clung about my neck, and how the baby lips kissed me, in this sameparlour, when my heart was weighed down by a load of iron, and there seemedno ray of hope for England or me. You were my comforter then, and you willbe my comforter in the days to come. Hyacinth here is of the butterflybreed. She is fair to look upon, and tender and loving; but she is ever onthe wing. And she has her husband and her children to cherish, and cannotbe burdened with the care of a broken-down greybeard. "

"Broken-down! Why, you are as brave a gallant as the youngest cavalier inthe King's service, " cried Hyacinth. "I would pit my father against Montaguor Buckingham, Buckhurst or Roscommon--against the gayest, the boldest ofthem all, on land or sea. Broken-down, forsooth! We will hear no such wordsfrom you, sir, for a score of years. And now you will want all your wits totake your proper place at Court as sage counsellor and friend of thenew King. Sure he will need his father's friends about him to teachhim state-craft--he who has led such a gay, good-for-nothing life as apenniless rover, with scarce a sound coat to his back. "

"Nay, Hyacinth, the King will have no need of us old Malignants. We havehad our day. He has shrewd Ned Hyde for counsellor, and in that one longhead there is craft enough to govern a kingdom. The new Court will be ayoung Court, and the fashion of it will be new. We old fellows, who weregallant and gay enough in the forties, when we fought against Essex and histawny scarves, would be but laughable figures at the Court of a young manbred half in Paris, and steeped in French fashions and French follies. No, Hyacinth, it is for you and your husband the new day dawns. If I get backto my old meads and woods and the house where I was born, I will sitquietly down in the chimney corner, and take to cattle-breeding, and a packof harriers, for the diversion of my declining years. And when my Angelacan make up her mind to leave her good aunt she shall keep house for me. "

"I should love to be your housekeeper, dearest father. If it please Heavento restore my aunt to health and strength, I will go to you with a heartfull of joy, " said the girl, hanging caressingly upon the old cavalier'sshoulder. 

Hyacinth flitted about the room with a swift, birdlike motion, looking atthe sacred images and prints, the _tableau_ over the mantelpiece, whichtold, with much flourish of penmanship, the progress of the convent pupilsin learning and domestic virtues. 

"What a humdrum, dismal room!" she cried. "You should see our conventparlours in Paris. At the Carmelites, in the Rue Saint Jacques, _parexemple_, the Queen-mother's favourite convent, and at Chaillot, the housefounded by Queen Henrietta--such pictures, and ornaments, and embroideredhangings, and tapestries worked by devotees. This room of yours, sister, stinks of poverty, as your Flemish streets stink of garlic and cabbage. Faugh! I know not which is worse!"

Having thus delivered herself of her disgust, she darted upon her youngersister, laid her hands upon the girl's shoulders, and contemplated her withmock seriousness. 

"What a precocious young saint thou art, with no more interest in the worldoutside this naked parlour than if thou wert yonder image of the HolyMother. Not a question of my husband, or my children, or of the lastfashion in hood and mantle, or of the new laced gloves, or the FrenchKing's latest divinity. "

"I should dearly like to see your children, Hyacinth, " answered her sister. 

"Ah! they are the most enchanting creatures, the girl a perpetual sunbeam, ethereal, elfish, a being of life and movement, and with a loquacity thatnever tires; the boy a lump of honey, fat, sleek, lazily beautiful. I amnever tired of admiring them, when I have time to see them. Papillon--anold friend of mine has surnamed her Papillon because she is neverstill--was five years old on March 19. We were at St. Germain on herbirthday. You should have seen the toys and trinkets and sweetmeats whichthe Court showered upon her--the King and Queen, Monsieur, Mademoiselle, the Princess Henrietta, her godmother--everybody had a gift for thedaughter of La folle Baronne Fareham. Yes, they are lovely creatures, Angela; and I am miserable to think that it may be half a year before I seetheir sweet faces again. "

"Why so long, sister?"

"Because they are at the Château de Montrond, grandmother's place nearDieppe, and because Fareham and I are going hence to Breda to meet theKing, our own King Charles, and help lead him home in triumph. In Londonthe mob are shouting, roaring, singing, for their King; and Montagu's fleetlies in the Downs, waiting but the signal from Parliament to cross toHolland. He who left his country in a scurvy fishing-boat will go backto England in a mighty man-of-war, the _Naseby_--mark you, the_Naseby_--christened by that Usurper, in insolent remembrance of a rebelvictory; but Charles will doubtless change that hated name. He must not beput in mind of a fight where rebels had the better of loyal gentlemen. Hewill sail home over those dancing seas, with a fleet of great white-wingedships circling round him like a flight of silvery doves. Oh, what a turn offortune's wheel! I am wild with rapture at the thought of it!"

"You love England better than France, though you must be almost a strangerthere, " said Angela, wonderingly, looking at a miniature which her sisterwore in a bracelet. 

"Nay, love, 'tis in Paris I am an insignificant alien, though they are everso kind and flattering to me. At St Germain I was only Madame de Montrond'sgrand-daughter--the wife of a somewhat morose gentleman who was clevererat winning battles than at gaining hearts. At Whitehall I shall be LadyFareham, and shall enjoy my full consequence as the wife of an Englishnobleman of ancient lineage and fine estate, for, I am happy to tell you, his lordship's property suffered less than most people's in the rebellion, and anything his father lost when he fought for the good cause will begiven back to the son now the good cause is triumphant, with additions, perhaps--an earl's coronet instead of a baron's beggarly pearls. I shouldlike Papillon to be Lady Henrietta. "

"And you will send for your children, doubtless, when you are sure all issafe in England?" said Angela, still contemplating the portrait in thebracelet, which her sister had unclasped while she talked. "This isPapillon, I know. What a sweet, kind, mischievous face!"

"Mischievous as a Barbary ape--kind, and sweet as the west wind, " said SirJohn. 

"And your boy?" asked Angela, reclasping the bracelet on the fair, roundarm, having looked her fill at the mutinous eyes, the brown, crisplycurling hair, dainty, pointed chin, and dimpled cheeks. "Have you hispicture, too?"

"Not his; but I wear his father's likeness somewhere betwixt buckram andFlanders lace, " answered Hyacinth, gaily, pulling a locket from amidst thesplendours of her corsage. "I call it next my heart; but there is a stoutfortification of whalebone between heart and picture. You have gloatedenough on the daughter's impertinent visage. Look now at the father, whomshe resembles in little, as a kitten resembles a tiger. "

She handed her sister an oval locket, bordered with diamonds, and held by aslender Indian chain; and Angela saw the face of the brother-in-law whosekindness and hospitality had been so freely promised to her. 

She explored the countenance long and earnestly. 

"Well, do you think I chose him for his beauty?" asked Hyacinth. "You havedevoured every lineament with that serious gaze of yours, as if you weretrying to read the spirit behind that mask of flesh. Do you think himhandsome?"

Angela faltered: but was unskilled in flattery, and could not reply with acompliment. 

"No, sister; surely none have ever called this countenance handsome; but itis a face to set one thinking. "

"Ay, child, and he who owns the face is a man to set one thinking. He hasmade me think many a time when I would have travelled a day's journey toescape the thoughts he forced upon me. He was not made to bask in thesunshine of life. He is a stormy petrel. It was for his ugliness I chosehim. Those dark stern features, that imperious mouth, and a brow like theOlympian Jove. He scared me into loving him. I sheltered myself upon hisbreast from the thunder of his brow, the lightning of his eye. "

"He has a look of his cousin Wentworth, " said Sir John. "I never see himbut I think of that murdered man--my father's friend and mine--whom I havenever ceased to mourn. "

"Yet their kin is of the most distant, " said Hyacinth. "It is strange thatthere should be any likeness. "

"Faces appear and reappear in families, " answered her father. "You mayobserve that curiously recurring likeness in any picture-gallery, if thefamily portraits cover a century or two. Louis has little in common withhis grandfather; but two hundred years hence there may be a prince of theroyal house whose every feature shall recall Henry the Great"

The portrait was returned to its hiding-place, under perfumed lace andcobweb lawn, and the reverend mother entered the parlour, ready forconversation, and eager to hear the history of the last six weeks, ofthe collapse of that military despotism which had convulsed England anddominated Europe, and was now melting into thin air as ghosts dissolve atcock-crow, of the secret negotiations between Monk and Grenville, now knownto everybody; of the King's gracious amnesty and promise of universalpardon, save for some score or so of conspicuous villains, whose hands weredyed with the Royal Martyr's blood. 

She was full of questioning: and, above all, eager to know whether it wastrue that King Charles was at heart as staunch a papist as his brother theDuke of York was believed to be, though even the Duke lacked the courage tobear witness to the true faith. 

Two lay-sisters brought in a repast of cakes and syrups and light wines, such delicate and dainty food as the pious ladies of the convent wereespecially skilled in preparing, and which they deemed all-sufficient forthe entertainment of company; even when one of their guests was a ruggedsoldier like Sir John Kirkland. When the light collation had been tastedand praised, the coach came to the door again, and swallowed up thebeautiful lady and the old cavalier, who vanished from Angela's sight in acloud of dust, waving hands from the coach window. 

CHAPTER III. 

LETTERS FROM HOME. 

The quiet days went by, and grew into years, and time was only marked bythe gradual failure of the reverend mother's health; so gradual, so gentlea decay, that it was only when looking back on St. Sylvester's Eve that hergreat-niece became aware how much of strength and activity had been lostsince the Superior knelt in her place near the altar, listening to thesolemn music of the midnight Mass that sanctified the passing of the year. This year the reverend mother was led to her seat between two nuns, whosustained her feeble limbs. This year the meek knees, which had worn themarble floor in long hours of prayer during eighty pious years, could nolonger bend. The meek head was bowed, the bloodless hands were lifted up insupplication, but the fingers were wasted and stiffened, and there was painin every movement of the joints. 

There was no actual malady, only the slow death in life called old age. Allthe patient needed was rest and tender nursing. This last her great-niecesupplied, together with the gentlest companionship. No highly trainednurse, the product of modern science, could have been more efficient thanthe instinct of affection had made Angela. And then the patient's temperwas so amiable, her mind, undimmed after eighty-three years of life, was amirror of God. She thought of her fellow-creatures with a Divine charity;she worshipped her Creator with an implicit faith. For her in many a wakingvision the heavens opened and the spirits of departed saints descended fromtheir abode in bliss to hold converse with her. Eighty years of her lifehad been given to religious exercises and charitable deeds. Motherlessbefore she could speak, she had entered the convent as a pupil at threeyears of age, and had taken the veil at seventeen. Her father had married agreat heiress, whose only child, a daughter, was allowed to absorb allthe small stock of parental affection; and there was no one to disputeAnastasia's desire for the cloister. All she knew of the world outsidethose walls was from hearsay. A rare visit from her lovely half-sister, theMarquise de Montrond, had astonished her with the sight of a distinguishedParisienne, and left her wondering. She had never read a secular book. Sheknew not the meaning of the word pleasure, save in the mild amusementspermitted to the convent children--till they left the convent as youngwomen--on the evening of a saint's day; a stately dance of curtsyings andwaving arms; a little childish play, dramatising some incident in thelives of the saints. So she lived her eighty years of obedience and quietusefulness, learning and teaching, serving and governing. She had livedthrough the Thirty Years' War, through the devastations of Wallenstein, thecruelties of Bavarian Tilly, the judicial murder of Egmont and Horn. Shehad heard of villages burnt, populations put to the sword, women andchildren killed by thousands. She had conversed with those who rememberedthe League; she had seen the nuns weeping for Edward Campion's cruel fate;she had heard Masses sung for the soul of murdered Mary Stuart. Shehad heard of Raleigh's visions of conquest and of gold, setting hisprison-blanched face towards the West, in the afternoon of life, toencounter bereavement, treachery, sickening failure, and go back to hisnative England to expiate the dreams of genius with the blood of a martyr. And through all the changes and chances of that eventful century she hadlived apart, full of pity and wonder, in a charmed circle of piety andlove. 

Her room, in these peaceful stages of the closing scene, was a haven ofrest. Angela loved the seclusion of the panelled chamber, with its heavilymullioned casement facing the south-west, and the polished oak floor, on which the red and gold of the sunset were mirrored, as on the darkstillness of a moorland tarn. For her every object in the room had itsinterest or its charm. The associations of childhood hallowed them all. Thelarge ivory crucifix, yellow with age, dim with the kisses of adoring lips;the delf statuettes of Mary and Joseph, flaming with gaudy colour; thefigure of the Saviour and St. John the Baptist, delicately carved out ofboxwood, in a group representing the baptism in the river Jordan, the holydove trembling on a wire over the Divine head; the books, the pictures, therosaries: all these she had gazed at reverently when all things were new, and the convent passages places of shuddering, and the service of the Massan unintelligible mystery. She had grown up within those solemn walls; andnow, seeing her kinswoman's life gently ebbing away, she could but wonderwhat she would have to do in this world when another took the Superior'splace, and the tie that bound her to Louvain would be broken. 

The lady who would in all probability succeed Mother Anastasia as Superiorwas a clever, domineering woman, whom Angela loved least of all the nuns--awidow of good birth and fortune, and a thorough Fleming; stolid, bigoted, prejudiced, and taking much credit to herself for the wealth she hadbrought to the convent, apt to talk of the class-room and the chapel hermoney had helped to build and restore as "my class-room, " or "my chapel. "

No; Angela had no desire to remain in the convent when her dear kinswomanshould have vanished from the scene her presence sanctified. The housewould be haunted with sorrowful memories. It would be time for her to claimthat home which her father had talked of sharing with her in his old age. She could just faintly remember the house in which she was born--the moat, the fish-pond, the thick walls of yew, the peacocks and lions cut in box, of which the gardener who clipped them was so proud. Faintly, faintly, thepicture of the old house came back to her; built of grey stone, and stainedwith moss, grave and substantial, occupying three sides of a quadrangle, ahouse of many windows, few of which were intended to open, a house of darkpassages, like these in the convent, and flights of shallow steps, andcurious turns and twistings here and there. There were living birds thatsunned their spreading tails and stalked in slow stateliness on the turfterraces, as well as those peacocks clipped out of yew. The house lay ina Buckinghamshire valley, shut round and sheltered by hills and coppices, where there was an abundance of game. Angela had seen the low, cavern-likelarder hung with pheasants and hares. 

Her heart yearned towards the old house, so distinctly pictured by memory, though perchance with some differences from the actual scene. The mansionwould seem smaller to her, doubtless, beholding it with the eyes ofwomanhood, than childish memory made it. But to live there with her father, to wait upon him and tend him, to have Hyacinth's children there, playingin the gardens as she had played, would be as happy a life as her fancycould compass. 

All that she knew of the march of events during those tranquil years inthe convent came to her in letters from her sister, who was a vivaciousletter-writer, and prided herself upon her epistolary talent--as indeedupon her general superiority, from a literary standpoint, to the women ofher day. 

It was a pleasure to Lady Fareham in some rare interval of solitude--whenthe weather was too severe for her to venture outside the hall door, evenin her comfortable coach, and when by some curious concatenation shehappened to be without visitors--to open her portfolio and prattle withher pen to her sister, as she would have prattled with her tongue to thevisitors whom snow or tempest kept away. Her letters written from Londonwere apt to be rare and brief, Angela noted; but from his lordship'smansion near Oxford, or at the Grange between Fareham and Winchester--oncethe property of the brothers of St. Cross--she always sent a budget. Fewof these lengthy epistles contained anything bearing upon Angela's ownexistence--except the oft-repeated entreaty that she would make haste andjoin them--or even the flippant suggestion that Mother Anastasia shouldmake haste and die. They were of the nature of news-letters; but the newswas tinctured by the feminine medium through which it came, and there wasa flavour of egotism in almost every page. Lady Fareham wrote as only apretty woman, courted, flattered, and indulged by everybody about her, eversince she could remember, could be forgiven for writing. People had pettedher and worshipped her with such uniform subservience that she had grown tothirty years of age without knowing that she was selfish, accepting homageand submission as a law of the universe, as kings and princes do. 

Only in one of those letters was there that which might be called amomentous fact, but which Angela took as easily as if it had been a meredetail, to be dismissed from her thoughts when the letter had been laidaside. 

It was a letter with a black seal, announcing the death of the Marquise deMontrond, who had expired of an apoplexy at her house in the Marais, aftera supper party at which Mademoiselle, Madame de Longueville, Madame deMontausier, the Duchesse de Bouillon, Lauzun, St. Evremond, cheery littleGodeau, Bishop of Vence, and half a dozen other famous wits had beenpresent, a supper bristling with royal personages. Death had come withappalling suddenness while the lamps of the festival were burning, and thecards were still upon the tables, and the last carriage had but just rolledunder the _porte cochère_. 

"It is the manner of death she would have chosen, " wrote Hyacinth. "Shenever missed confession on the first Sunday of the month; and she was sogenerous to the Church and to the poor that her director declared she wouldhave been too saintly for earth, but for the human weakness of liking finecompany. And now, dearest, I have to tell you how she has disposed of herfortune; and I hope, if you should think she has not used you generously, you will do me the justice to believe that I have neither courted her forher wealth nor influenced her to my dear sister's disadvantage. You willconsider, _très chère_, that I was with her from my eighth year until theother day when Fareham brought me to England. She loved me passionately inmy childhood, and has often told me since that she never felt towards meas a grandmother, but as if she had been actually my mother, being indeedstill a young woman when she adopted me, and by strangers always mistakenfor my mother. She was handsome to the last, and young in mind and inhabits long after youth had left her. I was said to be the image of whatshe was when she rivalled Madame de Hautefort in the affections of the lateKing. You must consider, sweetheart, that he was the most moral of men, and that with him love meant a passion as free from sensual taint as thepreferences of a sylph. I think my good grandmother loved me all the betterfor this fancied resemblance. She would arrange her jewels about my hairand bosom, as she had worn them when Buckingham came wooing for his master;and then she would bid her page hold a mirror before me and tell me to lookat the face of which Queen Anne had been jealous, and for which Cinq Marshad run mad. And then she would shed a tear or two over the years and thecharms that were gone, till I brought the cards and cheered her spiritswith her favourite game of primero. 

"She had her fits of temper and little tantrums sometimes, Ange, and itneeded some patience to restrain one's tongue from insolence; but I amhappy to remember that I ever bore her in profound respect, and that Inever made her seriously angry but once--which was when I, being thenalmost a child, went out into the streets of Paris with Henri de Malfortand a wild party, masked, to hear Beaufort address the populace in themarket-place, and when I was so unlucky as to lose the emerald crossgiven her by the great Cardinal, for whom, I believe, she had a sneakingkindness. Why else should she have so hated his Eminence's very muchfavoured niece, Madame de Combalet?

"But to return to that which concerns my dear sister. Regarding me as herown daughter, the Marquise has lavished her bounties upon me almost to theexclusion of my own sweet Angela. In a word, dearest, she leaves youa modest income of four hundred louis--or about three hundred poundssterling--the rental of two farms in Normandy; and all the rest of herfortune she bequeaths to me, and Papillon after me, including her housein the Marais--sadly out of fashion now that everybody of consequence ismoving to the Place Royale--and her château near Dieppe; besides all herjewels, many of which I have had in my possession ever since my marriage. My sweet sister shall take her choice of a carcanet among thoseold-fashioned trinkets. And now, dearest, if you are left with a pittancethat will but serve to pay for your gloves and fans at the Middle Exchange, and perhaps to buy you an Indian night-gown in the course of the year--foryour Court petticoats and mantuas will cost three times as much--you havebut to remember that my purse is to be yours, and my home yours, and thatFareham and I do but wait to welcome you either to Fareham House, in theStrand, or to Chiltern Abbey, near Oxford. The Grange near Fareham I neverintend to re-enter if I can help it. The place is a warren of rats, whichthe servants take for ghosts. If you love water you will love our houses, for the river runs near them both; indeed, when in London, we almost thinkourselves in Venice, save that we have a spacious garden, which I am toldfew of the Venetians can command, their city being built upon an assemblageof minuscule islets, linked together by innumerable bridges. "

Angela smiled as she looked down at her black gown--the week-day uniform ofthe convent school, exchanged for a somewhat superior grey stuff on Sundaysand holidays--smiled at the notion of spending the rent of two farms uponher toilet. And how much more ridiculous seemed the assertion that toappear at King Charles's Court she must spend thrice as much! Yet she couldbut remember that Hyacinth had described trains and petticoats so loadedwith jewelled embroidery that it was a penance to wear them--lace worthhundreds of pounds--plumed hats that cost as much as a year's maintenancein the convent. 

Mother Anastasia expressed considerable displeasure at Madame de Montrond'sdisposal of her wealth. 

"This is what it is to live in a Court, and to care only for earthlythings!" she said. "All sense of justice is lost in that world of vanityand self-love. You are as near akin to the Marquise as your sister; andyet, because she was familiar with the one and not with the other--andbecause her vain, foolish soul took pleasure in a beauty that recalled herown perishable charms, she leaves one sister a great fortune and the othera pittance!"

"Dear aunt, I am more than content----"

"But I am not content for you, Angela. Had the estate been divided equallyyou might have taken the veil, and succeeded to my place in this belovedhouse, which needs the accession of wealth to maintain it in usefulness anddignity. "

Angela would not wound her aunt's feelings by one word of disparagement ofthe house in which she had been reared; but, looking along the dim avenueof the future, she yearned for some wider horizon than the sky, barred withtall poplars which rose high above the garden wall that formed the limit ofher daily walks. Her rambles, her recreations, had all been confined withinthat space of seven or eight acres, and she thought sometimes with a suddenlonging of those hills and valleys of fertile Buckinghamshire, which lay sofar back in the dawn of her mind, and were yet so distinctly pictured inher memory. 

And London--that wonderful city of which her sister wrote in such glowingwords! the long range of palaces beside the swift-flowing river, wider thanthe Seine where it reflects the gloomy bulk of the Louvre and the Temple!Were it only once in her life, she would like to see London--the King, thetwo Queens, Whitehall, and Somerset House. She would like to see all thesplendour of Court and city; and then to taste the placid retirement of thehouse in the valley, and to be her father's housekeeper and companion. 

Another letter from Hyacinth announced the death of Mazarin. 

"The Cardinal is no more. He died in the day of success, having got thebetter of all his enemies. A violent access of gout was followed by anaffection of the chest which proved fatal. His sick-room was crowded withcourtiers and sycophants, and he was selling sinecures up to the day of hisdeath. Fareham says his death-bed was like a money-changer's counter. Hewas passionately fond of hocca, the Italian game which he brought intofashion, and which ruined half the young men about the Court. Thecounterpane was scattered with money and playing cards, which were onlybrushed aside to make room for the last Sacraments. My Lord Clarendondeclares that his spirits never recovered from the shock of his Majesty'srestoration, which falsified all his calculations. He might have made hisfavourite niece Queen of England; but his Italian caution restrained him, and the beautiful Hortense has to put up with a new-made duke--a titlebought with her uncle's money--to whom the Cardinal affianced her on hisdeath-bed. He was a remarkable man, and so profound a dissembler that hispretended opposition to King Louis' marriage with his niece Olympe Manciniwould have deceived the shrewdest observer, had we not all known that heardently desired the union, and that it was only his fear of Queen Anne'sanger which prevented it. Her Spanish pride was in arms at the notion, andshe would not have stopped short at revolution to prevent or to revengesuch an alliance. 

"This was perhaps the only occasion upon which she ever seriously opposedMazarin. With him expires all her political power. She is now as much acypher as in the time of the late King, when France had only one master, the great Cardinal. He who is just dead, Fareham says, was but a littleRichelieu; and he recalls how when the great Cardinal died people scarcedared tell one another of his death, so profound was the awe in which hewas held. He left the King a nullity, and the Queen all powerful. She wasyoung and beautiful then, you see; her husband was marked for death, her son was an infant. All France was hers--a kingdom of courtiers andflatterers. And now she is old and ailing; and Mazarin being gone, theyoung King will submit to no minister who claims to be anything betterthan a clerk or a secretary. Colbert he must tolerate--for Colbert meansprosperity--but Colbert will have to obey. My friend, the Duchesse deLongueville, who is now living in strict retirement, writes me the mostexquisite letters; and from her I hear all that happens in that countrywhich I sometimes fancy is more my own than the duller climate where my lotis now cast. Fifteen years at the French Court have made me in heart andmind almost a Frenchwoman; nor can I fail to be influenced by my maternalancestry. I find it difficult sometimes to remember my English, whenconversing with the clod-hoppers of Oxfordshire, who have no French, yetinsist, for finery's sake, upon larding their rustic English with Frenchwords. 

"All that is most agreeable in our court is imitated from the Palais Royaland the Louvre. 

"'Whitehall is but the shadow of a shadow, ' says Fareham, in one of hisphilosophy fits, preaching upon the changes he has seen in Paris andLondon. And, indeed, it is strange to have lived through two revolutions, one so awful in its final catastrophe that it dwarfs the other, yet bothterrible; for I, who was a witness of the sufferings of Princes andPrincesses during the two wars of the Fronde, am not inclined to thinklightly of a civil war which cost France some of the flower of hernobility, and made her greatest hero a prisoner and an exile for sevenyears of his life. 

"But oh, my dear, it was a romantic time! and I look back and am proud tohave lived in it. I was but twelve years old at the siege of Paris; butI was in Madame de Longueville's room, at the Hôtel de Ville, while thefighting was going on, and the officers, in their steel cuirasses, comingin from the thick of the strife. Such a confusion of fine ladies and armedmen--breast-plates and blue scarves--fiddles squeaking in the salon, trumpets sounding in the square below!"

 * * * * *

In a letter of later date Lady Fareham expatiated upon the folly of hersister's spiritual guides. 

"I am desolated, _ma mie_, by the absurd restriction which forbids you toprofit by my New Year's gift. I thought, when I sent you all the volumes ofla Scudèry's enchanting romance, I had laid up for you a year of enjoyment, and that, touched by the baguette of that exquisite fancy, your conventwalls would fall, like those of Jericho at the sound of Jewish trumpets, and you would be transported in imagination to the finest society in theworld--the company of Cyrus and Mandane--under which Oriental disguise youare shown every feature of mind and person in Condé and his heroic sister, my esteemed friend, the Duchesse de Longueville. As I was one of the firstto appreciate Mademoiselle Scudèry's genius, and to detect behind thename of the brother the tender sentiments and delicate refinement of thesister's chaster pen, so I believe I was the first to call the Duchesse'Mandane, ' a sobriquet which soon became general among her intimates. 

"You are not to read 'Le Grand Cyrus, " your aunt tells you, because it isa romance! That is to say, you are forbidden to peruse the most faithfulhistory of your own time, and to familiarise yourself with the persons andminds of great people whom you may never be so fortunate as to meet in theflesh. I myself, dearest Ange, have had the felicity to live amongthese princely persons, to revel in the conversations of the Hôtel deRambouillet--not, perhaps, as our grandmother would have told you, in itsmost glorious period--but at least while it was still the focus of all thatis choicest in letters and in art. Did we not hear M. Poquelin read hisfirst comedy before it was represented by Monsieur's company in thebeautiful theatre at the Palais Royal, built by Richelieu, when it was thePalais Cardinal? Not read 'Le Grand Cyrus, ' and on the score of morality!Why, this most delightful book was written by one of the most moral womenin Paris--one of the chastest--against whose reputation no word of slanderhas ever been breathed! It must, indeed, be confessed that Sapho is of anugliness which would protect her even were she not guarded by the aegis ofgenius. She is one of those fortunate unfortunates who can walk through thefurnace of a Court unscathed, and leave a reputation for modesty in an agethat scarce credits virtue in woman. 

"I fear, dear child, that these narrow-minded restrictions of your conventwill leave you of a surpassing ignorance, which may cover you withconfusion when you find yourself in fine company. There are accomplishmentswithout which youth is no more admired than age and grey hairs; and tosparkle with wit or astonish with learning is a necessity for a womanof quality. It is only by the advantages of education that we can showourselves superior to such a hussy as Albemarle's gutter-bred duchess, whowas the faithless wife of a sailor or barber--I forget which--and who hangslike a millstone upon the General's neck now that he has climbed to thezenith. To have perfect Italian and some Spanish is as needful as tohave fine eyes and complexion nowadays. And to dance admirably is a giftindispensable to a lady. Alas! I fear that those little feet of yours--Ihope they _are_ small--have never been taught to move in a coranto or acontre-danse, and that you will have to learn the alphabet of dancing at anage when most women are finished performers. The great Condé, while winningsieges and battles that surpassed the feats of Greeks and Romans, contrivedto make himself the finest dancer of his day, and won more admirationin high-bred circles by his graceful movements, which every one couldunderstand and admire, than by prodigies of valour at Dunkirk orNordlingen. "

The above was one of Lady Fareham's most serious letters. Her pen wasexercised, for the most part, in a lighter vein. She wrote of the Courtbeauties, the Court jests--practical jokes some of them, which our finerminds of to-day would consider in execrable taste--such jests as we readof in Grammont's memoirs, which generally aimed at making an ugly womanridiculous, or an injured husband the sport and victim of wicked lover andheartless wife. No sense of the fitness of things constrained her ladyshipfrom communicating these Court scandals to her guileless sister. Did theynot comprise the only news worth anybody's attention, and relate to theonly class of people who had any tangible existence for Lady Fareham? Therewere millions of human beings, no doubt, living and acting and suffering onthe surface of the earth, outside the stellary circles of which Louis andCharles were the suns; but there was no interstellar medium of sympathy toconvey the idea of those exterior populations to Hyacinth's mind. She knewof the populace, French or English, as of something which was occasionallygiven to become dangerous and revolutionary, which sometimes starved andsometimes died of the plague, and was always unpleasing to the educatedeye. 

Masquerades, plays, races at Newmarket, dances, duels, losses atcards--Lady Fareham touched every subject, and expatiated on all; but shehad usually more to tell of the country she had left than of that in whichshe was living. 

"Here everything is on such a small scale, _si mesquin!_" she wrote. "Whitehall covers a large area, but it is only a fine banqueting hall anda labyrinth of lodgings, without suite or stateliness. The pictures in thelate King's cabinet are said to be the finest in the world, but they area kind of pieces for which I care very little--Flemish and Dutchchiefly--with a series of cartoons by Raphael, which connoisseurs affect toadmire, but which, did they belong to me, I would gladly exchange for a setof Mortlake tapestries. 

"His Majesty here builds ships, while the King of France builds palaces. I am told Louis is spending millions on the new palace at Versailles, an ungrateful site--no water, no noble prospect as at St. Germain, nopopulation. The King likes the spot all the better, Madame tells me, because he has to create his own landscape, to conjure lakes and cataractsout of dry ground. The buildings have been but two years in progress, andit must be long before these colossal foundations are crowned with theedifice which Louis and his architect, Mansart, have planned. Colbert isfurious at this squandering of vast sums on a provincial palace, while theLouvre, the birthplace and home of dynasties, remains unfinished. 

"The King's reason for disliking St. Germain--a château his mother hasalways loved--has in it something childish and fantastic, if, as my dearduchess declares, he hates the place only because he can see the towers ofSt. Denis from the terrace, and is thus hourly reminded of death and thegrave. I can hardly believe that a being of such superior intelligencecould be governed by any such horror of man's inevitable end. I would farsooner attribute the vast expenditure of Versailles to the common love ofmonarchs and great men for building houses too large for their necessities. Indeed, it was but yesterday that Fareham took me to see the palace--for Ican call it by no meaner name--that Lord Clarendon is building for himselfin the open country at the top of St. James's Street. It promises to bethe finest house in town, and, although not covering so much ground asWhitehall, is judged far superior to that inchoate mass in its fineproportions and the perfect symmetry of its saloons and galleries. There isa garden a-making, projected by Mr. Evelyn, a great authority on trees andgardens. A crowd of fine company had assembled to see the newly finishedhall and dining parlour, among them a fussy person, who came in attendanceupon my Lord Sandwich, and who was more voluble than became his quality asa clerk in the Navy Office. He was periwigged and dressed as fine as hismaster, and, on my being civil to him, talked much of himself and of diverstaverns in the city where the dinners were either vastly good or vastlyill. I told him that as I never dined at a tavern the subject wasaltogether beyond the scope of my intelligence, at which Sandwich andFareham laughed, and my pertinacious gentleman blushed as red as the heelsof his shoes. I am told the creature has a pretty taste in music, and isthe son of a tailor, but professes a genteel ancestry, and occasionallypushes into the best company. 

"Shall I describe to you one of my latest conquests, sweetheart? 'Tisa boy--an actual beardless boy of eighteen summers; but such a boy! Sobeautiful, so insolent, with an impudence that can confront Lord Clarendonhimself, the gravest of noblemen, who, with the sole exception of my LordSouthampton, is the one man who has never crossed Mrs. Palmer's threshold, or bowed his neck under that splendid fury's yoke. My admirer thinks nomore of smoking these grave nobles, men of a former generation, who learnttheir manners at the court of a serious and august King, than I do ofteasing my falcon. He laughs at them, jokes with them in Greek or in Latin, has a ready answer and a witty quip for every turn of the discourse; willeven interrupt his Majesty in one of those anecdotes of his Scottishmartyrdom which he tells so well and tells so often. Lucifer himself couldnot be more arrogant or more audacious than this bewitching boy-loverof mine, who writes verses in English or Latin as easy as I can toss ashuttlecock. I doubt the greater number of his verses are scarce properreading for you or me, Angela; for I see the men gather round him incorners as he murmurs his latest madrigal to a chosen half-dozen or so;and I guess by their subdued tittering that the lines are not over modest;while by the sidelong glances the listeners cast round, now at my LadyCastlemaine, and anon at some other goddess in the royal pantheon, I have ashrewd notion as to what alabaster breast my witty lover's shafts are aimedat. 

"This youthful devotee of mine is the son of a certain Lord Wilmot, whofought on the late King's side in the troubles. This creature went to theuniversity of Oxford at twelve years old--as it were, straight from hisgo-cart to college, and was master of arts at fourteen. He has made thegrand tour, and pretends to have seen so much of this life that he hasfound out the worthlessness of it. Even while he woes me with a mostromantic ardour, he affects to have outgrown the capacity to love. 

"Think not, dearest, that I outstep the bounds of matronly modesty by thisairy philandering with my young Lord Rochester, or that my serious Farehamis ever offended at our pretty trifling. He laughs at the lad as heartilyas I do, invites him to our table, and is amused by his monkeyish tricks. A woman of quality must have followers; and a pert, fantastical boy is thesafest of lovers. Slander itself could scarce accuse Lady Fareham, who hashad soldier-princes and statesmen at her feet, of an unworthy tendernessfor a jackanapes of seventeen; for, indeed, I believe his eighteenthbirthday is still in the womb of time. I would with all my heart thou werthere to share our innocent diversions; and I know not which of all myplaythings thou wouldst esteem highest, the falcon, my darling spaniels, made up of soft silken curls and intelligent brown eyes, or Rochester. Nay, let me not forget the children, Papillon and Cupid, who are truly verypretty creatures, though consummate plagues. The girl, Papillon, has atongue which Wilmot says is the nearest approach to perpetual motion thathe has yet discovered; and the boy, who was but seven last birthday, isfull of mischief, in which my admirer counsels and abets him. 

"Oh, this London, sweetheart, and this Court! How wide those violet eyeswould open couldst thou but look suddenly in upon us after supper atBasset, or in the park, or at the play-house, when the orange girls aresmoking the pretty fellows in the pit, and my Lady Castlemaine is leaninghalf out of her box to talk to the King in his! I thought I had seen enoughof festivals and dances, stage-plays and courtly diversions beyond sea; butthe Court entertainments at Paris or St. Germain differed as much from thefestivities of Whitehall as a cathedral service from a dance in a booth atBartholomew Fair. His Majesty of France never forgets that he is a king. His Majesty of England only remembers his kingship when he wants anew subsidy, or to get a Bill hurried through the Houses. Louis atfour-and-twenty was serious enough for fifty. Charles at thirty-four hasthe careless humour of a schoolboy. He is royal in nothing except hisextravagance, which has squandered more millions than I dare mention sincehe landed at Dover. 

"I am growing almost as sober as my solemn spouse, who will ever be railingat the King and the Duke, and even more bitterly at the favourite, hisGrace of Buckingham, who is assuredly one of the most agreeable men inLondon. I asked Fareham only yesterday why he went to Court, if hisMajesty's company is thus distasteful to him. 'It is not to his company Iobject, but to his principles, ' he answered, in that earnest fashion of hiswhich takes the lightest questions _au grand serieux_. 'I see in him a manwho, with natural parts far above the average, makes himself the jest ofmeaner intellects, and the dupe of greedy courtesans; a man who, trainedin the stern school of adversity, overshadowed by the great horror of hisfather's tragical doom, accepts life as one long jest, and being, by aconcatenation of circumstances bordering on the miraculous, restored to theprivileges of hereditary monarchy, takes all possible pains to provethe uselessness of kings. I see a man who, borne back to power by theirresistible current of the people's affections, has broken every pledge hegave that people in the flush and triumph of his return. I see one who, in his own person, cares neither for Paul nor Peter, and yet can tamelywitness the persecution of his people because they do not conform to aState religion--can allow good and pious men to be driven out of thepulpits where they have preached the Gospel of Christ, and suffer wives andchildren to starve because the head of the household has a conscience. Isee a king careless of the welfare of his people, and the honour and gloryof his reign; affecting to be a patriot, and a man of business, on thestrength of an extravagant fancy for shipbuilding; careless of everythingsave the empty pleasure of an idle hour. A king who lavishes thousands uponwantons and profligates, and who ever gives not to the most worthy, but tothe most importunate. '

"I laughed at this tirade, and told him, what indeed I believe, that he isat heart a Puritan, and would better consort with Baxter and Bunyan, andthat frousy crew, than with Buckhurst and Sedley, or his brilliant kinsman, Roscommon. "

From her father directly, Angela heard nothing, and her sister's allusionsto him were of the briefest, anxiously as she had questioned that livelyletter-writer. Yes, her father was well, Hyacinth told her; but he stayedmostly at the Manor Moat. He did not care for the Court gaieties. 

"I believe he thinks we have all parted company with our wits, " she wrote. "He seldom sees me but to lecture me, in a sidelong way, upon my folly; forhis railing at the company I keep hits me by implication. I believethese old courtiers of the late King are Puritans at heart; and that ifArchbishop Laud were alive he would be as bitter against the sins of thetown as any of the cushion-thumping Anabaptists that preach to the elect inback rooms and blind alleys. My father talks and thinks as if he had spentall his years of exile in the cave of the Seven Sleepers. And yet he foughtshoulder to shoulder with some of the finest gentlemen in France--Condé, Turenne, Gramont, St. Evremond, Bussy, and the rest of them. But all theworld is young, and full of wit and mirth, since his Majesty came to hisown; and elderly limbs are too stiff to trip in our new dances. I doubt myfather's mind is as old-fashioned, and of as rigid a shape as his Courtsuit, at sight of which my best friends can scarce refrain from laughing. "

This light mention of a parent whom she reverenced wounded Angela to thequick; and that wound was deepened a year later, when she was surprised bya visit from her father, of which no letter had forewarned her. She waswalking in the convent garden, in her hour of recreation, tasting the sunnyair, and the beauty of the many-coloured tulips in the long narrow borders, between two espalier rows trained with an exquisite neatness, and reputedto bear the finest golden pippins and Bergamot pears within fifty miles ofthe city. The trees were in blossom, and a wall of pink and white bloomrose up on either hand above the scarlet and amber tulips. 

Turning at the end of the long alley, where it met a wall that in Augustwas flushed with the crimson velvet of peaches and nectarines, Angela saw aman advancing from the further end of the walk, attended by a lay sister. The high-crowned hat and pointed beard, the tall figure in a grey doubletcrossed with a black sword-belt, the walk, the bearing, were unmistakable. It might have been a figure that had stepped out of Vandyke's canvas. Ithad nothing of the fuss and flutter, the feathers and ruffles, the looseflow of brocade and velvet, that marked the costume of the young FrenchCourt. 

Angela ran to receive her father, and could scarce speak to him, she was sostartled, and yet so glad. 

"Oh, sir, when I prayed for you at Mass this morning, how little I hopedfor so much happiness! I had a letter from Hyacinth only a week ago, andshe wrote nothing of your intentions. I knew not that you had crossed thesea. "

"Why, sweetheart, Hyacinth sees me too rarely, and is too full of her ownaffairs, ever to be beforehand with my intentions; and, although I havebeen long heartily sick of England, I only made up my mind to come toFlanders less than a week ago. No sooner thought of than done. I came byour old road, in a merchant craft from Harwich to Ostend, and the rest ofthe way in the saddle. Not quite so fast as they used to ride that carriedhis Majesty's post from London to York, in the beginning of the troubles, when the loyal gentlemen along the north road would galop faster withdespatches and treaties than ever they rode after a stag. Ah, child, howhopeful we were in those days; and how we all told each other it was but apassing storm at Westminster, which could all be lulled by a little civilconcession here and there on the King's part! And so it might, perhaps, ifhe would but have conceded the right thing at the right time--yieldedbut just the inch they asked for when they first asked--instead ofshilly-shallying till they got angry, and wanted ells instead of inches. 'Tis the stitch in time, Angela, that saves trouble, in politics as well asin thy petticoat. "

He had flung his arm round his daughter's neck as they paced slowly side byside. 

"Have you come to stay at Louvain, sir?" she asked, timidly. 

"Nay, love, the place is too quiet for me. I could not stay in a townthat is given over to learning and piety. The sound of their everlastingcarillon would tease my ear with the thought, 'Lo, another quarter of anhour gone of my poor remnant of days, and nothing to do but to doze in thesunshine or fondle my spaniel, fill my pipe, or ride a lazy horse on alevel road, such as I have ever hated. '"

"But why did you tire of England, sir? I thought the King would have wantedyou always near him. You, his father's close friend, who suffered so muchfor Royal friendship. Surely he loves and cherishes you! He must be a base, ungrateful man if he do not. "

"Oh, the King is grateful, Angela, grateful enough and to spare. He neversees me at Court but he has some gracious speech about his father's regardfor me. It grows irksome at last, by sheer repetition. The turn of thesentence varies, for his Majesty has a fine standing army of words, but thegist of the phrase is always the same, and it means, 'Here is a tiresomeold Put to whom I must say something civil for the sake of his ancientvicissitudes. ' And then his phalanx of foppery stares at me as if I were aTopinambou; and since I have seen them mimic Ned Hyde's stately speech andmanners, I doubt not before I have crossed the ante-room I have served tomake sport for the crew, since their wit has but two phases--ordure andmimickry. Look not so glum, daughter. I am glad to be out of a Court whichis most like--such places as I dare not name to thee. "

"But to have you disrespected, sir; you, so brave, so noble! You who gavethe best years of your life to your royal master!"

"What I gave I gave, child. I gave him youth--that never comes back--andfortune, that is not worth grieving for. And now that I have begun to losethe reckoning of my years since fifty, I feel I had best take myself backto that roving life in which I have no time to brood upon losses andsorrows. "

"Dear father, I am sure you must mistake the King's feelings towards you. It is not possible that he can think lightly of such devotion as yours. "

"Nay, sweetheart, who said he thinks lightly? He never thinks of me at all, or of anything serious under God's sky. So long as he has spending money, and can live in a circle of bright eyes, and hear only flippant tonguesthat offer him a curious incense of flattery spiced with impertinence, Charles Stuart has all of this life that he values. And for the next--aman who is shrewdly suspected of being a papist, while he is attached bygravest vows to the Church of England, must needs hold heaven's rewards andhell's torments lightly. "

"But Queen Catherine, sir--does not she favour you? My aunt says she is agood woman. "

"Yes, a good woman, and the nearest approach to a cypher to be found atHampton Court or Whitehall. Young Lord Rochester has written a poem upon'Nothing. ' He might have taken Queen Catherine's name as a synonym. She isnothing; she counts for nothing. Her love can benefit nobody; her hatred, were the poor soul capable of hating persistently, can do no one harm. "

"And the King--is he so unkind to her?"

"Unkind! No. He allows her to live. Nay, when for a few days--the brieffelicity of her poor life--she seemed on the point of dying, he wasstricken with remorse for all that he had not been to her, and was kind, and begged her to live for his sake. The polite gentleman meant it fora compliment--one of those pious falsehoods that men murmur in dyingears--but she took him at his word and recovered; and she is there still, a little dark lady in a fine gown, of whom nobody takes any notice, beyondthe emptiest formality of bent knees and backward steps. There are longevenings at Hampton Court in which she is scarce spoken to, save when shefawns upon the fortunate lady whom she began by hating. Oh, child, I shouldnot talk to you of these things; but some of the disgust that has mademy life bitter bubbles over in spite of me. I am a wanderer and an exileagain, dear heart. I would sooner trail a pike abroad than suffer neglectat home. I will fight under any flag so long as it flies not for mycountry's foe. I am going back to my old friends at the Louvre, to thosefew who are old enough to care for me; and if there come a war with Spain, why my sword may be of some small use to young Louis, whose mother wasalways gracious to me in the old days at St. Germain, when she knew notin the morning whether she would go safe to bed at night. A golden age ofpeace has followed that wild time; but the Spanish king's death is like tolight the torch and set the war-dogs barking. Louis will thrust his swordthrough the treaty of the Pyrenees if he see the way to a throne t'otherside of the mountains. "

"But could a good man violate a treaty?"

"Ambition knows no laws, sweet, nor ever has since Hannibal. "

"Then King Louis is no better a man than King Charles?"

"I cannot answer for that, Angela; but I'll warrant him a better king fromthe kingly point of view. Scarce had death freed him from the Cardinal'sleading-strings than he snatched the reins of power, showed his ministersthat he meant to drive the coach. He has a head as fit for business as ifhe had been the son of a woollen-draper. Mazarin took pains to keep himignorant of everything that a king ought to know; but that shrewd judgmentof his taught him that he must know as much as his servants, unless hewanted them to be his masters. He has the pride of Lucifer, with a strengthof will and power of application as great as Richelieu's. You will live tosee that no second Richelieu, no new Mazarin, will arise in his reign. Hisministers will serve him, and go down before him, like Nicolas Fouquet, towhom he has been implacable. "

"Poor gentleman! My aunt told me that when his judges sentenced him tobanishment from France, the King changed the sentence to imprisonment forlife. "

"I doubt if the King ever forgave those fêtes at Vaux, which were designedto dazzle Mademoiselle la Vallière, whom this man had the presumption tolove. One may pity so terrible a fall, yet it is but the ruin of a boldsensualist, who played with millions as other men play with tennis balls, and who would have drained the exchequer by his briberies and extravagancesif he had not been brought to a dead stop. The world has been growingwickeder, dearest, while this fair head has risen from my knee to myshoulder; but what have you to do with its wickedness? Here you are happyand at peace----"

"Not happy, father, if you are to hazard your life in battles and sieges. Oh, sir, that life is too dear to us, your children, to be risked solightly. You have done your share of soldiering. Everybody that everheard your name in England or in France knows it is the name of a bravecaptain--a leader of men. For our sakes, take your rest now, dear sir. Ishould not sleep in peace if I knew you were with Condé's army. I shoulddream of you wounded and dying. I cannot bear to think of leaving my auntnow that she is old and feeble; but my first duty is to you, and if youwant me I will go with you wherever you may please to make your home. I amnot afraid of strange countries. "

"Spoken like my sweet daughter, whose baby arms clasped my neck in the dayof despair. But you must stay with the reverend mother, sweetheart. Thesebones of mine must be something stiffer before they will consent to restin the chimney corner, or sit in the shade of a yew hedge while other menthrow the bowls. When I have knocked about the world a few years longer, and when Mother Anastasia is at rest, thou shalt come to me at the Manor, and I will find thee a noble husband, and will end my days with my childrenand grandchildren. The world has so changed since the forties, that I shallthink I have lived centuries instead of decades, when the farewell hourstrikes. In the mean time I am pleased that you should be here. The Courtis no place for a pure maiden, though some sweet saints there be who canwalk unsmirched in the midst of corruption. "

"And Hyacinth? She can walk scatheless through that Court furnace. Shewrites of Whitehall as if it were Paradise. "

"Hyacinth has a husband to take care of her; a man with a brave headpieceof his own, who lets her spark it with the fairest company in the town, but would make short work of any fop who dared attempt the insolence of asuitor. Hyacinth has seen the worst and the best of two Courts, and has anexperience of the Palais Royal and St. Germain which should keep her safeat Whitehall. "

Sir John and his daughter spent half a day together in the garden and theparlour, where the traveller was entertained with a collation and a bottleof excellent Beaujolais before his horse was brought to the door. Angelasaw him mount, and ride slowly away in the melancholy afternoon light, andshe felt as if he were riding out of her life for ever. She went back toher aunt's room with an aching heart. Had not that kind lady, her mother inall the essentials of maternal love, been so near the end of her days, andso dependent on her niece's affection, the girl would have clung about herfather's neck, and implored him to go no more a-soldiering, and to makehimself a home with her in England. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 

The reverend mother lingered till the beginning of summer, and it was ona lovely June evening, while the nightingales were singing in the conventgarden, that the holy life slipped away into the Great Unknown. She died asa child falls asleep, the saintly grey head lying peacefully on Angela'ssupporting arm, the last look of the dying eyes resting on that tendernurse with infinite love. 

She was gone, and Angela felt strangely alone. Her contemporaries, thechosen friend who had been to her almost as a sister, the girls by whoseside she had sat in class, had all left the convent. At twenty-one years ofage, she seemed to belong to a former generation; most of the pupils hadfinished their education at seventeen or eighteen, and had returned totheir homes in Flanders, France, or England. There had been several Englishpupils, for Louvain and Douai had for a century been the seminaries forEnglish Romanists. 

The pupils of to-day were Angela's juniors, with whom she had nothing incommon, except to teach English to a class of small Flemings, who werealmost unteachable. 

She had heard no more from her father, and knew not where or with whom hemight have cast in his lot. She wrote to him under cover to her sister;but of late Hyacinth's letters had been rare and brief, only long enough, indeed, to apologise for their brevity. Lady Fareham had been in London orat Hampton Court from the beginning of the previous winter. There was talkof the plague having come to London from Amsterdam, that the Privy Councilwas sitting at Sion House, instead of in London, that the judges hadremoved to Windsor, and that the Court might speedily remove to Salisburyor Oxford. "And if the Court goes to Oxford, we shall go to Chilton, " wroteHyacinth; and that was the last of her communications. 

July passed without news from father or sister; and Angela grew daily moreuneasy about both. The great horror of the plague was in the air. It hadbeen raging in Amsterdam in the previous summer and autumn, and a nun hadbrought the disease to Louvain, where she might have died in the conventinfirmary but for Angela's devoted attention. She had assisted theover-worked infirmarian at a time of unusual sickness--for there was a gooddeal of illness among the nuns and pupils that summer--mostly engendered ofthe fear lest the pestilence in Holland should reach Flanders. Doctor andinfirmarian had alike praised the girl's quiet courage, and her instinctfor doing the right thing. 

Remembering all the nun had told of the horrors of Amsterdam, Angelaawaited with fear and trembling for news from London; and as the summerwore on, every news-letter that reached the Ursulines brought tidings ofincreasing sickness in the great prosperous city, which was being graduallydeserted by all who could afford to travel. The Court had moved first toHampton Court, in June, and later to Salisbury, where again the FrenchAmbassador's people reported strange horrors--corpses found lying in thestreet hard by their lodgings--the King's servants sickening. The air ofthe cathedral city was tainted--though deaths had been few as compared withLondon, which was becoming one vast lazar-house--and it was thought theCourt and Ambassadors would remove themselves to Oxford, where Parliamentwas to assemble in the autumn, instead of at Westminster. 

Most alarming of all was the news that the Queen-mother had fled withall her people, and most of her treasures, from her palace at SomersetHouse--for Henrietta Maria was not a woman to fly before a phantom fear. She had seen too much of the stern realities of life to be scared byshadows; and she had neither establishment nor power in France equal tothose she left in England. In Paris the daughter of the great Henry was adependent. In London she was second only to the King; and her Court wasmore esteemed than Whitehall. 

"If she has fled, there must be reason for it, " said the newly electedSuperior, who boasted of correspondents at Paris, notably a cousin in thatfamous convent, the Visitandines de Chaillot, founded by Queen Henrietta, and which had ever been a centre of political and religious intrigue, themost fashionable, patrician, exalted, and altogether worldly establishment. 

Alarmed at this dismal news, Angela wrote urgently to her sister, but withno effect; and the passage of every day, with occasional rumours of anincreasing death-rate in London, strengthened her fears, until terrornerved her to a desperate resolve. She would go to London to see hersister; to nurse her if she were sick; to mourn for her if she were dead. 

The Superior did all she could to oppose this decision, and even assertedauthority over the pupil who, since her eighteenth year had been releasedfrom discipline, subject but to the lightest laws of the convent. As thegreat-niece and beloved child of the late Superior she had enjoyed allpossible privileges; while the liberal sum annually remitted for hermaintenance gave her a certain importance in the house. 

And now on being told she must not go, her spirit rose against theSuperior's authority. 

"I recognise no earthly power that can keep me from those I love in theirtime of peril!" she said. 

"You do not know that they are in sickness or danger. My last letters fromParis stated that it was only the low people whom the contagion in Londonwas attacking. "

"If it was only the low people, why did the Queen-mother leave? If it wassafe for my sister to be in London it would have been safe for the Queen. "

"Lady Fareham is doubtless in Oxfordshire. "

"I have written to Chilton Abbey as well as to Fareham House, and I can getno answer. Indeed, reverend mother, it is time for me to go to those towhom I belong. I never meant to stay in this house after my aunt's death. Ihave only been waiting my father's orders. If all be well with my sisterI shall go to the Manor Moat, and wait his commands quietly there. I amhome-sick for England. "

"You have chosen an ill time for home-sickness, when a pestilence israging. "

Argument could not touch the girl, whose mind was braced for battle. Thereverend mother ceded with as good a grace as she could assume, on the topof a very arbitrary temper. An English priest was heard of who was about totravel to London on his return to a noble friend and patron in the north ofEngland, in whose house he had lived before the troubles; and in this goodman's charge Angela was permitted to depart, on a long and weary journeyby way of Antwerp and the Scheldt. They were five days at sea, the voyagelengthened by the almost unprecedented calm which had prevailed all thatfatal summer--a weary voyage in a small trading vessel, on board whichAngela had to suffer every hardship that a delicate woman can be subjectedto on board ship: a wretched berth in a floating cellar called a cabin, want of fresh water, of female attendance, and of any food but thecoarsest. These deprivations she bore without a murmur. It was only theslowness of the passage that troubled her. 

The great city came in view at last, the long roof of St. Paul's dominatingthe thickly clustered gables and chimneys, and the vessel dropped anchoropposite the dark walls of the Tower, whose form had been made familiar toAngela by a print in a History of London, which she had hung over many anevening in Mother Anastasia's parlour. A row-boat conveyed her and herfellow-traveller to the Tower stairs, where they landed, the priest beingduly provided with an efficient voucher that they came from a city free ofthe plague. Yes, this was London. Her foot touched her native soil for thefirst time after fifteen years of absence. The good-natured priest wouldnot leave her till he had seen her in charge of an elderly and mostreputable waterman, recommended by the custodian of the stairs. Then hebade her an affectionate adieu, and fared on his way to a house in thecity, where one of his kinsfolk, a devout Catholic, dwelt quietly hiddenfrom the public eye, and where he would rest for the night before settingout on his journey to the north. 

After the impetuous passage through the deep, dark arch of the bridge, theboat moved slowly up the river in the peaceful eventide, and Angela's eyesopened wide with wonder as she looked on the splendours of that silenthighway, this evening verily silent, for the traffic of business andpleasure had stopped in the terror of the pestilence, like a clock that hadrun down. It was said by one who had seen the fairest cities of Europe that"the most glorious sight in the world, take land and water together, was tocome upon a high tide from Gravesend, and shoot the bridge to Westminster;"and to the convent-bred maiden how much more astonishing was that prospect!

The boat passed in front of Lord Arundel's sumptuous mansion, with itsspacious garden, where marble statues showed white in the midst ofquincunxes, and prim hedges of cypress and yew; past the Palace of theSavoy, with its massive towers, battlemented roof, and double line ofmullioned windows fronting the river; past Worcester House, where LordChancellor Hyde had been living in a sober splendour, while his princelymansion was building yonder on the Hounslow Road, or that portion thereoflately known as Piccadilly. That was the ambitious pile of which Hyacinthhad written, a house of clouded memories and briefest tenure; foredoomedto vanish like a palace seen in a dream; a transient magnificence, indescribable; known for a little while opprobriously as Dunkirk House, thesupposed result of the Chancellor's too facile assistance in the surrenderof that last rag of French territory. The boat passed before Rutland Houseand Cecil House, some portion of which had lately been converted into theMiddle Exchange, the haunt of fine ladies and Golconda of gentlewomenmilliners, favourite scene for assignations and intrigues; and so by DurhamHouse, where in the Protector Seymour's time the Royal Mint had beenestablished; a house whose stately rooms were haunted by tragicassociations, shadows of Northumberland's niece and victim, hapless JaneGrey, and of fated Raleigh. Here, too, commerce shouldered aristocracy, andthe New Exchange of King James's time competed with the Middle Exchangeof later date, providing more milliners, perfumers, glovers, barbers, andtoymen, and more opportunity for illicit loves and secret meetings. 

Before Angela's eyes those splendid mansions passed like phantom pictures. The westering sunlight showed golden above the dark Abbey, while she satsilent, with awe-stricken gaze, looking out upon this widespread city thatlay chastened and afflicted under the hand of an angry God. The beautiful, gay, proud, and splendid London of the West, the new London of CoventGarden, St. James's Street, and Piccadilly, whose glories her sister's penhad depicted with such fond enthusiasm, was now deserted by the rabble ofquality who had peopled its palaces, while the old London of the East, thehistoric city, was sitting in sackcloth and ashes, a place of lamentations, a city where men and women rose up in the morning hale and healthy, and atnight-fall were carried away in the dead-cart, to be flung into the pitwhere the dead lay shroudless and unhonoured. 

How still and sweet the summer air seemed in that sunset hour; how placidthe light ripple of the incoming tide; how soothing even the silence of thecity! And yet it all meant death. It was but a few months since the fatalinfection had been brought from Holland in a bundle of merchandise: and, behold, through city and suburbs, the pestilence had crept with slow andstealthy foot, now on this side of a street, now on another. The history ofthe plague was like a game at draughts, where man after man vanishes offthe board, and the game can only end by exhaustion. 

"See, mistress, yonder is Somerset House, " said the boatman, pointing toone of the most commanding façades in that highway of palaces. "That is thepalace which the Queen-mother has raised from the ashes of the ruins herfolly made, for the husband who loved her too well. She came back to usno wiser for years of exile--came back with her priests and her Italiansinging-boys, her incense-bearers and golden candlesticks and gaudy rags ofRome. She fled from England with the roar of cannon in her ears, and thefear of death in her heart. She came back in pride and vain-glory, andboasted that had she known the English people better, she would never havegone away; and she has squandered thousands in yonder palace, upon floorsof coloured woods, and Italian marbles--the people's money, mark you, moneythat should have built ships and fed sailors; and she meant to end her daysamong us. But a worse enemy than Cromwell has driven her out of the housethat she made beautiful for herself; and who knows if she will ever seeLondon again?"

"Then those were right who told me that it was for fear of the plague herMajesty left London?" said Angela. 

"For what else should she flee? She was loth enough to leave, you may besure, for she had seated herself in her pride yonder, and her Court was assplendid, and more looked up to than Queen Catherine's. The Queen-mother isthe prouder woman, and held her head higher than her son's wife has everdared to hold hers; yet there are those who say King Charles's widow hasfallen so low as to marry Lord St. Albans, a son of Belial, who wouldhazard his immortal soul on a cast of the dice, and lose it as freely as hehas squandered his royal mistress's money. She paid for Jermyn's feastingand wine-bibbing in Paris, 'tis said, when her son and his friends were onshort commons. "

"You do wrong to slander that royal lady, " remonstrated Angela. "She is ofall widows the saddest and most desolate--ever the mark of evil fortune. Even in the glorious year of her son's restoration sorrow pursued her, andshe had to mourn a daughter and a son. She is a most unhappy lady. "

"You would scarcely say as much, young madam, had you seen her in her pompand power yonder. And as for Lord St. Albans, if he is not her husband--!Well, thou art a young innocent thing--so I had best hold my peace. Bothpalaces are empty and forsaken, both Whitehall and Somerset House. The ratsand the spiders can take their own pleasure in the rooms that were full ofmusic and dancing, card-playing and feasting, two or three months ago. Why, there was no better sight in London, after the dead-cart, than to watch thetrain of carriages and horsemen, carts and wagons, upon any of the greathigh-roads, carrying the people of London away to the country, as if thewhole city had been moving in one mass like a routed army. "

"But in palaces and noblemen's houses surely there would be littledanger?" said Angela. "Plagues and fevers are the outcome of hunger anduncleanliness, and all such evils as the poor have to suffer. "

"Nay, but the pestilence that walketh in darkness is no respecter ofpersons, " answered the grim boatman. "I grant you that death has dealthardest with the poor who dwell in crowded lanes and alleys. But now thevery air reeks with poison. It may be carried in the folds of a woman'sgown, or among the feathers of a courtier's hat. They are wise to go whocan go. It is only such as I, who have to work for my grandchildren'sbread, that must needs stay. "

"You speak like one who has seen better days, " said Angela. 

"I was a sergeant in Hampden's regiment, madam, and went all through thewar. When the King came back I had friends who stood by me, and bought methis boat. I was used to handle an oar in my boyhood, when I lived ona little bit of a farm that belonged to my father, between Reading andHenley. I was oftener on the water than on the land in those days. Thereare some who have treated me roughly because I fought against the lateKing; but folks are beginning to find out that the Brewer's disbandedred-coats can be honest and serviceable in time of peace. "

After passing the Queen-mother's desolate palace the boat crept along nearthe Middlesex shore, till it stopped at the bottom of a flight of stonesteps, against which the tide washed with a pleasant rippling sound, andabove which there rose the walls of a stately building facing south-west;small as compared with Somerset and Northumberland houses, midway betweenwhich it stood, yet a spacious and noble mansion, with a richly decoratedriver-front, lofty windows with sculptured pediments, floriated cornice, and two side towers topped with leaded cupolas, the whole edifice gilded bythe low sun, and very beautiful to look upon, the windows gleaming as ifthere were a thousand candles burning within, a light that gave a falseidea of life and festivity, since that brilliant illumination was only areflected glory. 

"This, madam, is Fareham House, " said the boatman, holding out his hand forhis fee. 

He charged treble the sum he would have asked half a year ago. In this timeof evil those intrepid spirits who still plied their trades in the taintedcity demanded a heavy fee for their labour; and it would have been hard todispute their claim, since each man knew that he risked his life, and thatthe limbs which toiled to-day might be lifeless clay to-night. There wasan awfulness about the time, a taste and odour of death mixed with all thecommon things of daily life, a morbid dwelling upon thoughts of corruption, a feverish expectancy of the end of all things, which no man can rightlyconceive who has not passed through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. 

Angela paid the man his price without question. She stepped lightly fromthe boat, while he deposited her two small leather-covered trunks on thestone landing-place in front of the Italian terrace which occupied thewhole length of the façade. She went up a flight of marble steps, to a doorfacing the river. Here she rang a bell which pealed long and loud over thequiet water, a bell that must have been heard upon the Surrey shore. Yet noone opened the great oak door; and Angela had a sudden sinking at the heartas the slow minutes passed and brought no sound of footsteps within, noscrooping of a bolt to betoken the opening of the door. 

"Belike the house is deserted, madam, " said the boatman, who had mooredhis wherry to the landing-stage, and had carried the two trunks to thedoorstep. "You had best try if the door be fastened or no. Stay!" he criedsuddenly, pointing upwards, "Go not in, madam, for your life! Look at thered cross on the door, the sign of a plague-stricken house. "

Angela looked up with awe and horror. A great cross was smeared upon thedoor with red paint, and above it some one had scrawled the words, "Lord, have mercy upon us!"

And the sister she loved, and the children whose faces she had never seen, were within that house, sick and in peril of death, perhaps dying--or dead!She did not hesitate for an instant, but took hold of the heavy iron ringwhich served as a handle for the door and tried to open it. 

"I have no fear for myself, " she said to the boatman; "I have nursed thesick and the fever-stricken, and am not afraid of contagion--and there arethose within whom I love. Good night, friend. "

The handle of the door turned somewhat stiffly in her hand, but it didturn, and the door opened, and she stood upon the threshold looking into avast hall that was wrapped in shadow, save for a shaft of golden light thatstreamed from an oval window on the staircase. Other windows there were oneach side of the door, shuttered and barred. 

Seeing her enter the house, the old Cromwellian shrugged his shoulders, shook his head despondently, shoved the two trunks hastily over thethreshold, ran back to his boat, and pushed off. 

"God guard thy young life, mistress!" he cried, and the wherry shot outinto the stream. 

There had been silence on the river, the silence of a deserted cityat eventide; but that had seemed as nothing to the stillness of thismarble-paved hall, where the sunset was reflected on the dark oak panellingin one lurid splash like blood. 

Not a mortal to be seen. Not a sound of voice or footstep. A crowd of godsand goddesses in draperies of azure and crimson, purple and orange, lookeddown from the ceiling. Curtains of tawny velvet hung beside the shutteredwindows. A great brazen candelabrum, filled with half-consumed candles, stood tall and splendid at the foot of a wide oak staircase, thebanister-rail whereof was cushioned with tawny velvet. Splendour of fabric, wood and marble, colour and gilding, showed on every side; but of humanitythere was no sign. 

Angela shuddered at the sight of all that splendour, as if death wereplaying hide and seek in those voluminous curtains, or were lurking in thedeep shadow which the massive staircase cast across the hall. She lookedabout her, full of fear, then seeing a silver bell upon the table, she tookit up and rang it loudly. Upon the same carved ebony table there lay aplumed hat, a cane with an amber handle, and a velvet cloak neatly folded, as if placed ready for the master of the house, when he went abroad; butlooking at these things closely, even in that dim light, she saw thatcloak and hat were white with dust, and, more even than the silence, thatspectacle of the thick dust on the dark velvet impressed her with the ideaof a deserted house. 

She had no lack of courage, this pupil of the Flemish nuns, and herfootstep did not falter as she went quickly up the broad staircase untilshe found herself in a spacious gallery, and amidst a flood of light, forthe windows on this upper or noble floor were all unshuttered, and thesunset streamed in through the lofty Italian casements. Fareham House wasbuilt upon the plan of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, of which the illustriousCatherine de Vivonne was herself at once owner and architect. Thestaircase, instead of being a central feature, was at the western end ofthe house, allowing space for an unbroken suite of rooms communicating onewith the other, and terminating in an apartment with a fine oriel windowlooking east. 

The folding doors of a spacious saloon stood wide open, and Angela entereda room whose splendour was a surprise to her who had been accustomed tothe sober simplicity of a convent parlour and the cold grey walls of therefectory, where the only picture was a pinched and angular Virgin byMemling, and the only ornament a crucifix of ebony and brass. 

Here for the first time she beheld a saloon for whose decoration palaceshad been ransacked and churches desecrated--the stolen treasures of many anancestral mansion, spoil of rough soldiery or city rabble, things that hadbeen slyly stowed away by their possessors during the stern simplicity ofthe Commonwealth, and had been brought out of their hiding-places and soldto the highest bidder. Gold and silver had been melted down in the GreatRebellion; but art treasures would not serve to pay soldiers or to buyammunition; so these had escaped the melting-pot. At home and abroad thestorehouses of curiosity merchants had been explored to beautify LadyFareham's reception-rooms; and in the fading light Angela gazed uponhangings that were worthy of a royal palace, upon Italian crystals andIndian carvings, upon ivory and amber and jade and jasper, upon tables ofFlorentine mosaic, and ebony cabinets incrusted with rare agates, and uponpictures in frames of massive and elaborate carving, Venetian mirrors whichgave back the dying light from a thousand facets, curtains and portières ofsumptuous brocade, gold-embroidered, gorgeous with the silken semblance ofpeacock plumage, done with the needle, from the royal manufactory of theCrown Furniture at the Gobelins. 

She passed into an ante-room, with tapestried walls, and a divan coveredwith raised velvet, a music desk of gilded wood, and a spinet, on whichwas painted the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Beyond this there was thedining-room, more soberly though no less richly furnished than the saloon. Here the hangings were of Cordovan leather, stamped and gilded with_fleur-de-lys_, suggesting a French origin, and indeed these very hangingshad been bought by a Dutch Jew dealer in the time of the Fronde, hadbelonged to the hated minister Mazarin, and had been sold among other ofhis effects when he fled from Paris: to vanish for a brief season behindthe clouds of public animosity, and to blaze out again, an elderly phoenix, in a new palace, adorned with new treasures of art and industry that maderoyal princes envious. 

Angela gazed on all this splendour as one bewildered. In front of thatgilded wall, quivering in mid-air, as if it had been painted upon the shaftof light that streamed in from the tall window, her fancy pictured theblood-red cross and the piteous legend, "Lord, have mercy on us!" writtenin the same blood colour. For herself she had neither horror of thepestilence nor fear of death. Religion had familiarised her mind with theimage of the destroyer. From her childhood she had been acquainted with thegrave, and with visions of a world beyond the grave. It was not for herselfshe trembled, but for her sister, and her sister's children; for LordFareham, whose likeness she recalled even at this moment, the grave darkface which Hyacinth had shown her on the locket she wore upon her neck, theface which Sir John said reminded him of Strafford. 

"He has just that fatal look, " her father had told her afterwards when theytalked of Fareham, "the look that men saw in Wentworth's face when he camefrom Ireland, and in his Majesty's countenance, after Wentworth's murder. "

While she stood in the dying light, wavering for a moment, doubtful whichway to turn--since the room had no less than three tall oak doors, two ofthem ajar--there came a pattering upon the polished floor, a scampering offeet that were lighter and quicker than those of the smallest child, andthe first living creature Angela saw in that silent house came runningtowards her. It was only a little black-and-tan spaniel, with long silkyhair and drooping ears, and great brown eyes, fond and gentle, a verytoy and trifle in the canine kingdom; yet the sight of that living thingthrilled her awe-stricken heart, and her tears came thick and fast as sheknelt and took the little dog in her arms and pressed him against herbosom, and kissed the cold muzzle, and looked, half laughing, half crying, into the pathetic brown eyes. 

"At least there is life near. This dog would not be left in a desertedhouse, " she thought, as the creature trembled against her bosom and lickedthe hand that held him. 

The pattering was repeated in the adjoining room, and another spaniel, which might have been twin brother of the one she held, came throughthe half open door, and ran to her, and set up a jealous barking whichreverberated in the lofty room, and from within that unseen chamber on theother side of the door there came a groan, a deep and hollow sound, as ofmortal agony. 

She set down the dog in an instant, and was on her feet again, tremblingbut alert. She pushed the door a little wider and went into the nextapartment, a bedroom more splendid than any bed-chamber her fancy had everdepicted when she read of royal palaces. 

The walls were hung with Mortlake tapestries, representing in four greatpanels the story of Perseus and Andromeda, and the Rape of Proserpine. To her who knew not the old Greek fables those figures looked strangelydiabolical. Naked maiden and fiery dragon, flying horse and Greek hero, Demeter and Persephone, hell-god and chariot, seemed alike demonaic andunholy, seen in the dim light of expiring day. The high chimney-piece, withits Oriental jars, blood-red and amber, faced her as she entered the room, and opposite the three tall windows stood the state bed, of carved ebony, the posts adorned with massive bouquets of chased silver flowers, thecurtains of wine coloured velvet, heavy with bullion fringes. One curtainhad been looped back, showing the amber satin lining, and on this bed ofstate lay a man, writhing in agony, with one bloodless hand plucking at thecambric upon his bosom, while with the other he grasped the ebony bed-postin a paroxysm of pain. 

Angela knew that dark and powerful face at the first glance, though thefeatures were distorted by suffering. This sick man, the sole occupant of adeserted mansion, was her brother-in-law, Lord Fareham. A large high-backedarmchair stood beside the bed, and on this Angela seated herself. Sherecollected the Superior's injunction just in time to put one of theanti-pestilential lozenges into her mouth before she bent over thesufferer, and took his clammy hand in hers, and endured the acrimony of hispoisonous breath. That anxious gaze, the dark yellow complexion, and thosegreat beads of sweat that poured down the pinched countenance too plainlyindicated the disease which had desolated London. The Moslem's invisibleplague-angel had entered this palace, and had touched the master with hisdeadly lance. That terrible Presence, which for the most part had beenfound among the dwellings of the poor, was here amidst purple and finelinen, here on this bed of state, enthroned in ebony and silver, hung roundwith velvet and bullion. She needed not to discover the pestilential spotsbeneath that semi-diaphanous cambric which hung loose upon the muscularframe, to be convinced of the cruel fact. Here, abandoned and alone, laythe master of the house, with nothing better than a pair of spaniels forhis companions, and neither nurse nor watcher, wife nor friend, to help himtowards recovery, or to comfort his passing soul. 

One of the little dogs leapt on the bed, and licked his master's face againand again, whining piteously between whiles. 

The sick man looked at Angela with awful, unseeing eyes, and then burstinto a wild laugh--

"See them run, the crop-headed clod-hoppers!" he cried. "Ride afterthem--mow them down--scatter the rebel clot-pols! The day is ours!" Andthen, passing from English to French, from visions of Lindsey and Rupertand the pursuit at Edgehill to memories of Condé and Turenne, he shoutedwith the voice that was like the sound of a trumpet, "_Boutte-selle!boutte-selle! Monte à cheval! monte à cheval! à l'arme, à l'arme!_"

He was in the field of battle again. His wandering wits had carried himback to his first fight, when he was a lad in his father's company ofhorse, following the King's fortunes, breathing gunpowder, and splashedwith human blood for the first time--when it was not so long since he hadbeen blooded at the death of his first fox. He was a young man again, withthe Prince, that Bourbon prince and hero whom he loved and honoured farabove any of his own countrymen. 

"_O, la folle entreprise du Prince de Condé_, " he sang, waving his handabove his head, while the spaniels barked loud and shrill, adding theirclamour to his. He raved of battles and sieges. He was lying in thetrenches, in cold and rain and wind--in the tempestuous darkness. He wasmounting the breach at Dunkirk against the Spaniard; at Charenton in ahand-to-hand fight with Frondeurs. He raved of Châtillon and Chanleu, andthe slaughter of that fatal day when Condé mourned a friend and each sidelost a leader. Fever gave force to gesture and voice; but in the midst ofhis ravings he fell back, half fainting, upon the pillow, his heart beatingin a tumult which fluttered the lace upon the bosom of his shirt, whilethe acrid drops upon his brow gathered thicker than poisonous dew. Angelaremembered how last year in Holland these death-like sweats had not alwayspointed to a fatal result, but in some cases had afforded an outlet to thepestilential influences, though in too many instances they had served onlyto enfeeble the patient, the fire of disease still burning, while the dampsof approaching dissolution oozed from the fevered body--flame within andice without. 

CHAPTER V. 

A MINISTERING ANGEL. 

Angela flung off hood and mantle, and looked anxiously round the room. There were some empty phials and ointment boxes, some soiled linen rags andwet sponges, upon a table near the bed, and the chamber reeked with theodour of drugs, hartshorn and elder vinegar, cantharides, and aloes; enoughto show that a doctor had been there, and that there had been some attemptat nursing the patient. But she had heard how in Holland the nurses hadsometimes robbed and abandoned their charges, taking advantage of theconfusions and uncertainties of that period of despair, quick and skilfulto profit by sudden death, and the fears and agonies of relatives andfriends, whose grief made plunder easy. She deemed it likely that one ofthose devilish women had first pretended to succour, and had then abandonedLord Fareham to his fate, after robbing his house. Indeed, the open doorsof a stately inlaid wardrobe between two windows over against the bed, andthe confused appearance of the clothes and linen on the shelves, indicatedthat it had been ransacked by hasty hands; while, doubtless, there had beenmany valuables lying loose about a house where there was every indicationof a careless profusion. 

"Alas! poor gentleman, to be left by some mercenary wretch--left to dielike the camel in the desert!"

She bent over him, and laid her hand with gentle firmness upon hisdeath-cold forehead. 

"What! are there saints and angels in hell as well as felons and devils?"he cried, clutching her by the wrist, and looking up at her with distendedeyes, in which the natural colour of the eye-ball was tarnished almost toblackness with injected blood. 

For long and lonely hours, that seemed an eternity, he had been tossing ina burning fever upon that disordered bed, until he verily believed himselfin a place of everlasting torment. He had that strange, double sensewhich goes with delirium--the consciousness of his real surroundings, thetapestry and furniture of his own chamber, and yet the conviction thatthis was hell, and had always been hell, and that he had descended to thisterrible under-world through infinite abysses of darkness. The glow ofsunset had been to him the fierce light of everlasting flames; the burningof fever was the fire that is never quenched; the pain that racked hislimbs was the worm that dieth not. And now in his torment there came thevision of a seraphic face bending over him in gentle solicitude; a facethat brought comfort with it, even in the midst of his agony. After thatone wild question he sank slowly back upon the pillows, and lay faint andweak, his breathing scarce audible. Angela laid her fingers on his wrist. The pulse was fluttering and intermittent. 

She remembered every detail of her aunt's treatment of the plague-patientin the convent infirmary, and how the turning-point of the malady andbeginning of cure had seemed to be brought about by a draught of strongwine which the reverend mother had made her give the poor fainting creatureat a crisis of extreme weakness. She looked about the room for anyflask which might contain wine; but there was nothing there except theapothecary's phials and medicaments. 

It was dusk already, and she was alone in a strange house. It would seem noeasy task to find what she wanted, but the case was desperate, and she knewenough of this mysterious disease to know that if the patient could notrally speedily from his prostrate condition the end must be near. Withsteady brain she set herself to face the difficulty--first to administersomething which should sustain the sick man's strength, and then, withoutloss of time, to seek a physician, and bring him to that deserted bed. Winewas the one thing she could trust to in this crisis; for of the doses andlotions on yonder table she knew nothing, nor had her experience made her abeliever in the happy influence of drugs. 

Her first search must be for light with which to explore the lower part ofthe house, where in pantry or stillroom, or, if not above ground, in thecellars, she must find what she wanted. Surely somewhere in that spaciousbed-chamber there would be tinder-box and matches. There were a pair ofsilver candlesticks on the dressing-table, with thick wax candles burntnearly to the sockets. 

A careful search at last discovered a tinder-box and matches in a darkangle of the fireless hearth, hidden behind the heavy iron dog. She strucka light, kindled her match, and lighted a candle, the sick man's eyesfollowing all her movements, but his lips mute. As she went out of the doorhe called after her--

"Leave me not, thou holy visitant--leave not my soul in hell!"

"I will return!" she cried. "Have no fear, sir; I go to fetch some wine. "

Her errand was not done quickly. Amidst all the magnificence she had notedon her journey through the long suite of reception-rooms--the litteredtreasures of amber and gold, and ivory and porcelain and silver--she hadseen only an empty wine-flask; so with quick footfall she ran down thewide, shallow stairs to the lower floor, and here she found herself in alabyrinth of passages opening into small rooms and servants' offices. Herethere were darkness and gloom rather than splendour; though in many ofthose smaller rooms there was a sober and substantial luxury which becamethe inferior apartments of a palace. She came at last to a room which shetook to be the butler's office, where there were dressers with a greatarray of costly Venetian glass, and a great many pieces of silver--cups, tankards, salvers, and other ornamental plate--in presses behind glazeddoors. One of the glass panels had been broken, and the shelves in thatpress were empty. 

Wine there was none to be found in any part of the room; but a small armyof empty bottles in a corner of the floor, and a confusion of greasyplates, knives, chicken bones, and other scraps, indicated that there hadbeen carousing here at no remote time. 

The cellars were doubtless below these offices; but the wine-cellars wouldassuredly be locked, and she had to search for the keys. She opened drawerafter drawer in the lower part of the presses, and at last, in an inner andsecret drawer, found a multitude of keys, some of which were provided withparchment labels, and among these happily were two labelled "Ye great winecellar, S. " and "Ye smaller wine cellar, W. "

This was a point gained; but the search had occupied a considerable time. She had yet enough candle to last for about half an hour, and her nextbusiness was to find one of those cellars which those keys opened. She wasintensely anxious to return to her patient, having heard how in some casesunhappy wretches had leapt from the bed of death and rushed out-of-doors, delirious, half naked, to anticipate their end by a fatal chill. 

On her way to the butler's office she had seen a stone archway at the headof a flight of stairs leading down into darkness. By this staircase shehoped to find the wine-cellars, and presently descended, her candlestick inone hand, and the two great keys in the other. As she went down into thestone basement, which was built with the solidity of a dungeon, she heardthe plash of the tide, and felt that she was now on a level with the river. Here she found herself again in a labyrinth of passages, with many doorsstanding ajar. At the end of one passage she came to a locked door, and ontrying her keys, found one of them to fit the lock; it was "Ye great winecellar, S. , " and she understood by the initial "S. " that the cellar lookedsouth and faced the river. 

She turned the heavy key with an effort that strained the slender fingerswhich held it; but she was unconscious of the pain, and wondered afterwardsto see her hand dented and bruised where the iron had wrung it. The clumsydoor revolved on massive hinges, and she entered a cellar so large that thelight of her candle did not reach the furthermost corners and recesses. 

This cellar was built in a series of arches, fitted with stone bins, and inthe upper part of one southward-fronting arch there was a narrow grating, through which came the cool breath of evening air and the sound of waterlapping against stone. A patch of faint light showed pale against the ironbars, and as Angela looked that way, a great grey rat leapt through thegrating, and ran along the topmost bin, making the bottles shiver as hescuttled across them. Then came a thud on the sawdust-covered stones, andshe knew that the loathsome thing was on the floor upon which she wasstanding. She lowered her light shudderingly, and, for the first timesince she entered that house of dread, the young brave heart sank with thesickness of fear. 

The cellar might swarm with such creatures; the darkness of the fast-comingnight might be alive with them! And if yonder dungeon-like door wereto swing to and shut with a spring lock, she might perish there in thedarkness. She might die the most hideous of deaths, and her fate remain forever unknown. 

In a sudden panic she rushed back to the door, and pushed it wider--pushedit to its extremest opening. It seemed too heavy to be likely to swing backupon its hinges; yet the mere idea of such a contingency appalled her. Remembering her labour in unlocking the door from the outside, she doubtedif she could open it from within were it once to close upon that awfulvault. And all this time the lapping of the tide against the stone soundedlouder, and she saw little spirts of spray flashing against the bars in thelessening light. 

She collected herself with an effort, and began her search for the wine. Sack was the wine she had given to the sick nun, and it was that wine forwhich she looked. Of Burgundy, and claret, labelled "Clary Wine, " she foundseveral full bins, and more that were nearly empty. Tokay and other rarerwines were denoted by the parchment labels which hung above each bin; butit was some minutes before she came to a bin labelled "Sherris, " which sheknew was another name for sack. The bottles had evidently been undisturbedfor a long time, for the bin was full of cobweb, and the thick coating ofdust upon the glass betokened a respectable age in the wine. She carriedoff two bottles, one under each arm, and then, with even quicker steps thanhad brought her to that darksome place, she hastened back to the upperfloor, leaving the key in the cellar door, and the door unlocked. Therewould be time enough to look after Lord Fareham's wine when she had caredfor Lord Fareham himself. 

His eyes were fixed upon the doorway as she entered. They shone upon her inthe dusk with an awful glassiness, as if life's last look had become fixedin death. He did not speak as she drew near the bed, and set the winebottles down upon the table among the drugs and cataplasms. 

She had found a silver-handled corkscrew in the butler's room among therelics of the feast, and with this she opened one of the bottles, Farehamwatching her all the time. 

"Is that some new alexipharmic?" he asked with a sudden rational air, whichwas almost as startling as if a dead man had spoken. "I will have no moreof their loathsome drugs. They have made an apothecary's shop of my body. Iwould rather they let me rot by the plague than that they should poison mewith their antidotes, or dissolve me to death with their sudorifics. "

"This is not a medicine, Lord Fareham, but your own wine; and I want you todrink a long draught of it, and then, who knows but you may sleep off yourmalady?"

"Ay, sleep in the grave, sweet friend! I have seen the tokens on my breastthat mean death. There is but one inevitable end for all who are so marked. 'Tis like the forester's notch upon the tree. It means doom. He was king ofthe forest once, perhaps; but no matter. His time has come. Oh, Lord, thouhast tormented me with hot burning coals!" he cried, in a sudden access ofpain; and in the next minute he was raving. 

Angela filled a beaker with the bright golden wine, and offered it to thesick man's lips. It was not without infinite pains and coaxing that sheinduced him to drink; but, when once his parched lips had tasted the coldliquor, he drank eagerly, as if that strong wine had been a draught ofwater. He gave a deep sigh of solace when the beaker was empty, for he hadbeen enduring an agony of thirst through all the glare and heat of theafternoon, and there was unspeakable comfort in that first long drink. Hewould have drunk foul water with almost as keen a relish. 

He talked fast and furiously, in the disjointed sentences of delirium, forsome little time; and then, little by little, he grew more tranquil; andAngela, sitting beside the bed, with her fingers laid gently on his wrist, marked the quieter beat of the pulse, which no longer fluttered like thewing of a frightened bird. Then with deep thankfulness she saw the eyelidsdroop over the bloodshot eyeballs, while the breathing grew slower andheavier as sleep clouded the wearied brain. The spaniels crept nearer him, and nestled close to his pillow, so that the man's dark locks were mixedwith the silken curls of the dogs. 

Would he die in that sleep? she wondered. 

It was only now for the first time since she entered this unpeopled housethat she had leisure to speculate on the circumstances which had broughtabout such loneliness and neglect, here where rank and state, and wealthalmost without limit should have secured the patient every care and comfortthat devoted service could lavish upon a sufferer. How was it that shefound her sister's husband abandoned to the care of hirelings, left to thechances of paid service?

To the cloister-reared maiden the idea of wifely duty was elevated almostto a religion. To father or to husband she would have given a boundlessdevotion, in sickness most of all devoted. To leave husband or father ina plague-stricken city would have seemed to her a crime as abominable asTullia's, a treachery base as Goneril's or Regan's. Could it be that hersister, that bright and lovely creature, whose face she remembered as asunbeam incarnate, could she have been swept away by the pestilence whichspared neither youth nor beauty, neither the strong man nor the weaklingchild? Her heart grew heavy as lead at the thought that this stranger, bywhose pillow she was watching, might be the sole survivor in that forsakenpalace, and that in a few more hours he, too, would be numbered with thedead, in that dreadful city where Death reigned omnipotent, and where theliving seemed but a vanishing minority, pale shadows of living creaturespassing silently along one inevitable pathway to the pest-house or pit. 

That calm sleep of the plague-stricken might mean recovery, or it mightmean death. Angela examined the potions and unguents on the table near thebed, and read the instructions on jars and phials. One was an alexipharmicdraught, to be taken the last thing at night, another a sudorific, to beadministered once in every hour. 

"I would not wake him to give him the finest medicine that ever physicianprescribed, " Angela said to herself. "I remember what a happy change onehour of quiet slumber made in Sister Monica, when she was all but dead of aquartan fever. Sleep is God's physic. "

She knelt upon a Prie-Dieu chair remote from the bed, knowing thatcontagion lurked amid those voluminous hangings, beneath that statelycanopy with its lustrous satin lining, on which the light of the waxcandles was reflected in shining patches as upon a lake of golden water. She had no fear of the pestilence; but an instinctive prudence made herhold herself aloof, now that there was nothing more to be done for thesufferer. 

She remained long in prayer, repeating one of those litanies which she hadlearnt in her infancy, and which of late had seemed to her to have somewhattoo set and mechanical a rhythm. The earnestness and fervour seemed to havegone out of them in somewise since she had come to womanhood. The names ofthe saints her lips invoked were dull and cold, and evolved no imageof human or superhuman love and power. What need of intercessors whosepersonality was vague and dim, whose earthly histories were made up oftruth so interwoven with fable that she scarce dared believe even thatwhich might be true? In the One Crucified was help for all sinners, gospeland creed, the rule of life here, the promise of immortality hereafter. 

The litanies to Virgin and Saints were said as a duty--a part of implicitobedience which was the groundwork of her religion; and then all theaspirations of her heart, her prayers for the sick man yonder, her fearsfor her absent sister, for her father in his foreign wanderings, went up inone stream of invocation to Christ the Redeemer. To Him, and Him alone, thestrong flame of faith and love rose, like the incense upon an altar--thealtar of a girl's trusting heart. 

She was so lost in meditation that she was unconscious of an approachingfootstep in the stillness of the deserted house, till it drew near to thethreshold of the sick-room. The night was close and sultry, so she had leftthe door open, and that slow tread had crossed the threshold by the timeshe rose from her knees. Her heart beat fast, startled by the first humanpresence which she had known in that melancholy place, save the presence ofthe pest-stricken sufferer. 

She found herself face to face with a middle-aged gentleman of mediumstature, clad in the sober colouring that suggested one of the learnedprofessions. He appeared even more startled than Angela at the unexpectedvision which met his gaze, faintly seen in the dim light. 

There was silence for a few moments, and then the stranger saluted the ladywith a formal reverence, as he laid down his gold-handled cane. 

"Surely, madam, this mansion of my Lord Fareham's must be enchanted, " hesaid. "I left a crowd of attendants, and the stir of life below and abovestairs, only this forenoon last past. I find silence and vacancy. That isscarce strange in this dejected and unhappy time; for it is but too commona trick of hireling nurses to abandon their patients, and for servants toplunder and then desert a sick house. But to find an angel where I lefta hag! That is the miracle! And an angel who has brought healing, if Imistake not, " he added, in a lower voice, bending over the speaker. 

"I am no angel, sir, but a weak, erring mortal, " answered the girl, gravely. "For pity's sake, kind doctor--since I doubt not you are my lord'sphysician--tell me where are my dearest sister, Lady Fareham, and herchildren. Tell me the worst, I entreat you!"

"Sweet lady, there is no ill news to tell. Her ladyship and the little onesare safe at my lord's house in Oxfordshire, and it is only his lordshipyonder who has fallen a victim to the contagion. Lady Fareham and her girland boy have not been in London since the plague began to rage. My lordhad business in the city, and came hither alone. He and the young LordRochester, who is the most audacious infidel this town can show, have beenbidding defiance to the pestilence, deeming their nobility safe from asickness which has for the most part chosen its victims among the vulgar. "

"His lordship is very ill, I fear, sir?" said Angela interrogatively. 

"I left him at eleven o'clock this morning with but scanty hope offinding him alive after sundown. The woman I left to nurse him was hishouse-steward's wife, and far above the common kind of plague-nurse. I didnot think she would turn traitor. "

"Her husband has proved a false steward. The house has been robbed of plateand valuables, as I believe, from signs I saw below stairs; and I supposehusband and wife went off together. "

"Alack! madam, this pestilence has brought into play some of the worstattributes of human nature. The tokens and loathly boils which break outupon the flesh of the plague-stricken are less revolting to humanity thanthe cruelty of those who minister to the sick, and whose only desire is toprofit by the miseries that surround them; wretches so vile that they havebeen known wilfully to convey the seeds of death from house to house, inorder to infect the sound, and so enlarge their area of gains. It was anartful device of those plunderers to paint the red cross on the door, andthus scare away any visitor who might have discovered their depredations. But you, madam, a being so young and fragile, have you no fear of thecontagion?"

"Nay, sir, I know that I am in God's hand. Yonder poor gentleman is not thefirst plague-patient I have nursed. There was a nun came from Holland toour convent at Louvain last year, and had scarce been one night in thehouse before tokens of the pestilence were discovered upon her. I helpedthe infirmarian to nurse her, and with God's help we brought her round. Myaunt, the reverend mother, bade me give her the best wine there was in thehouse--strong Spanish wine that a rich merchant had given to the conventfor the use of the sick--and it was as though that good wine drove thepoison from her blood. She recovered by the grace of God after only afew days' careful nursing. Finding his lordship stricken with such greatweakness, I ventured to give him a draught of the best sack I could find inhis cellar. "

"Dear lady, thou art a miracle of good sense and compassionate bounty. Idoubt thou hast saved thy sister from widow's weeds, " said Dr. Hodgkin, seated by the bed, with his fingers on the patient's wrist, and his massivegold watch in the other hand. "This sound sleep promises well, and thepulse beats somewhat slower and steadier than it did this morning. Thenthe case seemed hopeless, and I feared to give wine--though a free use ofgenerous wine is my particular treatment--lest it should fly to his brain, and disturb his intellectuals at a time when he should need all his sensesfor the final disposition of his affairs. Great estates sometimes hang uponthe breath of a dying man. "

"Oh, sir, but your patient! To save his life, that would sure be your firstand chiefest thought?"

"Ay, ay, my pretty miss; but I had other measures. Apollo twangs not everon the same bowstring. Did my sudorific work well, think you?"

"He was bathed in perspiration when first I found him; but the sweat-dropsseemed cold and deadly, as if life itself were being dissolved out of him. "

"Ay, there are cases in which that copious sweat is the forerunner ofdissolution; but in others it augurs cure. The pent-up poison which iscorrupting the patient's blood finds a sudden vent, its virulence isdiluted, and if the end prove fatal, it is that the patient lacks power torally after the ravages of the disease, rather than that the poison kills. Was it instantly after that profuse sweat you gave him the wine, I wonder?"

"It was as speedily as I could procure it from the cellar below. "

"And that strong wine, given in the nick of time, reassembled Nature'sscattered forces, and rekindled the flame of life. Upon my soul, sweetyoung lady, I believe thou hast saved him! All the drugs in Bucklersburycould do no more. And now tell me what symptoms you have noted since youhave watched by his bed; and tell me further if you have strength tocontinue his nurse, with such precautions as I shall dictate, and such helpas I can send you in the shape of a stout, honest, serving-wench of mine, and a man to guard the lower part of your house, and fetch and carry foryou?"

"I will do everything you bid me, with all my heart, and with such skill asI can command. "

"Those delicate fingers were formed to minister to the sick. And you willnot shrink from loathsome offices--from the application of cataplasms, fromcleansing foul sores? Those blains and boils upon that poor body will needcare for many days to come. "

"I will shrink from nothing that may be needful for his benefit. I shouldlove to go on nursing him, were it only for my sister's sake. How sorry shewould feel to be so far from him, could she but know of his sickness!"

"Yes, I believe Lady Fareham would be sorry, " answered the physician, with a dry little laugh; "though there are not many married ladies aboutRowley's court of whom I would diagnose as much. Not Lady Denham, forinstance, that handsome, unprincipled houri, married to a septuagenarianpoet, who would rather lock her up in a garret than see her shine atWhitehall; or Lady Castlemaine, whose husband has been uncivil enough toshow discontent at a peerage that was not of his own earning; or a dozenothers I could name, were not such scandals as these Hebrew to thineinnocent ear. "

"Nay, sir, my sister has written of Court scandals in many of her letters, and it has grieved me to think her lot should be cast among people ofwhose reckless doings she tells me with a lively wit that makes sin seemsomething less than sin. "

"There is no such word as 'sin' in Charles Stuart's Court, my dear younglady. It is harder to achieve bad repute nowadays than it was once to bethought a saint. Existence in this town is a succession of bagatelles. Men's lives and women's reputations drift down to the bottomless pit upona rivulet of epigrams and chansons. You have heard of that Dance of Death, which was one of the nervous diseases of the fifteenth century--a maladywhich, after beginning with one lively caperer, would infect a wholetownspeople, and send an entire population curvetting and prancing, until death stopped them. I sometimes think, when I watch the follies atWhitehall, that those graceful dancers, sliding upon pointed toe through acoranto, amid a blaze of candles and star-shine of diamonds, are caperingalong the same fatal road by which St. Vitus lured his votaries to thegrave. And then I look at Rowley's licentious eye and cynical lip, andthink to myself, 'This man's father perished on the scaffold; this man'slovely ancestress paid the penalty of her manifold treacheries aftersixteen years' imprisonment; this man has passed through the jaws of death, has left his country a fugitive and a pauper, has returned as if by amiracle, carried back to a throne upon the hearts of his people; and beholdhim now--saunterer, sybarite, sensualist--strolling through life withoutone noble aim or one virtuous instinct; a King who traffics in the prideand honour of his country, and would sell her most precious possessions, level her strongest defences, if his cousin and patron t'other side theChannel would but bid high enough. ' But a plague on my tongue, dear lady, that it must always be wagging. Not one word more, save for instructions. "

Dr. Hodgkin loved talking even better than he loved a fee, and he allowedhimself a physician's licence to be prosy; but he now proceeded to giveminute directions for the treatment of the patient--the poultices andstoups and lotions which were to reduce the external indications of thecontagion, the medicines which were to be given at intervals during thenight. Medicine in those days left very little to Nature, and if patientsperished it was seldom for want of drugs and medicaments. 

"The servant I send you will bring meat and all needful herbs for making astrong broth, with which you will feed the patient once an hour. There aremany who hold with the boiling of gold in such a broth, but I will notenter upon the merits of aurum potabile as a fortifiant. I take it that inthis case you will find beef and mutton serve your turn. I shall send youfrom my own larder as much beef as will suffice for to-night's use; andto-morrow your servant must go to the place where the country people selltheir goods, butchers' meat, poultry, and garden-stuff; for the butchers'shops of London are nearly all closed, and people scent contagion in anyintercourse with their fellow-citizens. You will have, therefore, to lookto the country people for your supplies; but of all this my own man willgive you information. So now, good night, sweet young lady. It is on thestroke of nine. Before eleven you shall have those who will help andprotect you. Meanwhile you had best go downstairs with me, and lock andbolt the great door leading into the garden, which I found ajar. "

"There is the door facing the river, too, by which I entered. "

"Ay, that should be barred also. Keep a good heart, madam. Before elevenyou shall have a sturdy watchman on the premises. "

Angela took a lighted candle and followed the physician through the greatempty rooms, and down the echoing staircase; under the ceiling where Jove, with upraised goblet, drank to his queen, while all the galaxy of the Greekpantheon circled his imperial throne. Upon how many a festal processionhad those Olympians looked down since that famous house-warming, whenthe colours were fresh from the painter's brush, and when the thirdLord Fareham's friend and gossip, King James, deigned to witness therepresentation of Jonson's "Time Vindicated, " enacted by ladies andgentlemen of quality, in the great saloon, a performance which--with thebanquet and confectionery brought from Paris, and "the sweet waters whichcame down the room like a shower from heaven, " as one wrote who waspresent at that splendid entertainment, and the _feux d'artifice_ on theriver--cost his lordship a year's income, but stamped him at once a finegentleman. Had he been a trifle handsomer, and somewhat softer of speech, that masque and banquet might have placed Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, in the front rank of royal favourites; but the Revels were always ablack-visaged race, with more force than comeliness in their countenances, and more gall than honey upon their tongues. 

It was past eleven before the expected succour arrived, and in the intervalLord Fareham had awakened once, and had swallowed a composing draught, having apparently but little consciousness of the hand that administeredit. At twenty minutes past eleven Angela heard the bell ring, and ranblithely down the now familiar staircase to open the garden door, outsidewhich she found a middle-aged woman and a tall, sturdy young man, eachcarrying a bundle. These were the nurse and the watchman sent by Dr. Hodgkin. The woman gave Angela a slip of paper from the doctor, by way ofintroduction. 

"You will find Bridget Basset a worthy woman, and able to turn her hand toanything; and Thomas Stokes is an honest, serviceable youth, whom you maytrust upon the premises, till some of his lordship's servants can be sentfrom Chilton Abbey, where I take it there is a large staff. "

It was with an unspeakable relief that Angela welcomed these humblefriends. The silence of the great empty house had been weighing upon herspirits, until the sense of solitude and helplessness had grown almostunbearable. Again and again she had watched Lord Fareham turn his feverishhead upon his pillow, while the parched lips moved in inarticulatemutterings; and she had thought of what she should do if a strongerdelirium were to possess him, and he were to try and do himself somemischief. If he were to start up from his bed and rush through the emptyrooms, or burst open one of yonder lofty casements and fling himselfheadlong to the terrace below! She had been told of the terrible thingsthat plague-patients had done to themselves in their agony; how they hadrun naked into the streets to perish on the stones of the highway; howthey had gashed themselves with knives; or set fire to their bed-clothes, seeking any escape from the torments of that foul disease. She knew thatthose burning plague-spots, which her hands had dressed, must cause acontinual anguish that might wear out the patience of a saint; and as thedark face turned on the tumbled pillow, she saw by the clenched teeth andwrithing lips, and the convulsive frown of the strongly marked brows, that even in delirium the sufferer was struggling to restrain all unmanlyexpressions of his agony. But now, at least, there would be this strong, capable woman to share in the long night watch; and if the patient grewdesperate there would be three pair of hands to protect him from his ownfury. 

She made her arrangements promptly and decisively. Mrs. Basset was to stayall night with her in the patient's chamber, with such needful intervals ofrest as each might take without leaving the sick-room; and Stokes wasfirst to see to the fastening of the various basement doors, and to assurehimself that there was no one hidden either in the cellars or on the groundfloor; also to examine all upper chambers, and lock all doors; and wasthen to make himself a bed in a dressing closet adjoining Lord Fareham'schamber, and was to lie there in his clothes, ready to help at any hour ofthe night, should help be wanted. 

CHAPTER VI. 

BETWEEN LONDON AND OXFORD. 

Three nights and days had gone since Angela first set her foot upon thethreshold of Fareham House, and in all that time she had not once gone outinto the great city, where dismal silence reigned by day and night, savefor the hideous cries of the men with the dead-carts, calling to theinhabitants of the infected houses to bring out their dead, and roaringtheir awful summons with as automatic a monotony as if they had beenhawking some common necessary of life--a dismal cry that was butoccasionally varied by the hollow tones of a Puritan fanatic, stalking, gaunt and half clad, along the Strand, and shouting some sentence of fatalbodement from the Hebrew prophets; just as before the siege of Titus therewalked through the streets of Jerusalem one who cried, "Woe to the wickedcity!" and whose voice could not be stopped but by death. 

In those three days and nights the worst symptoms of the contagion weresubjugated. But the ravages of the disease had left the patient in astate of weakness which bordered on death; and his nurses were full ofapprehension lest the shattered forces of his constitution should fail evenin the hour of recovery. The violence of the fever was abated, and thedelirium had become intermittent, while there were hours in which thesufferer was conscious and reasonable, in which calmer intervals he wouldfain have talked with Angela more than her anxiety would allow. 

He was full of wonder at her presence in that house; and when he had beentold who she was, he wanted to know how and why she had come there. By whathappy accident, by what interposition of Providence, had she been sent tosave him from a hideous death?

"I should have died but for you, " he said. "I should have lain here tillthe cart fetched my putrid carcase. I should be rotting in one of theirplague-pits yonder, behind the old Abbey. "

"Nay, indeed, my lord, your good doctor would have discovered your desolatecondition, and would have brought Mrs. Basset to nurse you. "

"He would have been too late. I was drifting out to the dark sea of death. I felt as if the river were bearing me so much nearer to that unknown seawith every ripple of the hurrying tide. 'Twas your draught of strong winesnatched me back from the cruel river, drew me on to _terra firma_ again, renewed my consciousness of manhood, and that I was not a weed to be washedaway. Oh, that wine! Ye gods! what elixir to this parched, burning throat!Did ever drunkard in all Alsatia snatch such fierce joy from a brimmer?"

Angela put her finger on her lip, and with the other hand drew the silkencoverlet over the sick man's shoulders. 

"You are not to talk, " she said, "you are to sleep. Slumber is to be yourdiet and medicine after that good soup at which you make such a wry face. "

"I would swallow the stuff were it Locusta's hell-broth, for your sake. "

"You will take it for wisdom's sake, that you may mend speedily, and gohome to my sister, " said Angela. 

"Home, yes! It will be bliss ineffable to see flowery pastures and woodedhills after this pest-haunted town; but oh, Angela, mine angel, why dostthou linger in this poisonous chamber where every breath of mine exhalesinfection? Why do you not fly while you are still unstricken? Truly theplague-fiend cometh as a thief in the night. To-day you are safe. To-nightyou may be doomed. "

"I have no fear, sir. You are not the first plague-patient I have nursed. "

"And thou fanciest thyself pestilence-proof! Sweet girl, it may be that thedivine lymph which fills those azure veins has no affinity with poisonsthat slay rude mortals like myself. "

"Will you ever be talking?" she said with grave reproach, and left him tothe care of Mrs. Basset, whose comfortable and stolid personality did notstimulate his imagination. 

She had a strong desire to explore that city of which she had yet seen solittle, and her patient being now arrived at a state of his disorder whenit was best for him to be tempted to prolonged slumbers by silence andsolitude, she put on her hood and gloves and went out alone to see thehorrors of the deserted streets, of which nurse Basset had given her soappalling a picture. 

It was four o'clock, and the afternoon was at its hottest; the blue of acloudless sky was reflected in the blue of the silent river, where, insteadof the flotilla of gaily painted wherries, the procession of gilded barges, the music and song, the ceaseless traffic of Court and City, there was onlythe faint ripple of the stream, or here and there a solitary bargecreeping slowly down the tide with ineffectual sail napping in the sultryatmosphere. 

That unusual calm which had marked this never-to-be-forgotten year, fromthe beginning of spring, was yet unbroken, and the silent city lay like agreat ship becalmed on a tropical ocean; the same dead silence; the samecruel, smiling sky above; the same hopeless submission to fate in everysoul on board that death-ship. How would those poor dying creatures, panting out their latest breath in sultry, airless chambers, have welcomedthe rush of rain, the cool freshness of a strong wind blowing along thosesun-baked streets, sweeping away the polluted dust, dispersing noxiousodours, bringing the pure scents of far-off woodlands, of hillside heatherand autumn gorse, the sweetness of the country across the corruption ofthe town. But at this dreadful season, when storm and rain would have beenwelcomed with passionate thanksgiving, the skies were brass, and the groundwas arid and fiery as the sands of the Arabian desert, while even the grassthat grew in the streets, where last year multitudinous feet had trodden, sickened as it grew, and faded speedily from green to yellow. 

Pausing on the garden terrace to survey the prospect before she descendedto the street, Angela thought of that river as her imagination had depictedit, after reading a letter of Hyacinth's, written so late as last May; thegay processions, the gaudy liveries of watermen and servants, the gildedbarges, the sound of viol and guitar, the harmony of voices in part songs, "Go, lovely rose, " or "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" the beauty and thesplendour; fair faces under vast plumed hats, those picturesque hats whichthe maids of honour snatched from each other's heads with giddy laughter, exchanging head-gear here on the royal barge, as they did sometimes walkingabout the great rooms at Whitehall; the King with his boon companionsclustered round him on the richly carpeted daïs in the stern, his courtiersand his favoured mistresses; haughty Castlemaine, empres, regnant over theroyal heart, false, dissolute, impudent, glorious as Cleopatra when herpurple sails bore her down the swift-flowing Cydnus; the wit and follyand gladness. All had vanished like the visions of a dreamer; and thereremained but this mourning city, with its closed windows and doors, itswatchmen guarding the marked houses, lest disease and death should holdcommunion with that poor remnant of health and life left in the infectedtown. Would that fantastic vision of careless, pleasure-loving monarch andbutterfly Court ever be realised again? Angela thought not. It seemed toher serious mind that the glory of those wild years since his Majesty'srestoration was a delusive and pernicious brightness which could nevershine again. That extravagant splendour, that reckless gaiety had bornebeneath their glittering surface the seeds of ruin and death. An angryGod had stretched out His hand against the wicked city where sin andprofaneness sat in the high places. If Charles Stuart and his courtiersever came back to London they would return sobered and chastened, taughtwisdom by adversity. The Puritan spirit would reign once more in the land, and an age of penitence and Lenten self-abasement would succeed the orgiesof the Restoration; while the light loves of Whitehall, the noble ladies, the impudent actresses, would vanish into obscurity. Angela's loyal youngheart was full of faith in the King. She was ready to believe that his sinswere the sins of a man whose head had been turned by the sudden change fromexile to a throne, from poverty to wealth, from dependence upon hisBourbon cousin and his friends in Holland to the lavish subsidies of atoo-indulgent Commons. 

No words could paint the desolation which reigned between the Strand andthe City in that fatal summer, now drawing to its melancholy close. Morethan once in her brief pilgrimage Angela drew back, shuddering, from theembrasure of a door, or the inlet to some narrow alley, at sight of deathlying on the threshold, stiff, stark, unheeded; more than once in herprogress from the New Exchange to St Paul's she heard the shrill wail ofwomen lamenting for a soul just departed. Death was about and around her. The great bell of the cathedral tolled with an inexorable stroke in thesummer stillness, as it had tolled every day through those long months ofheat, and drought, and ever-growing fear, and ever-thickening graves. 

Eastward there rose the red glare of a great fire, and she feared that someof those old wooden houses in the narrower streets were blazing, but oninquiry of a solitary foot passenger, she learnt that this fire was one ofmany which had been burning for three days, at street corners and in openspaces, at a great expense of sea-coal, with the hope of purifying theatmosphere and dispersing poisonous gases--but that so far no ameliorationhad followed upon this outlay and labour. She came presently to a junctionof roads near the Fleet ditch, and saw the huge coal-fire flaming with asickly glare in the sunshine, tended by a spectral figure, half-clad andhungry-looking, to whom she gave an alms; and at this juncture of ways agreat peril awaited her, for there sprang, as it were, out of the veryground, so quickly did they assemble from neighbouring courts and alleys, a throng of mendicants, who clustered round her, with filthy handsoutstretched, and shrill voices imploring charity. So wasted were theirhalf-naked limbs, so ghastly and livid their countenances, that they mighthave all been plague-patients, and Angela recoiled from them in horror. 

"Keep your distance, for pity's sake, good friends, and I will give you allthe money I carry, " she exclaimed, and there was something of command inher voice and aspect, as she stood before them, straight and tall, withpale, earnest face. 

They fell off a little way, and waited till she scattered the contents ofher purse--small Flemish coin--upon the ground in front of her, where theyscrambled for it, snarling and scuffling with each other like dogs fightingfor a bone. 

Hastening her footsteps after the horror of that encounter, she went byLudgate Hill to the great cathedral, keeping carefully to the middle of thestreet, and glancing at the walls and shuttered casements on either side ofher, recalling that appalling story which the Italian choir-mistress at theUrsulines had told her of the great plague in Milan--how one morning thewalls and doors of many houses in the city had been found smeared with somefoul substance, in broad streaks of white and yellow, which was believed tobe a poisonous compost carrying contagion to every creature who touchedor went within the influence of its mephitic odour; how this thing hadhappened not once, but many times; until the Milanese believed that Satanhimself was the prime mover in this horror, and that there were a companyof wretches who had sold themselves to the devil, and were his servants andagents, spreading disease and death through the city. Strange tales weretold of those who had seen the foul fiend face to face, and had refused hisproffered gold. Innocent men were denounced, and but narrowly escaped beingtorn limb from limb, or trampled to death, under the suspicion of beingconcerned in this anointing of the walls, and even the cathedral benches, with plague-poison; yet no death, that the nun could remember, had everbeen traced directly to the compost. It was a mysterious terror whichstruck deep into the hearts of a frightened people, so that at last, against his better reason, and at the repeated prayer of his flock, thegood Archbishop allowed the crystal coffin of St. Carlo Borromeo to becarried in solemn procession, upon the shoulders of Cardinals, from end toend of the city--on which occasion all Milan crowded into the streets, and clustered thick on either side of the pompous train of monks andincense-bearers, priests and acolytes. But soon there fell a deeper despairupon the inhabitants of the doomed city; for within two days after thissolemn carrying of the saintly remains the death-rate had tripled and therewas scarce a house in which the contagion had not entered. Then it was saidthat the anointers had been in active work in the midst of the crowd, andhad been busiest in the public squares where the bearers of the crystalcoffin halted for a space with their sacred load, and where the peopleclustered thickest. The Archbishop had foreseen the danger of thisgathering of the people, many but just recovering from the disease, manyinfected and unconscious of their state; but his flock saw only thehandiwork of the fiend in this increase of evil. 

In Protestant London there had been less inclination to superstition; yeteven here a comet which, under ordinary circumstances, would have appearedbut as other comets, was thought to wear the shape of a fiery swordstretched over the city in awful threatening. 

Full of pity and of gravest, saddest thoughts, the lonely girl walkedthrough the lonely town to that part of the city where the streets werenarrowest, a labyrinth of lanes and alleys, with a church-tower or steeplerising up amidst the crowded dwellings at almost every point to which theeye looked. Angela wondered at the sight of so many fine churches in thisheretical land. Many of these city churches were left open in this day ofwrath, so that unhappy souls who had a mind to pray might go in at will, and kneel there. Angela peered in at an old church in a narrow court, holding the door a little way ajar, and looking along the cold grey nave. All was gloom and silence, save for a monotonous and suppressed murmurof one invisible worshipper in a pew near the altar, who varied hissupplicatory mutterings with long-drawn sighs. 

Angela turned with a shudder from the cold emptiness of the great greychurch, with its sombre woodwork, and lack of all those beautiful formswhich appeal to the heart and imagination in a Romanist temple. She thoughthow in Flanders there would have been tapers burning, and censors swinging, and the rolling thunder of the organ pealing along the vaulted roof in thesolemn strains of a _Dies Irae_, lifting the soul of the worshipper intothe far-off heaven of the world beyond death, soothing the sorrowful heartwith visions of eternal bliss. 

She wandered through the maze of streets and lanes, sometimes coming backunawares to a street she had lately traversed, till at last she came to achurch that was not silent, for through the open door she heard a voicewithin, preaching or praying. She hesitated for a few minutes on thethreshold, having been taught that it was a sin to enter a Protestantchurch; and then something within her, some new sense of independence andrevolt against old traditions, moved her to enter, and take her placequietly in one of the curious wooden boxes where the sparse congregationwere seated, listening to a man in a Geneva gown, who was preaching in atall oaken pulpit, surmounted by a massive sounding-board, and furnishedwith a crimson velvet cushion, which the preacher used with great effectduring his discourse, now folding his arms upon it and leaning forward toargue familiarly with his flock, now stretching a long, lean arm above itto point a denouncing finger at the sinners below, anon belabouring itseverely in the passion of his eloquence. 

The flock was small, but devout, consisting for the most part ofmiddle-aged and elderly persons in sombre attire and of Puritanical aspect;for the preacher was one of those Calvinistic clergy of Cromwell's time whohad been lately evicted from their pulpits, and prosecuted for assemblingcongregations under the roofs of private citizens, and had shown a nobleperseverance in serving God in circumstances of peculiar difficulty. Andnow, though the Primate had remained at his post, unfaltering and unafraid, many of the orthodox shepherds had fled and left their sheep, being toocareful of their own tender persons to remain in the plague-stricken townand minister to the sick and dying; whereupon the evicted clergy hadin some cases taken possession of the deserted pulpits and the silentchurches, and were preaching Christ's Gospel to that remnant of thefaithful which feared not to assemble in the House of God. 

Angela listened to a sermon marked by a rough eloquence which enchained herattention and moved her heart. It was not difficult to utter heart-stirringwords or move the tender breast to pity when the Preacher's theme wasdeath; with all its train of attendant agonies; its partings and farewells;its awful suddenness, as shown in this pestilence, where a young manrejoicing in his health and strength at noontide sees, as the sun slopeswestward, the death-tokens on his bosom, and is lying dumb and stark atnight-fall; where the joyous maiden is surprised in the midst of her mirthby the apparition of the plague-spot, and in a few hours is lifelessclay. The Preacher dwelt upon the sins and follies and vanities of theinhabitants of that great city; their alacrity in the pursuit of pleasure;their slackness in the service of God. 

"A man who will give twenty shillings for a pair of laced gloves toa pretty shopwoman at the New Exchange, will grudge a crown for themaintenance of God's people that are in distress; and one who is not hardyenough to walk half a mile to church, will stand for a whole afternoon inthe pit of a theatre, to see painted women-actors defile a stage that wasevil enough in the late King's time, but which has in these latter dayssunk to a depth of infamy that it befits not me to speak of in this holyplace. Oh, my Brethren, out of that glittering dream which you have dreamtsince his Majesty's return, out of the groves of Baal, where you have sungand danced, and feasted, worshipping false gods, steeping your benightedsouls in the vices of pagans and image-worshippers, it has pleased the Godof Israel to give you a rough waking. Can you doubt that this plague, whichhas desolated a city, and filled many a yawning pit with the promiscuousdead, has been God's way of chastening a profligate people, a people caringonly for fleshly pleasures, for rich meats and strong wines, for fineclothing and jovial company, and despising the spiritual blessings thatthe Almighty Father has reserved for them that love Him? Oh, my afflictedBrethren, bethink you that this pestilence is a chastisement upon a blindand foolish people; and if it strikes the innocent as well as the guilty, if it falls as heavily upon the spotless virgin as upon the hoary sinner, remember that it is not for us to measure the workings of Omnipotence withthe fathom-line of our earthly intellects; or to say this fair girl shouldbe spared, and that hoary sinner taken. Has not the Angel of Death everchosen the fairest blossoms? His business is to people the skies ratherthan to depopulate the earth. The innocent are taken, but the warning isfor the guilty; for the sinners whose debaucheries have made this world sopolluted a place that God's greatest mercy to the pure is an early death. The call is loud and instant, a call to repentance and sacrifice. Let eachbear his portion of suffering with patience, as under that wise rule ofa score years past each family forewent a weekly meal to help those whoneeded bread. Let each acknowledge his debt to God, and be content to havepaid it in a season of universal sorrow. "

And then the Preacher turned from that awful image of an angry and avengingGod to contemplate Divine compassion in the Redeemer of mankind--godlikepower joined with human love. He preached of Christ the Saviour with afulness and a force which were new to Angela. He held up that commanding, that touching image, unobscured by any other personality. All thosesurrounding figures which Angela had seen crowded around the godlike form, all those sufferings and virtues of the spotless Mother of God were ignoredin that impassioned oration. The preacher held up Christ crucified, Himonly, as the fountain of pity and pardon. He reduced Christianity to itssimplest elements, primitive as when the memory of the God-man was yetfresh in the minds of those who had seen the Divine countenance andlistened to the Divine voice; and Angela felt as she had never felt beforethe singleness and purity of the Christian's faith. 

It was the day of long sermons, when a preacher who measured his discourseby the sands of an hour-glass was deemed moderate. Among the Nonconformiststhere were those who turned the glass, and let the flood of eloquence flowon far into the second hour. The old man had been preaching a long timewhen Angela awoke as from a dream, and remembered that sick-chamber whereduty called her. She left the church quietly and hurried westward, guidedchiefly by the sun, till she found herself once more in the Strand; andvery soon afterwards she was ringing the bell at the chief entrance ofFareham House. She returned far more depressed in spirits than she wentout, for all the horror of the plague-stricken city was upon her; and, fresh from the spectacle of death, she felt less hopeful of Lord Fareham'srecovery. 

Thomas Stokes opened the great door to admit that one modest figure, a doorwhich looked as if it should open only to noble visitors, to a processionof courtiers and court beauties, in the fitful light of wind-blown torches. Thomas, when interrogated, was not cheerful in his account of the patient'shealth during Angela's absence. My lord had been strangely disordered; Mrs. Basset had found the fever increasing, and was "afeared the gentleman wasrelapsing. "

Angela's heart sickened at the thought. The Preacher had dwelt on thesudden alternations of the disease, how apparent recovery was sometimes theprecursor of death. She hurried up the stairs, and through the seeminglyendless suite of rooms which nobody wanted, which never might be inhabitedagain perhaps, except by bats and owls, to his lordship's chamber, andfound him sitting up in bed, with his eyes fixed on the door by which sheentered. 

"At last!" he cried. "Why did you inflict such torturing apprehensions uponme? This woman has been telling me of the horrors of the streets whereyou have been; and I figured you stricken suddenly with this foul malady, creeping into some deserted alley to expire uncared for, dying with yourhead upon a stone, lying there to be carried off by the dead-cart. You mustnot leave this house again, save for the coach that shall fetch you toOxfordshire to join Hyacinth and her children--and that coach shall startto-morrow. I am a madman to have let you stay so long in this infectedhouse. "

"You forget that I am plague-proof, " she answered, throwing off hood andcloak, and going to his bedside, to the chair in which she had spent manyhours watching by him and praying for him. 

No, there was no relapse. He had only been restless and uneasy because ofher absence. The disease was conquered, the pest-spots were healing fairly, and his nurses had only to contend against the weakness and depressionwhich seemed but the natural sequence of the malady. 

Dr. Hodgkin was satisfied with his patient's progress. He had written toLady Fareham, advising her to send some of her servants with horses for hislordship's coach, and to provide for relays of post-horses between Londonand Oxfordshire, a matter of easier accomplishment than it would have beenin the earlier summer, when the quality were flying to the country, andpost-horses were at a premium. Now there were but few people of rank orstanding who had the courage to stay in town, like the Archbishop, who hadnot left Lambeth, or the stout old Duke of Albemarle, at the Cockpit, whofeared the pestilence no more than he feared sword or cannon. 

Two of his lordship's lackeys, and his Oxfordshire major-domo and clerk ofthe kitchen, arrived a week after Angela's landing, bringing loving lettersfrom Hyacinth to her husband and sister. The physician had so written asnot to scare the wife. She had been told that her husband had been ill, butwas in a fair way to recovery, and would post to Oxfordshire as soon as hewas strong enough for the journey, carrying his sister-in-law with him, and lying at the accustomed inn at High Wycombe, or perchance resting twonights and spending three days upon the road. 

That was a happy day for Angela when her patient was well enough to starton his journey. She had been longing to see her sister and the children, longing still more intensely to escape from the horror of that house, wheredeath had seemed to lie in ambush behind the tapestry hangings, and wherefew of her hours had been free from a great fear. Even while Fareham was onthe high-road to recovery there had been in her mind the ever-present dreadof a relapse. She rejoiced with fear and trembling, and was almost afraidto believe physician and nurse when they assured her that all danger wasover. 

The pestilence had passed by, and they went out in the sunshine, in thefreshness of a September morning, balmy, yet cool, with a scent of flowersfrom the gardens of Lambeth and Bankside blowing across the river. Eventhis terrible London, the forsaken city, looked fair in the morning light;her palaces and churches, her streets of heavily timbered houses, theirprojecting windows enriched with carved wood and wrought iron--streets thatrecalled the days of the Tudors and even suggested an earlier and rougherage, when the French King rode in all honour, albeit a prisoner, at hisconqueror's side; or later, when fallen Richard, shorn of all royaldignity, rode abject and forlorn through the city, and caps were flung upfor his usurping cousin. But oh, the horror of closed shops and desertedhouses, and pestiferous wretches running by the coach door in theirpoisonous rags, begging alms, whenever the horses went slowly, in thosenarrow streets that lay between Fareham House and Westminster!

To Angela's wondering eyes Westminster Hall and the Abbey offered a newidea of magnificence, so grandly placed, so dignified in their antiquity. Fareham watched her eager countenance as the great family coach, which hadbeen sent up from Oxfordshire for his accommodation, moved ponderouslywestward, past the Chancellor's new palace, and other new mansions, to theHercules Pillars Inn, past Knightsbridge and Kensington, and then northwardby rustic lanes, and through the village of Ealing to the Oxford road. 

The family coach was as big as a small parlour, and afforded ample room forthe convalescent to recline at his ease on one seat, while Angela and thesteward, a confidential servant with the manners of a courtier, sat side byside upon the other. 

They had the two spaniels with them, Puck and Ganymede, silky-haired littlebeasts, black and tan, with bulging foreheads, crowded with intellect, pugnoses so short as hardly to count for noses, goggle eyes that expressedshrewdness, greediness, and affection. Puck snuggled cosily in the softlace of his lordship's shirt; Ganymede sat and blinked at the sunshine fromAngela's lap. Both snarled at Mr. Manningtree, the steward, and resentedthe slightest familiarity on his part. 

Lord Fareham's thoughtful face brightened with its rare smile--half amused, half cynical--as he watched Angela's eager looks, devouring every object onthe road. 

"Those grave eyes look at our London grandeurs with a meek wonder, something as thy namesake an angel might look upon the splendours ofBabylon. You can remember nothing of yonder palace, or senate house, orAbbey, I think, child?"

"Yes, I remember the Abbey, though it looked different then. I saw itthrough a cloud of falling snow. It was all faint and dim there. There weresoldiers in the streets, and it was bitter cold; and my father sat in thecoach with his elbows on his knees and his face hidden in his hands. Andwhen I spoke to him, and tried to pull his hands away--for I was afraid ofthat hidden face--he shook me off and groaned aloud. Oh, such a harrowinggroan! I should have thought him mad had I known what madness meant; but Iknow not what I thought. I remember only that I was frightened. And later, when I asked him why he was sorry, he said it was for the King. "

"Ay, poor King! We have all supped full of sorrow for his sake. We havecursed and hated his enemies, and drawn and quartered their vile carcases, and have dug them out of the darkness where the worms were eating them. Wehave been distraught with indignation, cruel in our fury; and I look backto-day, after fifteen years, and see but too clearly now that CharlesStuart's death lies at one man's door. "

"At Cromwell's? At Bradshaw's?"

"No, child; at his own. Cromwell would have never been heard of, save inHuntingdon Market-place, as a God-fearing yeoman, had Charles been strongand true. The King's weakness was Cromwell's opportunity. He dug his owngrave with false promises, with shilly-shally, with an inimitable talentfor always doing the wrong thing and choosing the wrong road. Open not sowide those reproachful eyes. Oh, I grant you, he was a noble king, a kingof kings to walk in a royal procession, to sit upon a daïs under a velvetand gold canopy, to receive ambassadors, and patronise foreign painters, and fulfil all that is splendid and stately in ideal kingship. He was anadoring husband--confiding to simplicity--a kind father, a fond friend, though never a firm one. "

"Oh, surely, surely you loved him?"

"Not as your father loved him, for I never suffered with him. It was thosewho sacrificed the most who loved him best, those who were with him to theend, long after common sense told them his cause was hopeless; indeed, Ibelieve my father knew as much at Nottingham, when that luckless standardwas blown down in the tempest. Those who starved for him, and lay outon barren moors through the cold English nights for him, and wore theirclothes threadbare and their shoes into holes for him, and left wife andchildren, and melted their silver and squandered their gold for him--thoseare the men who love his memory dearest, and for whose poor sakes we of theyounger generation must make believe to think him a saint and a martyr. "

"Oh, my lord, say not that you think him a bad man!"

"Bad! Nay, I believe that all his instincts were virtuous and honourable, and that--until the whirlwind of those latter days in which he scarce knewwhat he was doing--he meant fairly by his people, and had their welfare atheart. He might have done far better for himself and others had he been abrave bad man like Wentworth--audacious, unscrupulous, driving straightto a fixed goal. No, Angela, he was that which is worse for mankind--anobstinate, weak man. A bundle of impulses, some good and some evil; a manwho had many chances, and lost them all; who loved foolishly and too well, and let himself be ruled by a wife who could not rule herself. Blindimpulse, passionate folly were sailing the State ship through that sea oftroubles which could be crossed but by a navigator as politic, profound, and crafty as Richelieu or Mazarin. Who can wonder that the Royal Charleswent down?"

"It must seem strange to you, looking back from the Court, as Hyacinth'sletters have painted it--to that time of trouble?"

"Strange! I stand in the crowd at Whitehall sometimes, amidst their maskingand folly, their frolic schemes, their malice, their jeering wit andriotous merriment, and wonder whether it is all a dream, and I shall wakeand see the England of '44, the year Henrietta Maria vanished--a discrownedfugitive, from the scene where she had lived to do harm. I look along theperspective of painted faces and flowing hair, jewels, and gay colours, towards that window through which Charles I. Walked to his bloody death, suffered with a kingly grandeur that made the world forget all that waspoor and petty in his life; and I wonder does anyone else recall thatsuffering or reflect upon that doom. Not one! Each has his jest, and hismistress--the eyes he worships, the lips he adores. It is only the ruralPut that feels himself lost in the crowd whose thoughts turn sadly to thesad past. "

"Yet whatever your lordship may say----"

"Tush, child, I am no lordship to you! Call me brother, or Fareham;and never talk to me as if I were anything else than your brother inaffection. "

"It is sweet to hear you say so much, sir, " she answered gently. "I haveoften envied my companions at the Ursulines when they talked of theirbrothers. It was so strange to hear them tell of bickering and ill-willbetween brother and sister. Had God given me a brother, I would not quarrelwith him. "

"Nor shall thou quarrel with me, sweetheart; but we will be fast friendsalways. Do I not owe thee my life?"

"I will not hear you say so; it is blasphemy against your Creator, whorelented and spared you. "

"What! you think that Omnipotence, in the inaccessible mystery of Heaven, keeps the muster-roll of earth open before Him, and reckons each littlelife as it drops off the list? That is hardly my notion of Divinity. Isee the Almighty rather as the Roman poet saw Him--an inexorable Father, hurling the thunderbolt our folly has deserved from His red right hand, yetmerciful to stay that hand when we have taken our punishment meekly. That, Angela, is the nearest my mind can reach to the idea of a personal God. Butdo not bend those pencilled brows with such a sad perplexity. You know, doubtless, that I come of a Catholic family, and was bred in the old faith. Alas! I have conformed ill to Church discipline. I am no theologian, norquite an infidel, and should be as much at sea in an argument with Hobbesas with Bossuet. Trouble not thy gentle spirit for my sins of thought ordeed. Your tender care has given me time to repent all my errors. Youwere going to tell my lordship something, when I chid you for excess ofceremony--"

"Nay, sir--brother, I had but to say that this wicked Court, of which myfather and you have spoken so ill, can scarcely fail to be turned from itssins by so terrible a visitation. Those who have looked upon the city as Isaw it a week ago can scarce return with unchastened hearts to feasting anddancing and idle company. "

"But the beaux and belles of Whitehall have not seen the city as my bravegirl saw it, " cried Fareham. 

"They have not met the dead-cart, nor heard the groans of the dying, norseen the red cross upon the doors. They made off with the first rumour ofperil. The roads were crowded with their coaches, their saddle-horses, their furniture and finery; one could scarce command a post-horse for loveor money. 'A thousand less this week, ' says one. 'We may be going back totown and have the theatres open again in the cold weather. '"

They dined at the Crown, at Uxbridge, which was that "fair house at the endof the town" provided for the meeting of the late King's Commissioners withthe representatives of the Parliament in the year '44. Fareham showed hissister-in-law a spacious panelled parlour, which was that "fair room inthe middle of the house" that had been handsomely dressed up for theCommissioners to sit in. 

They pushed on to High Wycombe before night-fall, and supped _tête-à-tête_in the best room of the inn, with Fareham's faithful Manningtree to bringin the chief dish, and the people of the house to wait upon them. They werevery friendly and happy together, Fareham telling his companion much of hisadventurous life in France, and how in the first Fronde war he had been onthe side of Queen and Minister, and afterwards, for love and admiration ofCondé, had joined the party of the Princes. 

"Well, it was a time worth living in--a good education for the boy-king, Louis, for it showed him that the hereditary ruler of a great nation hassomething more to do than to be born, and to exist, and to spend money. "

Lord Fareham described the shining lights of that brilliant court with acaustic tongue; but he was more indulgent to the follies of the PalaisRoyal and the Louvre than he had been to the debaucheries of Whitehall. 

"There is a grace even in their vices, " he said. "Their wit is lighter, andthere is more mind in their follies. Our mirth is vulgar even when it isnot bestial. I know of no Parisian adventure so degrading as certain pranksof Buckhurst's, which I would not dare mention in your hearing. We imitatethem, and out-herod Herod, but we are never like them. We send to Paris forour clothes, and borrow their newest words--for they are ever inventingsome cant phrase to startle dulness--and we make our language a foreignfarrago. Why, here is even plain John Evelyn, that most pious of pedants, pleading for the enlistment of a troop of Gallic substantives andadjectives to eke out our native English!"

Fareham told Angela much of his past life during the freedom of that long_tête-à-tête_, talking to her as if she had indeed been a young sister fromwhom he had been separated since her childhood. That mild, pensive mannerpromised sympathy and understanding, and he unconsciously inclined toconfide his thoughts and opinions to her, as well as the history of hisyouth. 

He had fought at Edgehill as a lad of thirteen, had been with the King atBeverley, York, and Nottingham, and had only left the Court to accompanythe Prince of Wales to Jersey, and afterwards to Paris. 

"I soon sickened of a Court life and its petty plots and parlourintrigues, " he told Angela, "and was glad to join Condé's army, where myfather's influence got me a captaincy before I was eighteen. To fight undersuch a leader as that was to serve under the god of war. I can imagine Marshimself no grander soldier. Oh, my dear, what a man! Nay, I will not callhim by that common name. He was something more or less than man--of anotherspecies. In the thick of the fight a lion; in his dominion over armies, in his calmness amidst danger, a god. Shall I ever see it again, Iwonder--that vulture face, those eyes that flashed Jove's red lightning?"

"Your own face changes when you speak of him, " said Angela, awe-strickenat that fierce energy which heroic memories evoked in Fareham's wastedcountenance. 

"Nay, you should have seen the change in _his_ face when he flung off thecourtier for the captain. His whole being was transformed. Those who knewCondé at St. Germain, at the Hôtel de Rambouillet, at the Palais Royal, knew not the measure or the might of that great nature. He was born toconquer. But you must not think that with him victory meant brute force. Itmeant thought and patience, the power to foresee and to combine, therapid apprehension of opposing circumstances, the just measure of his ownmaterials. A strict disciplinarian, a severe master, but willing to work atthe lowest details, the humblest offices of war. A soldier, did I say? Hewas the Genius of modern warfare. "

"You talk as if you loved him dearly. "

"I loved him as I shall never love any other man. He was my friend aswell as my General. But I claim no merit in loving one whom all the worldhonoured. Could you have seen princes and nobles, as I saw them when Iwas a boy at Paris, standing on chairs, on tables, kneeling, to drink hishealth! A demi-god could have received no more fervent adulation. Alas!sister, I look back at those years of foreign service and know they werethe best of my life!"

They started early next morning, and were within half a dozen miles ofOxford before the sun was low. They drove by a level road that skirted theriver; and now, for the first time, Angela saw that river flowing placidlythrough a rural landscape, the rich green of marshy meadows in theforeground, and low wooded hills on the opposite bank, while midway acrossthe stream an islet covered with reed and willow cast a shadow over therosy water painted by the western sun. 

"Are we near them now?" she asked eagerly, knowing that herbrother-in-law's mansion lay within a few miles of Oxford. 

"We are very near, " answered Fareham; "I can see the chimneys, and thewhite stone pillars of the great gate. "

He had his head out of the carriage, looking sunward, shading his eyes withhis big doe-skin gauntlet as he looked. Those two days on the road, thefresh autumn air, the generous diet, the variety and movement of thejourney, had made a new man of him. Lean and gaunt he must needs be forsome time to come; but the dark face was no longer bloodless; the eyes hadthe fire of health. 

"I see the gate--and there is more than that in view!" he cried excitedly. "Your sister is coming in a troop to meet us, with her children, andvisitors, and servants. Stop the coach, Manningtree, and let us out. "

The post-boys pulled up their horses, and the steward opened the coachdoor and assisted his master to alight. Fareham's footsteps were somewhatuncertain as he walked slowly along the waste grass by the roadside, leaning a little upon Angela's shoulder. 

Lady Fareham came running towards them in advance of children and friends, an airy figure in blue and white, her fair hair flying in the wind, herarms stretched out as if to greet them from afar. She clasped her sister toher breast even before she saluted her husband, clasped her and kissed her, laughing between the kisses. 

"Welcome, my escaped nun!" she cried. "I never thought they would let theeout of thy prison, or that thou wouldst muster courage to break thy bonds. Welcome, and a hundred times, welcome. And that thou shouldst have nursedand tended my ailing lord! Oh, the wonder of it! While I, within a hundredmiles of him, knew not that he was ill, here didst thou come across seas tosave him! Why, 'tis a modern fairy tale. "

"And she is the good fairy, " said Fareham, taking his wife's face betweenhis two hands and bending down to kiss the white forehead under its cloudof pale golden curls, "and you must cherish her for all the rest of yourlife. But for her I should have died alone in that great gaudy house, andthe rats would have eaten me, and then perhaps you would have cared nolonger for the mansion, and would have had to build another further west, by my Lord Clarendon's, where all the fine folks are going--and that wouldhave been a pity. "

"Oh, Fareham, do not begin with thy irony-stop! I know all your organtones, from the tenor of your kindness to the bourdon of your displeasure. Do you think I am not glad to have you here safe and sound? Do you think Ihave not been miserable about you since I knew of your sickness? Monsieurde Malfort will tell you whether I have been unhappy or not. "

"Why, Malfort! What wind blew you hither at this perilous season, whenEnglishmen are going abroad for fear of the pestilence, and when yourfriend St Evremond has fled from the beauties of Oxford to the malodoroussewers and fusty fraus of the Netherlands?"

"I had no fear of the contagion, and I wanted to see my friends. I am inlodgings in Oxford, where there is almost as much good company as thereever was at Whitehall. "

The Comte de Malfort and Fareham clasped hands with a cordiality whichbespoke old friendship; and it was only an instinctive recoil on the partof the Englishman which spared him his friend's kisses. They had lived incamps and in courts together, these two, and had much in common, and muchthat was antagonistic, in temperament and habits, Malfort being lazy andluxurious, when no fighting was on hand; a man whose one business, when notunder canvas, was to surpass everybody else in the fashion and folly ofthe hour, to be quite the finest gentleman in whatever company he foundhimself. 

He was a godson and favourite of Madame de Montrond, who had numbered hisfather among the army of her devoted admirers. He had been Hyacinth'splayfellow and slave in her early girlhood, and had been _l'ami de lamaison_ in those brilliant years of the young King's reign, when theFarehams were living in the Marais. To him had been permitted allprivileges that a being as harmless and innocent as he was polished andelegant might be allowed, by a husband who had too much confidence in hiswife's virtue, and too good an opinion of his own merits to be easilyjealous. Nor was Henri de Malfort a man to provoke jealousy by any superiorgifts of mind or person. Nature had not been especially kind to him. Hisfeatures were insignificant, his eyes pale, and he had not escaped thatscourge of the seventeenth century, the small-pox. His pale and clearcomplexion was but slightly pitted, however, and his eyelids hadnot suffered. Men were inclined to call him ugly; women thought himinteresting. His frame was badly built from the athlete's point of view;but it had the suppleness which makes the graceful dancer, and was anelegant scaffolding on which to hang the picturesque costume of the day. For the rest, all that he was he had made himself, during those eighteenyears of intelligent self-culture, which had been his engrossing occupationsince his fifteenth birthday, when he determined to be one of the finestgentlemen of his epoch. 

A fine gentleman at the Court of Louis had to be something more than afigure steeped in perfumes and hung with ribbons. His red-heeled shoes, hisperiwig and cannon sleeves, were indispensable to fashion, but notenough for fame. The favoured guest of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and ofMademoiselle de Scudèry's "Saturdays, " must have wit and learning, or atleast that capacity for smart speech and pedantic allusion which might passcurrent for both in a society where the critics were chiefly feminine. Henri de Malfort had graduated in a college of blue-stockings. He had grownup in an atmosphere of gunpowder and _bouts rimés_. He had stormed thebreach at sieges where the assault was led off by a company of violins, in the Spanish fashion. He had fought with distinction under the finestsoldiers in Europe, and had seen some of his dearest friends expire at hisside. 

Unlike Gramont and St. Évremond, he was still in the floodtide of royalfavour in his own country; and it seemed a curious caprice that had led himto follow those gentlemen to England, to shine in a duller society, andsparkle at a less magnificent court. 

The children hung upon their father, Papillon on one side, Cupid on theother, and it was in them rather than in her sister's friend that Angelawas interested. The girl resembled her mother only in the grace andflexibility of her slender form, the quickness of her movements, and thevivacity of her speech. Her hair and eyes were dark, like her father's, andher colouring was that of a brunette, with something of a pale bronze underthe delicate carmine of her cheeks. The boy favoured his mother, and wasworthy of the sobriquet Rochester had bestowed upon him. His blue eyes, chubby cheeks, cherry lips, and golden hair were like the typical Cupidof Rubens, and might be seen repeated _ad libitum_ on the ceiling of theBanqueting House. 

"I'll warrant this is all flummery, " said Fareham, looking down at the girlas she hung upon him. "Thou art not glad to see me. "

"I am so glad that I could eat you, as the Giant would have eaten Jack, "answered the girl, leaping up to kiss him, her hair flying back like adark cloud, her nimble legs struggling for freedom in her long brocadepetticoat. 

"And you are not afraid of the contagion?"

"Afraid! Why, I wanted mother to take me to you as soon as I heard you wereill. "

"Well, I have been smoke-dried and pickled in strong waters, until Dr. Hodgkin accounts me safe, or I would not come nigh thee. See, sweetheart, this is your aunt, whom you are to love next best to your mother. "

"But not so well as you, sir. You are first, " said the child, and thenturned to Angela and held up her rosebud mouth to be kissed. "You saved myfather's life, " she said. "If you ever want anybody to die for you let itbe me. "

"Gud! what a delicate wit! The sweet child is positively _tuant_, "exclaimed a young lady, who was strolling beside them, and whom LadyFareham had not taken the trouble to introduce by name to any one, but whowas now accounted for as a country neighbour, Mrs. Dorothy Lettsome. 

Angela was watching her brother-in-law as they sauntered along, and she sawthat the fatigue and agitation of this meeting were beginning to affecthim. He was carrying his hat in one hand, while the other caressedPapillon. There were beads of perspiration on his forehead, and hisfootsteps began to drag a little. Happily the coach had kept a few paces intheir rear, and Manningtree was walking beside it; so Angela proposed thathis lordship should resume his seat in the vehicle and drive on to hishouse, while she went on foot with her sister. 

"I must go with his lordship, " cried Papillon, and leapt into the coachbefore her father. 

Hyacinth put her arm through Angela's, and led her slowly along the grassywalk to the great gates, the Frenchman and Mrs. Lettsome following; andunversed as the convent-bred girl was in the ways of this particular world, she could nevertheless perceive that in the conversation between these two, M. De Malfort was amusing himself at the expense of his fair companion. Hisown English was by no means despicable, as he had spent more than a year, at the Embassy immediately after the Restoration, to say nothing of hisconstant intercourse with the Farehams and other English exiles in France;but he was encouraging the young lady to talk to him in French, which wasspoken with an affected drawl, that was even more ridiculous than itserrors in grammar. 

CHAPTER VII. 

AT THE TOP OF THE FASHION. 

Nothing could have been more cordial than Lady Fareham's welcome to hersister, nor were it easy to imagine a life more delightful than that atChilton Abbey in that autumnal season, when every stage of the decayingyear clothed itself with a variety and brilliancy of colouring which maderuin beautiful, and disguised the approach of winter, as a court harridanmight hide age and wrinkles under a yellow satin mask and flame-coloureddomino. The Abbey was one of those capacious, irregular buildings in whichall that a house was in the past and all that it is in the present arecomposed into a harmonious whole, and in which past and present are socunningly interwoven that it would have been difficult for any one but anarchitect to distinguish where the improvements and additions of yesterdaywere grafted on to the masonry of the fourteenth century. Here, where thespacious plate-room and pantry began, there were walls massive enough forthe immuring of refractory nuns; and this corkscrew Jacobean staircase, which wound with carved balusters up to the garret story, had itsfoundations in a flight of Cyclopean stone steps that descended to thecellars, where the monks kept their strong liquors and brewed their beer. Half of my lady's drawing-room had been the refectory, and the longdining-parlour still showed the groined roof of an ancient cloister; whilethe music-room, into which it opened, had been designed by Inigo Jones, andbuilt by the last Lord Fareham. All that there is of the romantic in thiskind of architectural patchwork had been enhanced by the collection of oldfurniture that the present possessors of the Abbey had imported from LadyFareham's château in Normandy, and which was more interesting though lesssplendid than the furniture of Fareham's town mansion, as it was the resultof gradual accumulation in the Montrond family, or of purchase from thewreck of noble houses, ruined in the civil war which had distracted Francebefore the reign of the Béarnais. 

To Angela the change from an enclosed convent to such a house as ChiltonAbbey, was a change that filled all her days with wonder. The splendour, the air of careless luxury that pervaded her sister's house, and suggestedcostliness and waste in every detail, could but be distressing to the pupilof Flemish nuns, who had seen even the trenchers scraped to make soup forthe poor, and every morsel of bread garnered as if it were gold dust. Fromthat sparse fare of the convent to this Rabelaisian plenty, this plethoraof meat and poultry, huge game pies and elaborate confectionery, thisperpetual too much of everything, was a transition that startled andshocked her. She heard with wonder of the numerous dinner tables that werespread every day at Chilton. Mr. Manningtree's table, at which the RomanPriest from Oxford dined, except on those rare occasions when he wasinvited to sit down with the quality; and Mrs. Hubbock's table, where thesuperior servants dined, and at which Henriette's dancing-master consideredit a privilege to over-eat himself; and the two great tables in theservants' hall, twenty at each table; and the _gouvernante_, Mrs. PriscillaGoodman's table in the blue parlour upstairs, at which my lady's Englishand French waiting-women, and my lord's gentlemen ate, and at whichHenriette and her brother were supposed to take their meals, but where theyseldom appeared, usually claiming the right to eat with their parents. Shewondered as she heard of the fine-drawn distinctions among that rabble ofservants, the upper ranks of whom were supplied by the small gentry--ofservants who waited upon servants, and again other servants who waited onthose, down to that lowest stratum of kitchen sluts and turnspits, whoactually made their own beds and scraped their own trenchers. Everywherethere was lavish expenditure--everywhere the abundance which, among thatuneducated and unthoughtful class, ever degenerates into wanton waste. 

It sickened Angela to see the long dining-table loaded, day after day, withdishes that were many of them left untouched amidst the superabundance, while the massive Cromwellian sideboard seemed to need all the thicknessof its gouty legs to sustain the "regalia" of hams and tongues, pasties, salads and jellies. And all this time _The Weekly Gazette_ from Londontold of the unexampled distress in that afflicted city, which was but thenatural result of an epidemic that had driven all the well-to-do away, andleft neither trade nor employment for the lower classes. 

"What becomes of that mountain of food?" Angela asked her sister, afterher second dinner at Chilton, by which time she and Hyacinth had becomefamiliar and at ease with each other. "Is it given to the poor?"

"Some of it, perhaps, love; but I'll warrant that most of it is eaten inthe offices--with many a handsome sirloin and haunch to boot. "

"Oh, sister, it is dreadful to think of such a troop! I am always meetingstrange faces. How many servants have you?"

"I have never reckoned them. Manningtree knows, no doubt; for his wagesbook would tell him. I take it there may be more than fifty, and less thana hundred. Anyhow, we could not exist were they fewer. "

"More than fifty people to wait upon four!"

"For our state and importance, _chérie_. We are very ill-waited upon. Inearly died last week before I could get any one to bring me my afternoonchocolate. The men had all rushed off to a bull-baiting, and the womenwere romping or fighting in the laundry, except my own women, who are toogenteel to play with the under-servants, and had taken a holiday to go andsee a tragedy at Oxford. I found myself in a deserted house. I might havebeen burnt alive, or have expired in a fit, for aught any of those over-feddevils cared. "

"But could they not be better regulated?"

"They are, when Manningtree is at home. He has them all under his thumb. "

"And he is an honest, conscientious man?"

"Who knows? I dare say he robs us, and takes a _pot de vin_ wherever 'tisoffered. But it is better to be robbed by one than by an army; and ifManningtree keeps others from cheating he is worth his wages. "

"And you, dear Hyacinth. Do you keep no accounts?"

"Keep accounts! Why, my dearest simpleton, did you ever hear of a woman ofquality keeping accounts--unless it were some lunatic universal genius likeher Grace of Newcastle, who rises in the middle of the night to scribbleverses, and who might do anything preposterous. Keep accounts! Why, if youwas to tell me that two and two make five I couldn't controvert you, frommy own knowledge. "

"It all seems so strange to me, " murmured Angela. 

"My aunt supervised all the expenditure of the convent, and was unhappy ifshe discovered waste in the smallest item. "

"Unhappy! Yes, my dear innocent. And do you think if I was to investigatethe cost of kitchen and cellar, and calculate how many pounds of meat eachof our tall lackeys consumes per diem, I should not speedily be plaguedinto grey hairs and wrinkles? I hope we are rich enough to support theirwastefulness. And if we are not--why, _vogue la galère_--when we are ruinedthe King must do something for Fareham--make him Lord Chancellor. HisMajesty is mighty sick of poor old Clarendon and his lectures. Fareham hasa long head, and would do as well as anybody else for Chancellor if hewould but show himself at Court oftener, and conform to the fashion of thetime, instead of holding himself aloof, with a Puritanical disdain foramusements and people that please his betters. He has taken a leaf out ofLord Southampton's book, and would not allow me to return a visit LadyCastlemaine paid me the other day, in the utmost friendliness: and toslight her is the quickest way to offend his Majesty. "

"But, sister, you would not consort with an infamous woman?"

"Infamous! Who told you she is infamous? Your innocency should be ignorantof such trumpery tittle-tattle. And one can be civil without consorting, asyou call it. "

Angela took her sister's reckless speech for mere sportiveness. Hyacinthmight be careless and ignorant of business, but his lordship doubtless knewthe extent of his income, and was too grave and experienced a personage tobe a spendthrift. He had confessed to seven and thirty, which to the girlof twenty seemed serious middle-age. 

There were musicians in her ladyship's household--youths who playedlute and viol, and sang the dainty, meaningless songs of the latestballad-mongers very prettily. The warm weather, which had a bad effectupon the bills of mortality, was so far advantageous that it allowed thesegentlemen to sing in the garden while the family were at supper, or onthe river while the family were taking their evening airing. Their newestperformance was an arrangement of Lord Dorset's lines--"To all you ladiesnow on land, " set as a round. There could scarcely be anything prettierthan the dying fall of the refrain that ended every verse:--

 "With a fa, la, la, Perhaps permit some happier man To kiss your hand or flirt your fan, With a fa, la, la. "

The last lines died away in the distance of the moonlit garden, as thesingers slowly retired, while Henri de Malfort illustrated that finalcouplet with Hyacinth's fan, as he sat beside her. 

"Music, and moonlight, and a garden. You might fancy yourself amidst thegrottoes and terraces of St. Germain. "

"I note that whenever there is anything meritorious in our English lifeMalfort is reminded of France, and when he discovers any obnoxious featurein our manners or habits he expatiates on the vast difference between thetwo nations, " said his lordship. 

"Dear Fareham, I am a human being. When I am in England I remember all Iloved in my own country. I must return to it before I shall understand theworth of all I leave here--and the understanding may be bitter. Call yoursingers back, and let us have those two last verses again. 'Tis a finetune, and your fellows perform it with sweetness and brio. "

The song was new. The victory which it celebrated was fresh in the mindsof men. The disgrace of later Dutch experiences--the ships in the Noreravaging and insulting--was yet to come. England still believed herfloating castles invincible. 

To Angela's mind the life at Chilton was full of change and joyousexpectancy. No hour of the day but offered some variety of recreation, frombattledore and shuttlecock in the _plaisance_ to long days with the houndsor the hawks. Angela learnt to ride in less than a month, instructed by thestud-groom, a gentleman of considerable importance in the household; an oldcampaigner, who had groomed Fareham's horses after many a battle, andmany a skirmish, and had suffered scant food and rough quarters withoutmurmuring; and also with considerable assistance and counsel from LordFareham, and occasional lectures from Papillon, who was a Diana at tenyears old, and rode with her father in the first flight. Angela was soonequal to accompanying her sister in the hunting-field, for Hyacinth likedfollowing the chase after the French rather than the English fashion, affecting no ruder sport than to wait at an opening of the wood, or onthe crest of a common, to see hounds and riders sweep by; or, favouredby chance now and then, to signal the villain's whereabouts by a lacehandkerchief waved high above her head. This was how a beautiful lady whohad hunted in the forests of St. Germain and Fontainebleau understoodsport; and such performances as this Angela found easy and agreeable. Theyhad many cavaliers who came to talk with them for a few minutes, to tellthem what was doing or not doing yonder where the hounds were hidden inthicket or coppice; but Henri de Malfort was their most constant attendant. He rarely left them, and dawdled through the earlier half of an Octoberday, walking his horse from point to point, or dismounting at shelteredcorners to stand and talk at Lady Fareham's side, with a patience that madeAngela wonder at the contrast between English headlong eagerness, crashingand splashing through hedge and brook, and French indifference. 

"I have not Fareham's passion for mud, " he explained to her, when sheremarked upon his lack of interest in the chase, even when the music of thehounds was ringing through wood and valley, now close beside them, anondiminishing in the distance, thin in the thin air. "If he comes not homeat dark plastered with mire from boots to eyebrows he will cry, likeAlexander, 'I have lost a day. '"

Partridge-hawking in the wide fields between Chilton and Nettlebed was moreto Malfort's taste, and it was a sport for which Lady Fareham expressed acertain enthusiasm, and for which she attired herself to the perfection ofpicturesque costume. Her hunting-coats were marvels of embroidery on atlasand smooth cloth; but her smartest velvet and brocade she kept for thesunny mornings, when, with hooded peregrine on wrist, she sallied forthintent on slaughter, Angela, Papillon, and De Malfort for her _cortége_, aneasy-paced horse to amble over the grass with her, and the Dutch falconerto tell her the right moment at which to slip her falcon's hood. 

The nuns at the Ursuline Convent would scarcely have recognised theirquondam pupil in the girl on the grey palfrey, whose hair flew loose undera beaver hat, mingling its tresses with the long ostrich plume, whosetrimly fitting jacket had a masculine air which only accentuated thewomanliness of the fair face above it, and whose complexion, somewhat toocolourless within the convent walls, now glowed with a carnation thatbrightened and darkened the large grey eyes into new beauty. 

That open-air life was a revelation to the cloister-bred girl. Could thisearth hold greater bliss than to roam at large over spacious gardens, to cross the river, sculling her boat with strong hands, with her nieceHenriette, otherwise Papillon, sitting in the stern to steer, and screaminstructions to the novice in navigation; and then to lose themselves inthe woods on the further shore, to wander in a labyrinth of reddeningbeeches, and oaks on which the thick foliage still kept its dusky green; toemerge upon open lawns where the pale gold birches looked like fairy trees, and where amber and crimson toadstools shone like jewels on the skirts ofthe dense undergrowth of holly and hawthorn? The liberty of it all, thedelicious feeling of freedom, the release from convent rules and conventhours, bells ringing for chapel, bells ringing for meals, bells ringingto mark the end of the brief recreation--a perpetual ringing and drillingwhich had made conventual life a dull machine, working always in the samegrooves. 

Oh, this liberty, this variety, this beauty in all things around and abouther! How the young glad soul, newly escaped from prison, revelled andexpatiated in its freedom! Papillon, who at ten years old, had skimmedthe cream off all the simple pleasures, appointed herself her aunt'sinstructress in most things, and taught her to row, with some help fromLord Fareham, who was an expert waterman; and, at the same time, triedto teach her to despise the country, and all rustic pleasures, excepthunting--although in her inmost heart the minx preferred the liberty ofOxfordshire woods to the splendour of Fareham House, where she was coopedin a nursery with her _gouvernante_ for the greater part of her time, andwas only exhibited like a doll to her mother's fine company, or seated upona cushion to tinkle a saraband and display her precocious talent on theguitar, which she played almost as badly as Lady Fareham herself, at whosefeeble endeavours even the courteous De Malfort laughed. 

Never was sister kinder than Hyacinth, impelled by that impulsive sweetnesswhich was her chief characteristic, and also, it might be, moved to lavishgenerosity by some scruples of conscience with regard to her grandmother'swill. Her first business was to send for the best milliner in Oxford, aLondon Madam who had followed her court customers to the university town, and to order everything that was beautiful and seemly for a young person ofquality. 

"I implore you not to make me too fine, dearest, " pleaded Angela, who wasmore horrified at the milliner's painted face and exuberant figure thancharmed by the contents of the baskets which she had brought with her inthe spacious leather coach--velvets and brocades, hoods and gloves, silkstockings, fans, perfumes and pulvilios, sweet-bags and scented boxes--allof which the woman spread out upon Lady Fareham's embroidered satin bed, for the young lady's admiration. "I pray you remember that I am accustomedto have only two gowns--a black and a grey. You will make me afraid of myimage in the glass if you dress me like--like--"

She glanced from her sister's _décolleté_ bodice to the far more appallingcharms of the milliner, which a gauze kerchief rather emphasised thanconcealed, and could find no proper conclusion for her sentence. 

"Nay, sweetheart, let not thy modesty take fright. Thou shalt be clad asdemurely as the nun thou hast escaped being--

 'And sable stole of Cyprus lawn Over thy decent shoulders drawn. '

We will have no blacks, but as much decency as you choose. You will markthe distinction between my sister and your maids of honour, Mrs. Lewin. Sheis but a _débutante_ in our modish world, and must be dressed as modestlyas you can contrive, to be consistent with the fashion. "

"Oh, my lady, I catch your ladyship's meaning, and your ladyship'sinstructions shall be carried out as far as can be without making a savageof the young lady. I know what some young ladies are when they first cometo Court. I had fuss enough with Miss Hamilton before I could persuade herto have her bodice cut like a Christian. And even the beautiful Miss Brookswere all for high tuckers and modesty-pieces when I began to make for them;but they soon came round. And now with my Lady Denham it is always, 'Gud, Lewin, do you call that the right cut for a bosom? Udsbud, woman, youhaven't made the curve half deep enough. ' And with my Lady Chesterfield itis, 'Sure, if they say my legs are thick and ugly, I'll let them know myshoulders are worth looking at. Give me your scissors, creature, ' and thenwith her own delicate hand she will scoop me a good inch off the satin, till I am fit to swoon at seeing the cold steel against her milk-whiteflesh. "

Mrs. Lewin talked with but little interruption for the best part of an hourwhile measuring her new customer, showing her pattern-book, and exhibitingthe ready-made wares she had brought, the greater number of which Hyacinthinsisted on buying for Angela--who was horrified at the slanderousinnuendoes that dropped in casual abundance from the painted lips of themilliner; horrified, too, that her sister could loll back in her armchairand laugh at the woman's coarse and malignant talk. 

"Indeed, sister, you are far too generous, and you have overpowered me withgifts, " she said, when the milliner had curtsied herself out of the room;"for I fear my own income will never pay for all these costly things. Threepounds, I think she said, was the price of the Mazarine hood alone--andthere are stockings and gloves innumerable. "

"Mon Ange, while you are with me your own income is but for charitiesand vails. I will have it spent for nothing else. You know how rich theMarquise has made me--while I believe Fareham is a kind of modern Croesus, though we do not boast of his wealth, for all that is most substantialin his fortune comes from his mother, whose father was a great merchanttrading with Spain and the Indies, all through James's reign, and luckierin the hunt for gold than poor Raleigh. Never must you talk to me ofobligation. Are we not sisters, and was it not a mere accident that made methe elder, and Madame de Montrond's _protegée_?"

"I have no words to thank you for so much kindness. I will only say I am sohappy here that I could never have believed there was such full content onthis sinful earth. "

"Wait till we are in London, Angélique. Here we endure existence. It isonly in London that we live. "

"Nay, I believe the country will always please me better than the town. But, sister, do you not hate that Mrs. Lewin--that horrid painted face andevil tongue?"

"My dearest child, one hates a milliner for the spoiling of a bodice or theill cut of a sleeve--not for her character. I believe Mrs. Lewin's is amongthe worst, and that she has had as many intrigues as Lady Castlemaine. Asfor her painting, doubtless she does that to remind her customers that shesells alabaster powder and ceruse. "

"Nay, if she wants to disgust them with painted faces she has but to showher own. "

"I grant she lays the stuff on badly. I hope, if I live to have as manywrinkles, I shall fill them better than she does. Yet who can tell what ahideous toad she might be in her natural skin? It may be Christian charitythat induces her to paint, and so to spare us the sight of a monster. She will make thee a beauty, Ange, be sure of that. For satin or velvet, birthday or gala gowns, nobody can beat her. The wretch has hadthousands of my money, so I ought to know. But for thy riding-habit andhawking-jacket we want the firmer grip of a man's hand. Those must be madeby Roget. "

"A Frenchman?"

"Yes, child. One only accepts British workmanship when a Parisian artist isnot to be had. Clever as Lewin is, if I want to eclipse my dearest enemyon any special occasion I send Manningtree across the Channel, or ask DeMalfort to let his valet--who spends his life in transit like a king'smessenger--bring me the latest confection from the Rue de Richelieu. "

"What infinite trouble about a gown--and for you who would look lovely inanything!"

"Tush, child! You have never seen me in 'anything. ' If ever you shouldsurprise me in an ill gown you will see how much the feathers make thebird. Poets and play-wrights may pretend to believe that we need noembellishment from art; but the very men who write all that romanticnonsense are the first to court a well-dressed woman. And there are few ofthem who could calculate with any exactness the relation of beauty to itssurroundings. That is why women go deep into debt to their milliners, and would sooner be dead in well-made graveclothes than alive in anold-fashioned mantua. "

Angela could not be in her sister's company for a month without discoveringthat Lady Fareham's whole life was given up to the worship of the trivial. She was kind, she was amiable, generous, even to recklessness. She wasnot irreligious, heard Mass and went to confession as often as the hardconditions of an alien and jealously treated Church would allow, had neverdisputed the truth of any tenet that was taught her--but of serious views, of an earnest consideration of life and death, husband and children, Hyacinth Fareham was as incapable as her ten-year-old daughter. Indeed, itsometimes seemed to Angela that the child had broader and deeper thoughtsthan the mother, and saw her surroundings with a shrewder and clearer eye, despite the natural frivolity of childhood, and the exuberance of a finephysique. 

It was not for the younger sister to teach the elder, nor did Angela deemherself capable of teaching. Her nature was thoughtful and earnest: but shelacked that experience of life which can alone give the thinker a broadand philosophic view of other people's conduct. She was still far from thestage of existence in which to understand all is to pardon all. 

She beheld the life about her with wonder and bewilderment. It was sopleasant, so full of beauty and variety; yet things were said and done thatshocked her. There was nothing in her sister's own behaviour to alarm hermodesty; but to hear her sister talk of other women's conduct outraged allher ideas of decency and virtue. If there were really such wickedness inthe world, women so shameless and vile, was it right that good women shouldknow of them, that pure lips should speak of their iniquity?

She was still more shocked when Hyacinth talked of Lady Castlemaine with agood-humoured indulgence. 

"There is something fine about her, " Lady Fareham said one day, "in spiteof her tempers and pranks. "

"What!" cried Angela, aghast, having thought these creatures unrecognisedby any honest woman, "do you know her--that Lady Castlemaine of whom youhave told me such dreadful things?"

"C'est vrai. J'en ai dit des raides. Mon Ange, in town one must needs knoweverybody, though I doubt that after not returning her visit t'other day, Ishall be in her black books, and in somebody else's. She has never been oneof my intimates. If I were often at Whitehall, I should have to be friendswith her. But Fareham is jealous of Court influences; and I am only allowedto appear on gala nights--perhaps not a half-dozen times in a season. Thereis a distinction in not showing one's self often; but it is provoking tohear of the frolics and jollities which go on every day and every night, and from which I am banished. It mattered little while the Queen-motherwas at Somerset House, for her Court ranked higher--and was certainly morerefined in its splendour--than her son's ragamuffin herd. But now she isgone, I shall miss our intellectual _milieu_, and wish myself in the RueSt. Thomas du Louvre, where the Hôtel du Rambouillet, even in its decline, offers a finer style of company than anything you will see in England. "

"Sister, I fear you left half your heart in France. "

"Nay, sweet; perhaps some of it has followed me, " answered Hyacinth, witha blush and an enigmatic smile. "_Peste_! I am not a woman to make a fussabout hearts! There is not a grain of tragedy in my composition. I am likethat girl in the play we saw at Oxford t'other day. Fletcher's was it, orShakespeare's? 'A star danced, and under that was I born. ' Yes, I was bornunder a dancing star; and I shall never break my heart--for love. "

"But you regret Paris?"

"_Hélas_! Paris means my girlhood; and were you to take me back thereto-morrow you could not make me seventeen again--and so where's the use? Ishould see wrinkles in the faces of my friends; and should know that theywere seeing the same ugly lines in mine. Indeed, Ange, I think it is myyouth I sigh for rather than the friends I lived with. They were such merrydays: battles and sieges in the provinces, parliaments disputing here andthere; Condé in and out of prison--now the King's loyal servant, now inarms against him; swords clashing, cannon roaring under our very windows;alarm bells pealing, cries of fire, barricades in the streets; and amidstit all, lute and theorbo, _bouts rimés_ and madrigals, dancing andplay-acting, and foolish practical jests! One could not take the smalleststep in life but one of the wits would make a song about it. Oh, it was aboisterous time! And we were all mad, I think; so lightly did we reckonlife and death, even when the cannon slew some of our noblest, and thefinest saloons were hung with black. You have done less than live, Angélique, not to have lived in that time. "

Hyacinth loved to ring the changes on her sister's name. Angela was tooEnglish, and sounded too much like the name of a nun; but Angéliquesuggested one of the most enchanting personalities in that brilliantcircle on which Lady Fareham so often rhapsodised. This was the beautifulAngélique Paulet, whose father invented the tax called by his name, LaPaulette--a financial measure, which was the main cause of the first Frondewar. 

"I only knew her when she was between fifty and sixty, " said Lady Fareham, "but she hardly looked forty; and she was still handsome, in spite of herred hair. _Trop doré_, her admirers called it; but, my love, it was as redas that scullion's we saw in the poultry yard yesterday. She was a reigningbeauty at three Courts, and had a crowd of adorers when she was onlyfourteen. Ah, Papillon, you may open your eyes! What will you be atfourteen? Still playing with your babies, or mad about your shock dogs, Idare swear!"

"I gave my babies to the housekeeper's grand-daughter last year, " saidPapillon, much offended, "when father gave me the peregrine. I only carefor live things now I am old. "

"And at fourteen thou wilt be an awkward, long-legged wench that willfrighten away all my admirers, yet not be worth the trouble of a complimenton thine own account. "

"I want no such stuff!" cried Papillon. "Do you think I would like a Frenchfop always at my elbow as Monsieur de Malfort is ever at yours? I lovehunting and hawking, and a man that can ride, and shoot, and row, andfight, like father or Sir Denzil Warner--not a man who thinks more of hisribbons and periwig and cannon-sleeves than of killing his fox or flyinghis falcon. "

"Oh, you are beginning to have opinions!" sighed Hyacinth. "I am indeed anold woman! Go and find yourself something to play with, alive or dead. Youare vastly too clever for my company. "

"I'll go and saddle Brownie. Will you come for a ride, Aunt Angy?"

"Yes, dear, if her ladyship does not want me at home. "

"Her ladyship knows your heart is in the fields and woods. Yes, sweetheart, saddle your pony, and order your aunt's horse and a pair of grooms to takecare of you. "

The child ran off rejoicing. 

"Precocious little devil! She will pick up all our jargon before she is inher teens. "

"Dear sister, if you talk so indiscreetly before her----"

"Indiscreet! Am I really so indiscreet? That is Fareham's word. I believeI was born so. But I was telling you about your namesake, MademoisellePaulet. She began to reign when Henri was king, and no doubt he was one ofher most ardent admirers. Don't look frightened! She was always a model ofvirtue. Mademoiselle Scudèry has devoted pages to painting her perfectionsunder an Oriental alias. She sang, she danced, she talked divinely. She dideverything better than everybody else. Priests and Bishops praised her. Andafter changes and losses and troubles, she died far from Paris, a spinster, nearly sixty years old. It was a paltry finish to a life that began in ablaze of glory. "

CHAPTER VIII. 

SUPERIOR TO FASHION. 

At Oxford Angela was so happy as to be presented to Catharine of Braganza, a little dark woman, whose attire still bore some traces of its originalPortuguese heaviness; such a dress--clumsy, ugly, infinitely rich andexpensive--as one sees in old portraits of Spanish and Netherlandishmatrons, in which every elaborate detail of the costly fabric seems to havebeen devised in the research of ugliness. She saw the King also; met himcasually--she walking with her brother-in-law, while Lady Fareham and herfriends ran from shop to shop in the High Street--in Magdalen Collegegrounds, a group of beauties and a family of spaniels fawning upon him ashe sauntered slowly, or stopped to feed the swans that swam close bythe bank, keeping pace with him, and stretching long necks in greedysolicitation. 

The loveliest woman Angela had ever seen--tall, built like agoddess--walked on the King's right hand. She carried a heap of brokenbread in the satin petticoat which she held up over one white arm, whilewith her other hand she gave the pieces one by one to the King. Angelasaw that as each hunch changed hands the royal fingers touched the lady'stapering finger-tips and tried to detain them. 

Fareham took off his hat, bowed low in a grave and stately salutation, andpassed on; but Charles called him back. 

"Nay, Fareham, has the world grown so dull that you have nothing to tell usthis November morning?"

"Indeed, sir, I fear that my riverside hermitage can afford very littlenews that could interest your Majesty or these ladies. "

"A fox gone to ground, an otter killed among your reeds, or a hawk in thesulks, is an event in the country. Anything would be a relief from theweekly total of London deaths, which is our chief subject of conversation, or the General's complaints that there is no one in town but himself totransact business, or dismal prophecies of a Nonconformist rebellion thatis to follow the Five Mile Act. "

The group of ladies stared at Angela in a smiling silence, one haughtierthan the rest standing a little aloof. She was older, and of a moreaudacious loveliness than the lady who carried broken bread in herpetticoat; but she too was splendidly beautiful as a goddess on a paintedceiling, and as much painted perhaps. 

Angela contemplated her with the reverence youth gives to consummatebeauty, unaware that she was admiring the notorious Barbara Palmer. 

Fareham waited, hat in hand, grave almost to sullenness. It was not for himto do more than reply to his Majesty's remarks, nor could he retire tilldismissed. 

"You have a strange face at your side, man. Pray introduce the lady, "said the King, smiling at Angela, whose vivid blush was as fresh as MissStewart's had been a year or two ago, before she had her first quarrel withLady Castlemaine, or rode in Gramont's glass coach, or gave her classicprofile to embellish the coin of the realm--the "common drudge 'tween manand man. "

"I have the honour to present my sister-in-law, Mistress Kirkland, to yourMajesty. " The King shook hands with Angela in the easiest way, as if he hadbeen mortal. 

"Welcome to our poor court, Mistress Kirkland. Your father was my father'sfriend and companion in the evil days. They starved together at Beverley, and rode side by side through the Warwickshire lanes to suffer theinsolence of Coventry. I have not forgotten. If I had I have a monitoryonder to remind me, " glancing in the direction of a middle-aged gentleman, stately, and sober of attire, who was walking slowly towards them. "TheChancellor is a living chronicle, and his conversation chiefly consists inreminiscences of events I would rather forget"

"Memory is an invention of Old Nick, " said Lady Castlemaine. "Who the deucewants to remember anything, except what cards are out and what are in?"

"Not you, Fairest. You should be the last to cultivate mnemonics foryourself or for your friends. Is your father in England, sweet mistress?"

Angela faltered a negative, as if with somebody else's voice--or so itseemed to her. A swarthy, heavy-browed man, wearing a dark-blue ribbon anda star--a man with whom his intimates jested in shameless freedom--a manwhom the town called Rowley, after some ignominious quadruped--a man whohad distinguished himself neither in the field nor in the drawing-room byany excellence above the majority, since the wit men praised has resolveditself for posterity into half a dozen happy repartees. Only this! But hewas a King, a crowned and anointed King, and even Angela, who was lessfrivolous and shallow than most women, stood before him abashed anddazzled. 

His Majesty bowed a gracious adieu, yawned, flung another crust to theswans, and sauntered on, the Stewart whispering in his ear, the Castlemainetalking loud to her neighbour, Lady Chesterfield, this latter lady verypretty, very bold and mischievous, newly restored to the Court after exilewith her jealous husband at his mansion in Wales. 

They were gone; Charles to be button-holed by Lord Clarendon, who waitedfor him at the end of the walk; the ladies to wander as they pleasedtill the two-o'clock dinner. They were gone, like a dream of beauty andsplendour, and Fareham and Angela pursued their walk by the river, grey inthe sunless November. 

"Well, sister, you have seen the man whom we brought back in a whirlwindof loyalty five years ago, and for whose sake we rebuilt the fabric ofmonarchical government. Do you think we are much the gainers by thattempest of enthusiasm which blew us home Charles the Second? We hadsuffered all the trouble of the change to a Republic; a life that shouldhave been sacred had been sacrificed to the principles of liberty. Whileabhorring the regicides, we might have profited by their crime. We mighthave been a free state to-day, like the United Provinces. Do you think weare better off with a King like Rowley, to amuse himself at the expense ofthe nation?"

"I detest the idea of a Republic. "

"Youth worships the supernatural in anointed kings. Think not that I amopposed to a constitutional monarchy, so long as it works well for themajority. But when England had with such terrible convulsions shakenoff all those shackles and trappings of royalty, and when the ship, solightened, had sailed so steadily with no ballast but common sense, does itnot seem almost a pity to undo what has been done--to begin again the longprocession of good kings and bad kings, foolish or wise--for the sake ofsuch a man as yonder saunterer?" with a glance towards the British Sultanand his harem. 

"England was never better governed than by Cromwell, " he continued. "Shewas tranquil at home and victorious abroad, admired and feared. Mazarin, while pretending to be the faithful friend of Charles, was the obsequiouscourtier of Oliver. The finest form of government is a limited despotism. See how France prospered under the sagacious tyrant, Louis the Eleventh, under the soldier-statesman, Sully, under pure reason incarnate inRichelieu. Whether you call your tyrant king or protector, minister orpresident, matters nothing. It is the man and not the institution, the mindand not the machinery that is wanted. "

"I did not know you were a Republican, like Sir Denzil Warner. "

"I am nothing now I have left off being a soldier. I have no strongopinions about anything. I am a looker on; and life seems little morereal to me than a stage play. Warner is of a different stamp. He is anenthusiastic in politics--godson of Horn's--a disciple of Milton's, the sonof a Puritan, and a Puritan himself. A fine nature, Angela, allied to ahandsome presence. "

Sir Denzil Warner was their neighbour at Chilton, and Angela had met himoften enough for them to become friends. He had ridden by her side withhawk and hound, had been one of her instructors in English sport, andhad sometimes, by an accident, joined her and Henriette in their boatingexpeditions, and helped her to perfect herself in the management of a pairof sculls. 

"Hyacinth has her fancies about Warner, " Fareham said presently, as theystrolled along. 

There was a significance in his tone that the girl could not mistake; moreespecially as her sister had not been reticent about those notions to whichFareham alluded. 

"Hyacinth has fancies about many things, " she said, blushing a little. 

Fareham noted the slightness of the blush. 

"I verily believe that handsome youth has found you adamant, " he said, after a thoughtful silence. "Yet you might easily choose a worse suitor. Your sister has often the strangest whims about marriage-making; but inthis fancy I did not oppose her. It would be a very suitable alliance. "

"I hope your lordship does not begin to think me a burden on yourhousehold, " faltered Angela, wounded by his cold-blooded air in disposingof her. "When you and my sister are tired of me I can go back to myconvent. "

"What! Return to those imprisoning walls; immure your sweet youth in acloister? Not for the Indies. I would not suffer such a sacrifice. Tired ofyou! I--so deeply bound! I who owe you my life! I who looked up out of aburning hell of pain and madness and saw an angel standing by my bed! Tiredof you! Indeed you know me better than to think so badly of me were it butin one flash of thought. You can need no protestations from me. Only, asa young and beautiful woman, living in an age that is full of peril forwomen, I should like to see you married to a good and true man--such asDenzil Warner. "

"I am sorry to disappoint you, " Angela answered coldly; "but Papillon andI have agreed that I am always to be her spinster aunt, and am to keep herhouse when she is married, and wear a linsey gown and a bunch of keys at mygirdle, like Mrs. Hubbuck, at Chilton. "

"That's just like Henriette. She takes after her mother, and thinks thatthis globe and all the people upon it were created principally for herpleasure. The Americas to give her chocolate, the Indian isles to sweetenit for her, the ocean tides to bring her feathers and finery. She is herown centre and circumference, like her mother. "

"You should not say such an ill thing of your wife, Fareham, " said Angela, deeply shocked. "Hyacinth is not one to look into the heart of things. Shehas too happy a disposition for grave backward-reaching thoughts; but Iwill swear that she loves you--ay--almost to reverence. "

"Yes, to reverence, to over much reverence, perhaps. She might have given afreer, fonder love to a more amiable man. I have some strain of my unhappykinsman's temper, perhaps--the disposition that keeps a wife at a distance. He managed to make three wives afraid of him; and it was darkly rumouredthat he killed one. "

"Strafford--a murderer! No, no. "

"Not by intent. An accident--only an accident. They who most hated himpretended that he pushed her from him somewhat roughly when she was leastable to bear roughness, and that the after consequences of the blow werefatal. He was one of the doomed always, you see. He knew that himself, andtold his bosom friend that he was not long-lived. The brand of misfortunewas upon him even at the height of his power. You may read his destiny inhis face. "

They walked on in silence for some time, Angela depressed and unhappy. Itseemed as if Fareham had lifted a mask and shown her his real countenance, with all the lines that tell a life history. She had suspected that he wasnot happy; that the joyous existence amidst fairest surroundings whichseemed so exquisite to her was dull and vapid for him. She could but thinkthat he was like her father, and that action and danger were necessary tohim, and that it was only this rustic tranquillity that weighed upon hisspirits. 

"Do not for a moment believe that I would speak slightingly of yoursister, " Fareham resumed, after that silent interval. "It were indeed anill thing in me--most of all to disparage her in your hearing. She islovely, accomplished, learned even, after the fashion of the Rue St. Thomasdu Louvre. She used to shine among the brightest at the Scudèrys' Saturdayparties, which were the most wearisome assemblies I ever ran away from. Thematch was made for us by others, and I was her betrothed husband before Isaw her. Yet I loved her at first sight. Who could help loving a faceas fair as morning over the eastward hills, a voice as sweet as thenightingales in the Tuileries garden? She was so young--a child almost; sogentle and confiding. And to see her now with Papillon is to question whichis the younger, mother or daughter. Love her? Why, of course I love her. Iloved her then. I love her now. Her beauty has but ripened with the passingyears; and she has walked the furnace of fine company in two cities, andhas never been seared by fire. Love her! Could a man help loving beauty, and frankness, and a natural innocence which cannot be spoiled even by theknowledge of things evil, even by daily contact with sin in high places?"

Again there was a silence, and then, in a deeper tone, after a long sigh, Fareham said--

"I love and honour my wife; I adore my children; yet I am alone, Angela, and I shall be alone till death. "

"I don't understand. "

"Oh yes, you do; you understand as well as I who suffer. My wife and I loveeach other dearly. If she have a fit of the vapours, or an aching tooth, Iam wretched. But we have never been companions. The things that she lovesare charmless for me. She is enchanted with people from whom I run away. Isit companionship, do you think, for me to look on while she walks a corantoor tosses shuttlecocks with De Malfort? Roxalana is as much my companionwhen I admire her on the stage from my seat in the pit. There are timeswhen my wife seems no nearer to me than a beautiful picture. If I sit in acorner, and listen to her pretty babble about the last fan she bought atthe Middle Exchange, or the last witless comedy she saw at the King'sTheatre, is that companionship, think you? I may be charmed to-day--as Iwas charmed ten years ago--with the silvery sweetness of her voice, withthe graceful turn of her head, the white roundness of her throat. At leastI am constant. There is no change in her or in me. We are just as near andjust as far apart as when the priest joined our hands at St. Eustache. Andit must be so to the end, I suppose; and I think the fault is in me. I amout of joint with the world I live in. I cannot set myself in tune withtheir new music. I look back, and remember, and regret; yet hardly know whyI remember or what I regret. "

Again a silence, briefer than the last, and he went on:--

"Do you think it strange that I talk so freely--to you--who are scarce morethan a child, less learned than Henriette in worldly knowledge? It is acomfort sometimes to talk of one's self; of what one has missed as well asof what one has. And you have such an air of being wise beyond your years;wise in all thoughts that are not of the world--thoughts of things of whichthere is no truck at the Exchanges; which no one buys or sells at Abingdonfair. And you are so near allied to me--a sister! I never had a sister ofmy own blood, Angela. I was an only child. Solitude was my portion. Ilived alone with my tutor and _gouvernante_--a poor relation of mymother's--alone in a house that was mostly deserted, for Lord and LadyFareham were in London with the King, till the troubles brought the Courtto Christchurch, and them to Chilton. I have had few in whom to confide. And you--remember what you have been to me, and do not wonder if I trustyou more than others. Thou didst go down to the very grave with me, didstpluck me out of the pit. Corruption could not touch a creature so lovelyand so innocent Thou didst walk unharmed through the charnel-house. Remembering this, as I ever must remember, can you wonder that you arenearer to me than all the rest of the world?"

She had seated herself on a bench that commanded a view of the river, andher dreaming eyes were looking far away along the dim perspective of mistand water, bare pollard willows, ragged sedges. Her head drooped a littleso that he could not see her face, and one ungloved hand hung listlessly ather side. 

He bent down to take the slender hand in his, lifted it to his lips, andquickly let it go; but not before she had felt his tears upon it. Shelooked up a few minutes later, and the place was empty. Her tears fellthick and fast. Never before had she suffered this exquisite pain--sadnessso intense, yet touching so close on joy. She sat alone in theinexpressible melancholy of the late autumn; pale mists rising from theriver; dead leaves falling; and Fareham's tears upon her hand. 

CHAPTER IX. 

IN A PURITAN HOUSE. 

How quickly the days passed in that gay household at Chilton! and yet everyday of Angela's life held so much of action and emotion that, looking backat Christmas time to the three months that had slipped by since she hadbrought Fareham from his sick bed to his country home, she could butexperience that common feeling of youth in such circumstances. Surelyit was half a lifetime that had lapsed; or else she, by some subtle andsupernatural change, had become a new creature. 

She thought of her life in the Convent, thought of it much and deeply onthose Sunday mornings when she and her sister and De Malfort and a score orso of servants crept quietly to a room in the heart of the house where aPriest, who had been fetched from Oxford in, Lady Fareham's coach, saidMass within locked doors. The familiar words of the service, the odour ofthe incense, brought back the old time--the unforgotten atmosphere, thedull tranquillity of ten years, which had been as one year by reason oftheir level monotony. 

Could she go back to such a life as that? Go back! Leave all she loved? Atthe mere suggestion her trembling hand was stretched out involuntarily toclasp her niece Henriette, kneeling beside her. Leave them--leave thosewith whom and for whom she lived? Leave this loving child--her sister--herbrother? Fareham had told her to call him "Brother. " He had been to her asa brother, with all a brother's kindness, counselling her, confiding inher. 

Only with one person at Chilton Abbey had she ever conversed as seriouslyas with Fareham, and that person was Sir Denzil Warner, who at five andtwenty was more serious in his way of looking at serious things than mostmen of fifty. 

"I cannot make a jest of life, " he said once, in reply to some flippantspeech of De Malfort's; "it is too painful a business for the majority. "

"What has that to do with us--the minority? Can we smooth a sick man'spillow by pulling a long face? We shall do him more good by tossing him acrown, if he be poor; or helping to build him a hospital by the sacrificeof a night's winnings at ombre. Long faces help nobody; that is what youPuritans will never consider. "

"No; but if the long faces are the faces of men who think, something maycome of their thoughts for the good of humanity. "

Denzil Warner was the only person who ever spoke to Angela of her religion. With extreme courtesy, and with gentle excuses for his temerity in touchingon so delicate a theme, he ventured to express his abhorrence of thesuperstitions interwoven with the Romanist's creed. He talked as one whohad sat at the feet of the blind poet--talked sometimes in the very wordsof John Milton. 

There was much in what he said that appealed to her reason; but there wasno charm in that severer form of worship which he offered in exchange forher own. He was frank and generous; he had a fine nature, but was too muchgiven to judging his fellow-men. He had all the arrogance of Puritanismsuperadded to the natural arrogance of youth that has never knownhumiliating reverses, that has never been the servant of circumstance. Hewas Angela's senior by something less than four years; yet it seemed to herthat he was in every attribute infinitely her superior. In education, indepth of thought, in resolution for good, and scorn of evil. If he lovedher--as Hyacinth insisted upon declaring--there was nothing of youthfulimpetuosity in his passion. He had, indeed, betrayed his sentiments by nodirect speech. He had told her gravely that he was interested in her, anddeeply concerned that one so worthy and so amiable should have been broughtup in the house of idolaters, should have been taught falsehood instead oftruth. 

She stood up boldly for the faith of her maternal ancestors. 

"I cannot continue your friend if you speak evil of those I love, SirDenzil, " she said. "Could you have seen the lives of those good ladies ofthe Ursuline Convent, their unselfishness, their charity, you must needshave respected their religion. I cannot think why you love to say hardwords of us Catholics; for in all I have ever heard or seen of the livesof the Nonconformists they approach us far more nearly in their principlesthan the members of the Church of England, who, if my sister does not paintthem with too black a brush, practise their religion with a laxity andindifference that would go far to turn religion to a jest. "

Whatever Sir Denzil's ideas might be upon the question of creed--and hedid not scruple to tell Angela that he thought every Papist foredoomed toeverlasting punishment--he showed so much pleasure in her society as tobe at Chilton Abbey, and the sharer of her walks and rides, as often aspossible. Lady Fareham encouraged his visits, and was always gracious tohim. She discovered that he possessed the gift of music, though not inthe same remarkable degree as Henri de Malfort, who played the guitarexquisitely, and into whose hands you had but to put a musical instrumentfor him to extract sweetness from it. Lute or theorbo, viola or viol digamba, treble or bass, came alike to his hand and ear. Some instruments hehad studied; with some his skill came by intuition. 

Denzil Warner performed very creditably upon the organ. He had played onJohn Milton's organ in St. Bride's Church, when he was a boy, and he hadplayed of late in the church at Chalfont St. Giles, where he had visitedMilton frequently, since the poet had left his lodgings in Artillery Walk, carrying his family and his books to that sequestered village in theshelter of the hills between Uxbridge and Beaconsfield. Here from the lipsof his sometime tutor the Puritan had heard such stories of the Court asmade him hourly expectant of exterminating fires. Doubtless the fire wouldhave come, as it came upon Sodom and Gomorrah, but for those righteouslives of the Nonconformists, which redeemed the time; quiet, god-fearinglives in dull old city houses, in streets almost as narrow as those whichMilton remembered in his beloved Italy; streets where the sun looked in foran hour, shooting golden arrows down upon the diamond-paned casements, anddeepening the shadow of the massive timbers that held up the overlappingstories, looked in and bade "good night" within an hour or so, leavingan atmosphere of sober grey, cool, and quiet, and dull, in those obscurestreets and alleys where the great traffic of Cheapside or Ludgate soundedlike the murmur of a far-off sea. 

Pious men and women worshipped the implacable God of the Puritans in thesecret chambers of those narrow streets; and those who gathered togetherin these days--if they rejected the Liturgy of the Church of England--mustindeed be few, and must meet by stealth, as if to pray or preach aftertheir own manner were a crime. Charles, within a year or so of his generalamnesty and happy restoration, had made such worship criminal; and now theFive Mile Act, lately passed at Oxford, had rendered the restrictions andpenalties of Nonconformity utterly intolerable. Men were lying in prisonhere and there about merry England for no greater offence than preachingthe gospel to a handful of God-fearing people. But that a Puritan tinkershould moulder for a dozen years in a damp jail could count for littleagainst the blessed fact of the Maypole reinstated in the Strand, and fiveplay-houses in London performing ribald comedies, till but recently, whenthe plague shut their doors. 

Milton, old and blind, and somewhat soured by domestic disappointments, hadimparted no optimistic philosophy to young Denzil Warner, whose father hehad known and loved. The fight at Hopton Heath had made Denzil fatherless;the Colonel of Warner's horse riding to his death in the last fatal chargeof that memorable day. 

Denzil had grown up under the prosperous rule of the Protector, andhis boyhood had been spent in the guardianship of a most watchfuland serious-minded mother. He had been somewhat over-cosseted andapron-stringed, it may be, in that tranquil atmosphere of the rich widow'shouse; but not all Lady Warner's tenderness could make her son a milksop. Except for a period of two years in London, when he had lived under theroof of the great Republican, a docile pupil to a stern but kind master, Denzil had lived mostly under the open sky, was a keen sportsman, and lovedthe country with almost as sensitive a love as his quondam master andpresent friend, John Milton; and it was perhaps this appreciation of ruralbeauty which had made a bond of friendship between the great poet and thePuritan squire. 

"You have a knack of painting rural scenes which needs but to be joinedwith the gift of music to make you a poet, " he said, when Denzil had beenexpatiating upon the landscape amidst which he had enjoyed his last bout offalconry, or his last run with his half-dozen couple of hounds. "You arealmost as the power of sight to me when you describe those downs andvalleys whose every shape and shadow I once knew so well. Alas, that Ishould be changed so much and they so little!"

"It is one thing, sir, to feel that this world is beautiful, and anotherto find golden words and phrases which to a prisoner in the Tower couldconjure up as fair a landscape as Claude Lorraine ever painted. Thosesonorous and mellifluous lines which you were so gracious as to repeat tome, forming part of the great epic which the world is waiting for, bearwitness to the power that can turn words into music, and make pictures outof the common tongue. That splendid art, sir, is but given to one man ina century--or in several centuries; since I know but Dante and Virgil whohave ever equalled your vision of heaven and hell. "

"Do not over-praise me, Denzil, in thy charity to poverty and affliction. It is pleasing to be understood by a youth who loves hawk and hound betterthan books; for it offers the promise of popular appreciation in years tocome. Yet the world is so little athirst for my epic that I doubt if Ishall find a bookseller to give me a few pounds for the right to print awork that has cost me years of thought and laborious revision. But at leastit has been my consolation in the long blank night of my decay, and hassaved me many a heart-ache. For while I am building up my verses, andengraving line after line upon the tablets of memory, I can forget thatI am blind, and poor, and neglected, and that the dear saint I loved wassnatched from me in the noontide of our happiness. "

Denzil talked much of John Milton in his conversations with Angela, duringthose rides or rambles, in which Papillon was their only chaperon. LadyFareham sauntered, like her royal master; but she rarely walked a mile at astretch; and she was pleased to encourage the rural wanderings that broughther sister and Warner into a closer intimacy, and promised well for thesuccess of her matrimonial scheme. 

"I believe they adore each other already, " she told Fareham one morning, standing by his side in the great stone porch, to watch those threeyouthful figures ride away, aunt and niece side by side, on palfrey andpony, with Denzil for their cavalier. 

"You are always over-quick to be sure of anything that suits your ownfancy, dearest, " answered Fareham, watching them to the curve of theavenue; "but I see no signs of favour to that solemn youth in your sister. She suffers his attentions out of pure civility. He is an accomplishedhorseman, having given all his life to learning how to jump a fencegracefully; and his company is at least better than a groom's. "

"How scornfully you jeer at him!"

"Oh, I have no more scorn than the Cavalier's natural contempt for theRoundhead. A hereditary hatred, perhaps. "

"You say such hard things of his Majesty that one might often take you tobe of Sir Denzil's way of thinking. "

"I never think about the King. I only wonder. I may sometimes express mywonderment too freely for a loyal subject. "

"I cannot vouch for Angela, but I will wager that he is deep in love, "persisted Hyacinth. 

"Have it your own way, sweetheart. He is dull enough to be deep in debt, orlove, or politics, anything dismal and troublesome, " answered his lordship, as he strolled off with his spaniels; not those dainty toy dogs which hadbeen his companions at the gate of death, but the fine liver-and-blackshooting dogs that lived in the kennels, and thought it doghood's highestprivilege to attend their lord in his walks, whether with or without a gun. 

 * * * * *

His lordship kept open Christmas that year at Chilton Abbey, and therewas great festivity, chiefly devised and carried out by the household, as Fareham and his wife were too much of the modern fashion, and toocosmopolitan in their ideas, to appreciate the fuss and feasting of anEnglish Christmas. They submitted, however, to the festival as arranged forthem by Mr. Manningtree and Mrs. Hubbuck--the copious feasting for servantsand dependents, the mummers and carolsingers, the garlands and greenerywhich disguised the fine old tapestry, and made a bower of the vaultedhall. Everything was done with a lavish plenteousness, and no doubt thehousehold enjoyed the fun and feasting all the more because of thatdismal season of a few years back, when all Christmas ceremonies had beendenounced as idolatrous, and when the members of the Anglican Church hadassembled for their Christmas service secretly in private houses, and asmuch under the ban of the law as the Nonconformists were now. 

Angela was interested in everything in that bright world where all thingswere new. The children piping Christmas hymns in the clear cold morningenchanted her. She ran down to kiss and fondle the smaller among them, andfinding them thinly clad promised to make them warm cloaks and hoods asfast as her fingers could sew. Denzil found her there in the wide snowyspace before the porch, prattling with the children, bare-headed, her softbrown hair blown about in the wind; and he was moved, as a man must needsbe moved by the aspect of the woman that he loves caressing a small child, melted almost to tears by the thought that in some blessed time to come shemight so caress, only more warmly, a child whose existence should be theirbond of union. 

And yet, being both shy and somewhat cold of temperament, he restrainedhimself, and greeted her only as a friend; for his mother's influence washolding him back, urging him not to marry a Papist, were she ever so lovelyor lovable. 

He had known Angela for nearly three months, and his acquaintance with herhad reached this point of intimacy, yet Lady Warner had never seen her. This fact distressed him, and he had tried hard to awaken his mother'sinterest by praises of the Fareham family and of Angela's exquisitecharacter; but the Scarlet Spectre came between the Puritan lady and thehouse of Fareham. 

"There is nothing you can tell me about this girl, upon whom I fear youhave foolishly set your affection, which can make me forget that she hasbeen nursed and swaddled in the bondage of a corrupt Church, taught toworship idols, and to cherish lying traditions, while the light of God'sholy word has been made dark for her. "

"She is young enough to embrace a purer creed, and to walk by the clearerlight that leads your footsteps, mother. If she were my wife I should notdespair of winning her to think as we do. "

"And in all the length of England was there no young woman of rightprinciples fit to be thy wife, that thou must needs fall into the snare ofthe first Popish witch who set her lure for thee?"

"Popish witch! Oh, mother, how ill you can conceive the image of my dearlove, who has no witchcraft but beauty, no charm so potent as her truth andinnocency!"

"I know them--these children of the Scarlet Woman--and I know their works, and the fate of those who trust them. The late King--weak and stubbornas he was--might have been alive this day, and reigning over a contentedpeople, but for that fair witch who ruled him. It was the Frenchwoman'ssorceries that wrought Charles's ruin. "

"If thou wouldst but see my Angela, " pleaded the son, with a caressing armabout his mother's spare shoulders. 

"Thine! What! is she thine--pledged and promised already? Then, indeed, these white hairs will go down with sorrow to the grave. "

"Mother, I doubt if thou couldst find so much as a single grey hair in thatcomely head of thine, " said the son; and the mother smiled in the midst ofher affliction. 

"And as for promise--there has been none. I have said no word of love; norhave I been encouraged to speak by any token of liking on the lady's part. I stand aloof and admire, and wonder at so much modesty and intelligence inLady Fareham's sister. Let me bring her to see you, mother?"

"This is your house, Denzil. Were you to fill it with the sons anddaughters of Belial, I could but pray that your eyes might be openedto their iniquity. I could not shut these doors against you or yourcompanions. But I want no Popish women here. "

"Ah, you do not know! Wait until you have seen her, " urged Denzil, with thelover's confidence in the omnipotence of his mistress's charms. 

And now on this Christmas Day there came the opportunity Denzil had beenwaiting for. The weather was cold and bright, the landscape was blotted outwith snow; and the lake in Chilton Park offered a sound surface for theexercise of that novel amusement of skating, an accomplishment which LordFareham had acquired while in the Low Countries, and in which he hadbeen Denzil's instructor during the late severe weather. Angela, at herbrother-in-law's entreaty, had also adventured herself upon a pair ofskates, and had speedily found delight in the swift motion, which seemedto her like the flight of a bird skimming the steely surface of the frozenlake, and incomparable in enjoyment. 

"It is even more delightful than a gallop on Zephyr, " she told her sister, who stood on the bank with a cluster of gay company, watching the skaters. 

"I doubt not that; since there is even more danger of getting your neckbroken upon runaway skates than on a runaway horse, " answered Hyacinth. 

After an hour on the lake, in which Denzil had distinguished himself by hismastery of the new exercise, being always at hand to support his mistressat the slightest indication of peril, she consented to the removal of herskates, at Papillon's earnest entreaty, who wanted her aunt to walk withher before dinner. After dinner there would be the swift-coming Decembertwilight, and Christmas games, snap-dragon and the like, which Papillon, although a little fine lady, reproducing all her mother's likes anddislikes in miniature, could not, as a human child, altogether disregard. 

"I don't care about such nonsense as Georgie does, " she told her aunt, with condescending reference to her brother; "but I like to see the othersamused. Those village children are such funny little savages. They sticktheir fingers in their mouths and grin at me, and call me 'Your annar, ' or'Your worship, ' and say 'Anan' to everything. They are like Audrey in theplay you read to me. "

Denzil was in attendance upon aunt and niece. 

"If you want to come with us, you must invent a pretty walk, Sir Denzil, "said Papillon. "I am tired of long lanes and ploughed fields. "

"I know of one of the pleasantest rambles in the shire--across the woodsto the Grange. And we can rest there for half an hour, if Mrs. Angela willallow us, and take a light refreshment. "

"Dear Sir Denzil, that is the very thing, " answered Papillon, breathlessly. "I am dying of hunger. And I don't want to go back to the Abbey. Will therebe any cakes or mince pies at the Grange?"

"Cakes in plenty, but I fear there will be no mince pies. My mother doesnot love Christmas dainties. "

Henriette wanted to know why. She was always wanting the reason of things. A bright inquiring little mind, perpetually on the alert for novelty; animitative brain like a monkey's; hands and feet that know not rest; andthere you have the Honourable Henrietta Maria Revel, _alias_ Papillon. 

They crossed the river, Angela and Denzil each taking an oar, whilePapillon pretended to steer, a process which she effected chiefly byscreaming. 

"Another lump of ice!" she shrieked. "We shall be swamped. I believe theriver will be frozen before Twelfth Night, and we shall be able to danceupon it. We must have bonfires and roast an ox for the poor people. Mrs. Hubbuck told me they roasted an ox the year King Charles was beheaded. Horrid brutes--to think that they could eat at such a time! If they hadbeen sorry they could not have relished roast beef. "

Hadley Grange, commonly known as the Grange, was in every detail theantithesis of Chilton Abbey. At the Abbey the eye was dazzled, the mind wasbewildered, by an excess of splendour--an over-much of everything gorgeousor beautiful. At the Grange sight and mind were rested by the low tone ofcolour, the quaker-like precision of form. All the furniture in the housewas Elizabethan, plain, ponderous, the conscientious work of Oxfordshiremechanics. On one side of the house there was a bowling green, on theother a physic garden, where odours of medicinal herbs, camomile, fennel, rosemary, rue, hung ever on the surrounding air. There was nothing modernin Lady Warner's house but the spotless cleanliness; the perfume of lastsummer's roses and lavender; the polished surface of tables and cabinets, oak chests and oak floors, testifying to the inexorable industry of rustichousemaids. In all other respects the Grange was like a house that had justawakened from a century of sleep. 

Lady Warner rose from her high-backed chair by the chimney corner in theoak parlour, and laid aside the book she had been reading, to welcome herson, startled at seeing him followed by a tall, fair girl in a black mantleand hood, and a little slip of a thing, with bright dark eyes and smalldetermined face, pert, pointed, interrogative, framed in swansdown--a smallaërial figure in a white cloth cloak, and a scarlet brocade frock, underwhich two little red shoes danced into the room. 

"Mother, I have brought Mrs. Angela Kirkland and her niece to visit youthis Christmas morning. "

"Mrs. Kirkland and her niece are welcome, " and Lady Warner made a deepcurtsy, not like one of Lady Fareham's sinking curtseys, as of one nearswooning in an ecstasy of politeness, but dignified and inflexible, straight down and straight up again. 

"But as for Christmas, 'tis one of those superstitious observances which Ihave ever associated with a Church I abhor. "

Denzil reddened furiously. To have brought this upon his beloved!

Angela drew herself up, and paled at the unexpected assault. The brutalityof it was startling, though she knew, from Denzil's opinions, that hismother must be an enemy of her faith. 

"Indeed, madam, I am sorry that anybody in England should think it an illthing to celebrate the birthday of our Redeemer and Lord, " she said. 

"Do you think, young lady, that foolish romping games, and huge chines ofbeef, and smoking ale made luscious with spices and roasted pippins, andcarol-singing and play-acting, can be the proper honouring of Him who wasGod first and for ever, and Man only for one brief interval in His eternalexistence? To keep God's birthday with drunken rioting! What blasphemy! Ifyou can think that there is not more profaneness than piety in such sensualrevelries--why, it is that you do not know how to think. You would havelearnt to reason better had you known that sweet poet and musician, andtrue thinker, Mr. John Milton, with whom it was my privilege to conversefrequently during my husband's lifetime, and afterwards when hecondescended to accept my son for his pupil, and spent three days andnights under this roof. "

"Mr. Milton is still at Chalfont, mother. So you may hope to see him againwith a less journey than to London, " said Denzil, seizing the first chanceof a change in the conversation; "and here is a little Miss to whom I havepromised a light collation, with some of your Jersey milk. "

"Mistress Kirkland and her niece shall have the best I can provide. Thelarder will furnish something acceptable, I doubt not, although I and myhousehold observe this day as a fast. "

"What, madam, are you sorry that Jesus Christ was born to-day?" askedPapillon. 

"I am sorry for my sins, little mistress, and for the sins of all mankind, which nothing but His blood could wash away. To remember His birth is toremember that He died for us; and that is why I spend the twenty-fifth ofDecember in fasting and prayer. "

"Are you not glad you are to dine at the Abbey to-day, Sir Denzil?" askedPapillon, by way of commentary. 

"Nay, I put no restraint on my son. He can serve God after his own manner, and veer with every wind of passion or fancy, if he will. But you shallhave your cake and draught of milk, little lady, and you too, MistressKirkland, will, I hope, taste our Jersey milk, unless you would prefer aglass of Malmsey wine. "

"Mrs. Kirkland is as much an anchorite as yourself, mother. She takes nowine. "

Lady Warner was the soul of hospitality, and particularly proud of herdairy. When kept clear of theology and politics she was not an ill-naturedwoman. But to be a Puritan in the year of the Five Mile Act was not tothink kindly of the Government under which she lived; while her sense ofher own wrongs was intensified by rumours of over-indulgence shown toPapists, and the broad assertion that King and Duke were Roman Catholic atheart, and waited only the convenient hour to reforge the fetters that hadbound England to Rome. 

She was fond of children, most of all of little girls, never having had adaughter. She bent down to kiss Henriette, and then turned to Angela withher kindest smile--

"And this is Lady Fareham's daughter? She is as pretty as a picture. "

"And I am as good as a picture--sometimes, madam, " chirped Papillon. "Mother says I am _douce comme un image. _"

"When thou hast been silent or still for five minutes, " said Angela, "andthat is but seldom. "

A loud hand-bell summoned the butler, and an Arcadian meal was speedily setout on a table in the hall, where a great fire of logs burnt as merrily asif it had been designed to enliven a Christmas-keeping household. Indeedthere was nothing miserly or sparing about the housekeeping at the Grange, which harmonised with the sombre richness of Lady Warner's greybrocade gown, from the old-fashioned silk mercer's at the sign of theFlower-de-luce, in Cheapside. There was liberality without waste, and acertain quiet refinement in every detail, which reminded Angela of theconvent parlour and her aunt's room--and contrasted curiously with theelegant disorder of her sister's surroundings. 

Papillon clapped her hands at sight of the large plum cake, the jug ofmilk, and bowl of blackberry conserve. 

"I was so hungry, " she said, apologetically, after Denzil had supplied herwith generous slices of cake, and large spoonfuls of jam. "I did not knowthat Nonconformists had such nice things to eat. "

"Did you think we all lay in gaol to suffer cold and hunger for the faiththat is in us, like that poor preacher at Bedford?" asked Lady Warner, bitterly. "It will come to that some day, perhaps, under the new Act. "

"Will you show Mistress Kirkland your house, mother, and your dairy?"Denzil asked hurriedly. "I know she would like to see one of the neatestdairies in Oxfordshire. "

No request could be more acceptable to Lady Warner, who was a housekeeperfirst and a controversialist afterwards. Inclined as she was to railagainst the Church of Rome--partly because she had made up her mind uponhearsay, chiefly Miltonian, that Roman Catholicism was only another namefor image-worship and martyr-burning, and partly on account of the favourthat had been shown to Papists, as compared with the cruel treatment ofNonconformists--still there was a charm in Angela's gentle beauty againstwhich the daughterless matron could not steel her heart. She melted in thespace of a quarter of an hour, while Denzil was encouraging Henriette toover-eat herself, and trying to persuade Angela to taste this or thatdainty, or reproaching her for taking so little; and by the time the childhad finished her copious meal, Lady Warner was telling herself how dearlyshe might have loved this girl for a daughter-in-law, were it not for thatfatal objection of a corrupt and pernicious creed. 

No! Lovely as she was, modest, refined, and in all things worthy to beloved, the question of creed must be a stumbling-block. And then there wereother objections. Rural gossip, the loose talk of servants, had brought ahighly coloured description of Lady Fareham's household to her neighbour'sears. The extravagant splendour, the waste and idleness, the late hours, the worship of pleasure, the visiting, the singing, and dancing, andjunketing, and worst of all, the too-indulgent friendship shown to aParisian fopling, had formed the subject of conversation in many anassembly of pious ladies, and hands and eyebrows had been uplifted at theiniquities of Chilton Abbey, as second only to the monstrous goings-on ofthe Court at Oxford. 

Almost ever since the Restoration Lady Warner had been living in meekexpectancy of fire from heaven; and the chastisement of this memorable yearhad seemed to her the inevitable realisation of her fears. The fiery rainhad come down--impalpable, invisible, leaving its deadly tokens in burningplague spots, the forerunners of death. That the contagion had mostlyvisited that humbler class of persons who had been strangers to theexcesses and pleasures of the Court made nothing against Lady Warner'sconviction that this scourge was Heaven's vengeance upon fashionable vice. Her son had brought her stories of the life at Whitehall, terrible picturesof iniquity, conveyed in the scathing words of one who sat apart, in ahumble lodging, where for him the light of day came not, and heard withdisgust and horror of that wave of debauchery which had swept over the cityhe loved, since the triumph of the Royalists. And Lady Warner had heard thewords of Milton, and had listened with a reverence as profound as if theblind poet had been the prophet of Israel, alone in his place of hiding, holding himself aloof from an idolatrous monarch and a wicked people. 

And now her son had brought her this fair girl, upon whom he had set hisfoolish hopes, a Papist, and the sister of a woman whose ways were theways of--! A favourite scriptural substantive closed the sentence in LadyWarner's mind. 

No; it might not be. Whatever power she had over her son must be usedagainst his Papistical syren. She would treat her with courtesy, show herhouse and dairy, and there an end. And so they repaired to the offices, with Papillon running backwards and forwards as they went along, exclaimingand questioning, delighted with the shining oak floors and great oak chestsin the corridor, and the armour in the hall, where, as the sacred andcentral object, hung the breastplate Sir George Warner wore when he fell atHopton Heath, dinted by sword and pike, as the enemy's horse rode him downin the _melée_. His orange scarf, soiled and torn, was looped across thesteel cuirass. Papillon admired everything, most of all the great cooldairy, which had once been a chapel, and where the piscina was converted toa niche for a polished brass milk-can, to the horror of Angela, who couldsay no word in praise of a place that had been created by the profanationof holy things. A chapel turned into a storehouse for milk and butter! Wasthis how Protestants valued consecrated places? An awe-stricken silencecame upon her, and she was glad when Denzil remembered that they would havebarely time to walk back to the Abbey before the two o'clock dinner. 

"You keep Court hours even in the country, " said Lady Warner. "I dined halfan hour before you came. "

"I don't care if I have no dinner to-day, " said Papillon; "but I hope Ishall be able to eat a mince pie. Why don't you love mince pies, madam?He"--pointing to Denzil--"says you do not. "

CHAPTER X. 

THE PRIEST'S HOLE. 

Denzil dined at the Abbey, where he was always made welcome. Lady Farehamhad been warmly insistent upon his presence at their Christmas gaieties. 

"We want to show you a Cavalier's Christmas, " she told him at dinner, heseated at her side in the place of honour, while Angela sat at the otherend of the table between Fareham and De Malfort. "For ourselves we carelittle for such simple sports: but for the poor folk and the children Yuleshould be a season to be remembered for good cheer and merriment throughall their slow, dull year. Poor wretches! I think of their hard lifesometimes, and wonder they don't either drown themselves or massacre us. "

"They are like the beasts of the field, Lady Fareham. They have learntpatience from the habit of suffering. They are born poor, and they diepoor. It is happy for us that they are not learned enough to consider theinequalities of fortune, or we should have the rising of want againstabundance, a bitterer strife, perhaps, than the strife of adverse creeds, which made Ireland so bloody a spectacle for the world's wonder thirtyyears ago. "

"Well, we shall make them all happy this afternoon; and there will be asupper in the great stone barn which will acquaint them with abundance forthis one evening at least, " answered Hyacinth, gaily. 

"We are going to play games after dinner!" cried Henriette, from her placeat her father's elbow. 

His lordship was the only person who ever reproved her seriously, yet sheloved him best of all her kindred or friends. 

"Aunt Angy is going to play hide-and-seek with us. Will you play, SirDenzil?"

"I shall think myself privileged if I may join in your amusements. "

"What a courteous speech! You will be cutting off your pretty curly hair, and putting on a French perruque, like his"--pointing to De Malfort. "Please do not. You would be like everybody else in London--and now you areonly like yourself--and vastly handsome. "

"Hush, Henriette! you are much too pert, " remonstrated Fareham. 

"But 'tis the very truth, father. All the women who visit mother painttheir faces, so that they are all alike; and all the men talk alike, so that I don't know one from t'other, except Lord Rochester, who isimpudenter and younger than the others, and gives me more sugar-plums andpays me prettier compliments than anybody else. "

"Hold your tongue, mistress! A dinner-table is no place for pert children. Thy brother there has better manners, " said her father, pointing to thecherubic son and heir, whose ideas were concentrated upon a loaded plate ofred-deer pasty. 

"You mean that he is greedier than I, " retorted Papillon. "He will eat tillhe won't be able to run about with us after dinner; and then he will sprawlupon mother's satin train by the fire, with Ganymede and Phosphor, and shewill tell everybody how good and gentle he is, and how much better bredthan his sister. And now, if people are _ever_ going to leave off eating, we may as well begin our games before it is quite dark. Perhaps _you_ areready, auntie, if nobody else is. "

Dinner may have ended a little quicker for this speech, although Papillonwas sternly suppressed, and bade to keep silence or leave the table. Sheobeyed so far as to make no further remarks, but expressed her contempt forthe gluttony of her elders by several loud yawns, and bounced up out of herseat, like a ball from a racket, directly the little gentleman in blacksitting near his lordship had murmured a discreet thanksgiving. Thisgentleman was the Roman Catholic priest from Oxford, who had said Massearly that morning in the muniment room, and had been invited to hislordship's table in honour of the festival. 

Papillon led all the games, and ordered everybody about. Mrs. DorothyLettsome, the young lady who was sorry she had not had the honour to beborn in France, was of the party, with her brother, honest Dan Lettsome, anOxfordshire squire, who had been in London only once in his life, to seethe Coronation, and had nearly lost his life, as well as his purseand jewellery, in a tavern, after that august ceremonial. This bitterexperience had given him a distaste for the pleasures of the town which hispoor sister deplored exceedingly; since she was dependent upon his coffers, and subject to his authority, and had no hope of leaving Oxfordshire unlessshe were fortunate enough to find a town-bred husband. 

These two joined in the sports with ardour, Squire Dan glad to be movingabout, rather than to sit still and listen to music which he hated, or toconversation to which he could contribute neither wit nor sense, unless thekennel or the gun-room were the topic under discussion. The talk of a ladyand gentleman who had graduated in the salons of the Hôtel de Rambouilletwas a foreign language to him; and he told his sister that it was all oneto him whether Lady Fareham and the Mounseer talked French or English, since it was quite as hard to understand 'em in one language as in t'other. 

Papillon, this rustic youth adored. He knew no greater pleasure than tobreak and train a pony for her, to teach her the true knack of clearing ahedge, to explain the habits and nature of those vermin in whose lawlesslives she was deeply interested--rats, weasels, badgers, and such-like--toattend her when she hunted, or flew her peregrine. 

"If you will marry me, sweetheart, when you are of the marrying age, Iwould rather wait half a dozen years for you than have the best woman inOxfordshire that I know of at this present. "

"Marry you!" cried Lord Fareham's daughter. "Why, I shall marry no oneunder an earl; and I hope it will be a duke or a marquis. Marchioness isa pretty title: it sounds better than duchess, because it is in threesyllables--mar-chion-ess, " with an affected drawl. "I am going to be verybeautiful. Mrs. Hubbuck says so, and mother's own woman; and I heard thatpainted old wretch, Mrs. Lewin, tell mother so. 'Eh, gud, your la'ship, theyoung miss will be almost as great a beauty as your la'ship's self!' Mrs. Lewin always begins her speeches with 'Eh, gud!' or 'What devil!' But Ihope I shall be handsomer than _mother_" concluded Papillon, in a tonewhich implied a poor opinion of the maternal charms. 

And now on this Christmas evening, in the thickening twilight of therambling old house, through long galleries, crooked passages, queerlittle turns at right angles, rooms opening out of rooms, half a dozenin succession, Squire Dan led the games, ordered about all the time byPapillon, whom he talked of admiringly as a high-mettled filly, declaringthat she had more tricks than the running-horse he was training forAbingdon races. 

De Malfort, after assisting in their sports for a quarter of an hour withconsiderable spirit, had deserted them, and sneaked off to the greatsaloon, where he sat on the Turkey carpet at Lady Fareham's feet, singingchansonettes to his guitar, while George and the spaniels sprawled besidehim, the whole group making a picture of indolent enjoyment, fitfullylighted by the blaze of a yule log that filled the width of the chimney. Fareham and the Priest were playing chess at the other end of the long lowroom, by the light of a single candle. 

Papillon ran in at the door and ejaculated her disgust at De Malfort'sdesertion. 

"Was there ever such laziness? It's bad enough in Georgie to be so idle;but then, _ he_ has over-eaten himself. "

"And how do you know that I haven't over-eaten myself, mistress?" asked DeMalfort. 

"You never do that; but you often drink too much--much, much, much toomuch!"

"That's a slanderous thing to say of your mother's most devoted servant, "laughed De Malfort. "And pray how does a baby-girl like you know when agentleman has been more thirsty than discreet?"

"By the way you talk--always French. Jarni! ch'dame, n'savons joui d'n'belle s'rée--n'fam-partie d'ombre. Moi j'ai p'du n'belle f'tune, p'rol'd'nneur! You clip your words to nothing. Aren't you coming to playhide-and-seek?"

"Not I, fair slanderer. I am a salamander, and love the fire. "

"Is that a kind of Turk? Good-bye. I'm going to hide. "

"Beware of the chests in the gallery, sweetheart, " said her father, whoheard only this last sentence, as his daughter ran past him towards thedoor. "When I was in Italy I was told of a bride who hid herself in an olddower-chest, on her wedding-day--and the lid clapped to with a spring andkept her there for half a century. "

"There's no spring that ever locksmith wrought that will keep downPapillon, " cried De Malfort, sounding a light accompaniment to his words onthe guitar strings, with delicatest touch, like fairy music. 

"I know of better hiding-places, " answered the child, and vanished, bangingthe great door behind her. 

She found her aunt with Dorothy Lettsome and her brother and Denzil inthe gallery above stairs, walking up and down, and listening with everyindication of weariness to the Squire's discourse about his hunters andrunning-horses. 

"Now we are going to have real good sport!" cried Papillon. "Aunt Angy andI are to hide, and you three are to look for us. You must stop in thisgallery for ten minutes by the French clock yonder--with the door shut. Youmust give us ten minutes' law, Mr. Lettsome, as you did the hare the otherday, when I was out with you--and then you may begin to look for us. Promise. "

"Stay, little miss, you will be outside the house belike, roaming lordknows where; in the shrubberies, or the barns, or halfway to Oxford--whilewe are made fools of here. "

"No, no. We will be inside the house. "

"Do you promise that, pretty lady?"

"Yes, I promise. "

Mrs. Dorothy suggested that there had been enough of childish play, andthat it would be pleasanter to sit in the saloon with her ladyship, andhear Monsieur de Malfort sing. 

"I'll wager he was singing when you saw him just now. "

"Yes, he is always singing foolish French songs--and I'm sure you can'tunderstand 'em. "

"I've learnt the French ever since I was as old as you, MistressHenriette. "

"Ah! that was too late to begin. People who learn French out of books knowwhat it looks like, but not what it sounds like. "

"I should be very sorry if I could not understand a French ballad, littlemiss. "

"Would you--would you, really?" cried Papillon, her face alight with impishmirth. "Then, of course, you understand this--

 Oh, la d'moiselle, comme elle est sot-te, Eh, je me moque de sa sot-ti-se! Eh, la d'moiselle, comme elle est bê-te, Eh, je m'ris de sa bê-ti-se!"

She sang this impromptu nonsense _prestissimo_ as she danced out of theroom, leaving the accomplished Dorothy vexed and perplexed at not havingunderstood a single word. 

It was nearly an hour later when Denzil entered the saloon hurriedly, paleand perturbed of aspect, with Dorothy and her brother following him. 

"We have been hunting all over the house for Mrs. Angela and Henriette, "Denzil said, and Fareham started up from the chess-table, scared at theyoung man's agitated tone and pallid countenance. "We have looked in everyroom--"

"In every closet, " interrupted Dorothy. 

"In every corner of the staircases and passages, " said Squire Dan. 

"Can your lordship help us? There may be places you know of which we do notknow?" said Denzil, his voice trembling a little. "It is alarming that theyshould be so long in concealment. We have called to them in every part ofthe house. "

Fareham hurried to the door, taking instant alarm--anxious, pale, alert. 

"Come!" he said to the others. "The oak chests in the music-room--the greatFlorentine coffer in the gallery? Have you looked in those?"

"Yes; we have opened every chest. "

"Faith, to see Sir Denzil turn over piles of tapestries, you would havethought he was looking for a fairy that could hide in the folds of acurtain!" said Lettsome. 

"It is no theme for jesting. I hate these tricks of hiding in strangecorners, " said Fareham. "Now, show me where they left you. "

"In the long gallery. "

"They have gone up to the roof, perhaps. "

"We have been in the roof, " said Denzil. 

"I have scarcely recovered my senses after the cracked skull I got from oneof your tie-beams, " added Lettsome; and Fareham saw that both men hadtheir doublets coated with dust and cobwebs, in a manner which indicated aremorseless searching of places unvisited by housemaids and brooms. 

Mrs. Dorothy, with a due regard for her dainty lace kerchief and ruffles, and her cherry silk petticoat, had avoided these loathly places, the abodeof darkness, haunted by the fear of rats. 

Fareham tramped the house from cellar to garret, Denzil alone accompanyinghim. 

"We want no posse comitatus, " he had said, somewhat discourteously. "You, Squire, had best go and mend your cracked head in the eating-parlour witha brimmer or two of clary wine; and you, Mrs. Dorothy, can go and keep herladyship company. But not a word of our fright. Swoons and screaming wouldonly hinder us. "

He took Mrs. Lettsome's arm, and led her to the staircase, pushing theSquire after her, and then turned his anxious countenance to Denzil. 

"If they are not to be found in the house, they must be found outside thehouse. Oh, the folly, the madness of it! A December night--snow on theground--a rising wind--another fall of snow, perhaps--and those two afootand alone!"

"I do not believe they are out-of-doors, " Denzil answered. "Your daughterpromised that they would not leave the house. "

"My daughter tells the truth. It is her chief virtue. "

"And yet we have hunted in every hole and corner, " said Denzil, dejectedly. 

"Hole!" cried Fareham, almost in a shout. "Thou hast hit it, man! That oneword is a flash of lightning. The Priest's Hole! Come this way. Bring yourcandle!" snatching up that which he had himself set down on a table, whenhe stood still to deliberate. "The Priest's Hole? The child knew the secretof it--fool that I was ever to show her. God! what a place to hide in on awinter night!"

He was halfway up the staircase to the second story before he had utteredthe last of these exclamations, Denzil following him. 

Suddenly, through the stillness of the house, there sounded a faint far-offcry, the shrill thin sound of a child's voice. Fareham and Warner wouldhardly have heard it had they not been sportsmen, with ears trained tolisten for distant sounds. No view-hallo sounding across miles of wood andvalley was ever fainter or more ethereal. 

"You hear them?" cried Fareham. "Quick, quick!"

He led the way along a narrow gallery, about eight feet high, where peoplehad danced in Elizabeth's time, when the house was newly converted tosecular uses; and then into a room in which there were several iron chests, the muniment room, where a sliding panel, of which the master of the houseknew the trick, revealed an opening in the wall. Fareham squeezed himselfthrough the gap, still carrying the tall iron candlestick, with flaringcandle, and vanished. Denzil followed, and found himself descending anarrow stone staircase, very steep, built into an angle of the greatchimney, while as if from the bowels of the earth there came, louder atevery step, that shrill cry of distress, in a voice he could not doubt wasHenriette's. 

"The other is mute, " groaned Fareham; "scared to death, perhaps, like afrightened bird. " And then he called, "I am coming. You are safe, love;safe, safe!" And then he groaned aloud, "Oh, the madness, the folly of it!"

Halfway down the staircase there was a sudden gap of six feet, down whichFareham dropped with his hands on the lowest stair, Denzil following; abreak in the continuity of the descent planned for the discomfiture ofstrangers and the protection of the family hiding-place. 

Fareham and Denzil were on a narrow stone landing at the bottom of thehouse; and the child's wail of anguish changed to a joyous shriek, "Father, father!" close in their ears. Fareham set his shoulder against the heavyoak door, and it burst inwards. There had been no question of secret springor complicated machinery; but the great, clumsy door dragged upon its rustyhinges, and the united strength of the two girls had not served to pull itopen, though Papillon, in her eagerness for concealment in the first feverof hiding, had been strong enough to push the door till she had jammed it, and thus made all after efforts vain. 

"Father!" she cried, leaping into his arms, as he came into the room, largeenough to hold six-men standing upright; but a hideous den in which toperish alone in the dark. "Oh, father! I thought no one would ever find us. I was afraid we should have died like the Italian lady--and people wouldhave found our skeletons and wondered about us. I never was afraid before. Not when the great horse reared as high as a house--and her ladyshipscreamed. I only laughed then--but to-night I have been afraid. "

Fareham put her aside without looking at her. 

"Angela! Great God! She is dead!"

No, she was not dead, only in a half swoon, leaning against the angle ofthe wall, ghastly white in the flare of the candles. She was not quiteunconscious. She knew whose strong arms were holding her, whose lips wereso near her own, whose head bent suddenly upon her breast, leaning againstthe lace kerchief, to listen for the beating of her heart. 

She made a great effort to relieve his fear, understanding dimly that hethought her dead; but could only murmur broken syllables, till he carriedher up three or four stairs, to a secret door that opened into the garden. There in the wintry air, under the steely light of wintry stars, her sensescame back to her. She opened her eyes and looked at him. 

"I am sorry I have not Papillon's courage, " she said. 

"Tu m'as donné une affreuse peur--je te croyais morte, " muttered Fareham, letting his arms drop like lead as she released herself from their support. 

Denzil and Henriette were close to them. They had come to the open doorfor fresh air, after the charnel-like chill and closeness of the smallunderground chamber. 

"Father is angry with me, " said the girl; "he won't speak to me. "

"Angry! no, no;" and he bent to kiss her. "But oh, child, the folly of it!She might have died--you too--found just an hour too late. "

"It would have taken a long time to kill me, " said Papillon; "but I wasvery cold, and my teeth were chattering, and I should soon have beenhungry. Have you had supper yet?"

"Nobody has even thought of supper. "

"I am glad of that. And I may have supper with you, mayn't I, and eat whatI like, because it's Christmas, and because I might have been starved todeath in the Priest's Hole. But it was a good hiding-place, tout de meme. Who guessed at last?"

"The only person who knew of the place, child. And now, remember, thesecret is to be kept. Your dungeon may some day save an honest man's life. You must tell nobody where you were hid. "

"But what shall I say when they ask me? I must not tell them a story. "

"Say you were hidden in the great chimney--which is truth; for the Priest'sHole is but a recess at the back of the chimney. And you, Warner, " turningto Denzil, who had not spoken since the opening of the door, "I know you'llkeep the secret. "

"Yes. I will keep your secret, " Denzil answered, cold as ice; and said noword more. 

They walked slowly round the house by the terrace, where the clipped yewsstood out like obelisks against the bleak bright sky. Papillon ran andskipped at her father's side, clinging to him, expatiating upon hersufferings in the dust and darkness. Denzil followed with, Angela, in adead silence. 

CHAPTER XI. 

LIGHTER THAN VANITY. 

"I think father must be a witch, " Henriette said at dinner next day, "orwhy did he tell me of the Italian lady who was shut in the dower-chest, just before Angela and I were lost in"--she checked herself at a look fromhis lordship--"in the chimney?"

"It wants no witch to tell that little girls are foolish and mischievous, "answered Fareham. 

"You ladies must have been vastly black when you came out of yourhiding-place, " said De Malfort. "I should have been sorry to see so muchbeauty disguised in soot. Perhaps Mrs. Kirkland means to appear in thecharacter of a chimney at our next Court masquerade. She would cause asgreat a stir as Lady Muskerry, in all her Babylonian splendour; but forother reasons. Nothing could mitigate the Muskerry's ugliness; and nodisguise could hide Mrs. Angela's beauty. "

"What would the costume be?" asked Papillon. 

"Oh, something simple. A long black satin gown, and a brick-dust velvethat, tall and curiously twisted, like your Tudor chimney; and a cluster ofgrey feathers on the top, to represent smoke. "

"Monsieur le Comte makes a joke of everything. But what would father havesaid if we had never been found?"

"I should have said that they are right who swear there is a curse upon allproperty taken from the Church, and that the ban fell black and bitter uponChilton Abbey, " answered his lordship's grave deep voice from the end ofthe table, where he sat somewhat apart from the rest, gloomy and silent, save when directly addressed. 

Her ladyship and De Malfort had always plenty to talk about. They had thepast as well as the present for their discourse, and were always sighingfor the vanished glories of their youth--at Paris, at Fontainebleau, at St. Germain. Nor were they restricted to the realities of the present and thememories of the past; they had that wider world of unreality in which tocirculate; they had the Scudèry language at the tips of their tongues, the fantastic sentimentalism of that marvellous old maid who invented theseventeenth-century hero and heroine; or who crystallised the vanishingfigures of that brilliant age and made them immortal. All that littlelanguage of toyshop platonics had become a natural form of speech withthese two, bred and educated in the Marais, while it was still the selectand aristocratic quarter of Paris. 

To-day Hyacinth and her old playfellow had been chattering like children, or birds in an aviary, and with little more sense in their conversation;but at this talk of the Church's ban, Hyacinth stopped in her prattle andwas almost serious. 

"I sometimes think we shall have bad luck in this house, " she said, "orthat we shall see the ghosts of the wicked monks who were turned out tomake room for Fareham's great-grandfather. "

"Tush, child! what do you know of their wickedness, after a century?"

"They were very wicked, I believe, for it was one of those quiet littlemonasteries where the monks could do all manner of evil things, and raisethe devil, if they liked, without anybody knowing. And when Henry theEighth sent his Commissioners, they were taken by surprise; and the altarat which they worshipped Beelzebub was found in a side chapel, and awax figure of the King stuck with arrows, like St. Sebastian. The Abbotpretended it _was_ St. Sebastian; but nobody believed him. "

"Nobody wanted to believe him, " said Fareham. "King Henry made an exampleof Chilton Abbey, and gave it to my worthy ancestor, who was a fourthcousin of Jane Seymour's, and had turned Protestant to please his royalmaster. He went back to the Church of Rome on his death-bed, and we Revelshave been Papists ever since. I wish the Church joy of us!"

"The Church has neither profit nor honour from you, " said his wife, shakingher fan at him. "You seldom go to Mass; you never go to confession. "

"I would rather keep my sins to myself, and atone for them by the pangs ofa wounded conscience. That is too easy a religion which shifts the burdenof guilt on to the shoulders of a stipendiary priest, and walks away fromthe confessional absolved by the payment of a few extra prayers. "

"I believe you are either an infidel or a Puritan. "

"A cross between the two, perhaps--a mongrel in religion, as I am a mongrelin politics. "

Angela looked up at him with sad eyes--reproachful, yet full of pity. Sheremembered his wild talk, semi-delirious some of it, all feverish andexcited, during his illness, and how she had listened with aching heart tothe ravings of one so near death, and so unfit to die. And now that thepestilence had passed him by, now that he was a strong man again, with halfa lifetime before him, her heart was still heavy for him. She who sat inthe theatre of life as a spectator had discovered that her sister's husbandwas not happy. The trifles that delighted Hyacinth left Fareham unamusedand discontented; and his wife knew not that there was anything wanting tohis felicity. She could go on prattling like a child, could be in a feverabout a fan or a bunch of ribbons, could talk for an hour of a new play orthe contents of the French _Gazette_, while he sat gloomy and apart. 

The sympathy, the companionship that should be in marriage was wantinghere. Angela saw and deplored this distance, scarce daring to touch sodelicate a theme, fearful lest she, the younger, should seem to sermonisethe elder; and yet she could not be silent for ever while duty and religionurged her to speak. 

At Chilton Abbey the sisters were rarely alone. Papillon was almost alwayswith them; and De Malfort spent more of his life in attendance upon LadyFareham than at Oxford, where he was supposed to be living. Mrs. Lettsomeand her brother were frequent guests; and coach-loads of fine peoplecame over from the court almost every day. Indeed, it was only Fareham'scharacter--austere as Clarendon's or Southampton's--which kept the finestof all company at a distance. Lady Castlemaine had called at Chilton in hercoach-and-four early in July; and her visit had not been returned--a slightwhich the proud beauty bitterly resented: and from that time she had lostno opportunity of depreciating Lady Fareham. Happily her jests, not overrefined in quality, had not been repeated to Hyacinth's husband. 

One January afternoon the longed-for opportunity came. The sisters weresitting alone in front of the vast mediaeval chimney, where the Abbots ofold had burnt their surplus timber--Angela busy with her embroidery frame, working a satin coverlet for her niece's bed; Hyacinth yawning overa volume of Cyrus; in whose stately pages she loved to recognise theportraits of her dearest friends, and for which she was a living key. Angela was now familiar with the famous romance, which she had read withdeepest interest, enlightened by her sister. As an eastern story--a recordof battles and sieges evolved from a clever spinster's brain, an account ofmen and women who had never lived--the book might have seemed passing dull;but the story of actual lives, of living, breathing beauty, and valour thatstill burnt in warrior breasts, the keen and clever analysis of men andwomen who were making history, could not fail to interest an intelligentgirl, to whom all things in life were new. 

Angela read of the siege of Dunkirk, where Fareham had fought; of thetempestuous weather; the camp in the midst of salt marshes and quicksands, and all the sufferings and perils of life in the trenches. He had beenin more than one of those battles which mademoiselle's conscientious pendepicted with such graphic power, the _Gazette_ at her elbow as she wrote. The names of battles, sieges, Generals, had been on his lips in hisdelirious ravings. He had talked of the taking of Charenton, the key toParis, a stronghold dominating Seine and Marne; of Clanleu, the bravedefender of the fortress; of Châtillon, who led the charge--both killedthere--Châtillon, the friend of Condé, who wept bitterest tears for a lossthat poisoned victory. Read by these lights, the "Grand Cyrus" was a bookto be pored over, a book to bend over in the grey winter dusk, readingby the broad blaze of the logs that flamed and crackled on wrought-ironstandards. Just as merrily the blaze had spread its ruddy light over theroom when it was a monkish refectory, and when the droning of a youthfulbrother reading aloud to the fraternity as they ate their supper was theonly sound, except the clattering of knives and grinding of jaws. 

Now the room was her ladyship's drawing-room, bright with Gobelinstapestry, dazzling with Venetian mirrors, gaudy with gold and colour, theblack oak floor enlivened by many-hued carpets from our new colony ofTangiers. Fareham told his wife that her Moorish carpets had cost thecountry fifty times the price she had paid for them, and were associatedwith an irrevocable evil in the existence of a childless Queen; but thatpiece of malice, Hyacinth told him, had no foundation but his hatred of theDuke, who had always been perfectly civil to him. 

"Of two profligate brothers I prefer the bolder sinner, " said Fareham. "Bigotry and debauchery are an ill mixture. "

"I doubt if his Majesty frets for the want of an heir, " remarked DeMalfort. "He is not a family man. "

"He is not a one family man, Count, " answered Fareham. 

Fareham and De Malfort were both away on this January evening. Papillon wastaking a dancing lesson from a wizened old Frenchman, who brought himselfand his fiddle from Oxford twice a week for the damsel's instruction. Mrs. Priscilla, nurse and _gouvernante_, attended these lessons, at which theHonourable Henrietta Maria Revel gave herself prodigious airs, and wasindeed so rude to the poor old professor that her aunt had declined toassist at any more performances. 

"Has his lordship gone to Oxford?" Angela asked, after a silence brokenonly by her sister's yawns. 

"I doubt he is anywhere rather than in such good company, " Hyacinthanswered, carelessly. "He hates the King, and would like to preach at him, as John Knox did at his great-grandmother. Fareham is riding, or rovingwith his dogs, I dare say. He has a gloomy taste for solitude. "

"Hyacinth, do you not see that he is unhappy?" Angela asked, suddenly, andthe pain in her voice startled her sister from the contemplation of thesublime Mandane. 

"Unhappy, child! What reason has he to be unhappy?"

"Ah, dearest, it is that I would have you discover. 'Tis a wife's businessto know what grieves her husband. "

"Unless it be Mrs. Lewin's bill--who is an inexorable harpy--I know of noact of mine that can afflict him. "

"I did not mean that his gloom was caused by any act of yours, sister. Ionly urge you to discover why he is so sad. "

"Sad? Sullen, you mean. He has a fine, generous nature. I am sure it is notLewin's charges that trouble him. But he had always a sullen temper--byfits and starts. "

"But of late he has been always silent and gloomy. "

"How the child watches him! Ma très chère, that silence is natural. Thereare but two things Fareham loves--the first, war; the second, sport. If hecannot be storming a town, he loves to be killing a fox. This fireside lifeof ours--our books and music, our idle talk of plays and dances--wearieshim. You may see how he avoids us--except out-of-doors. "

"Dear Hyacinth, forgive me!" Angela began, falteringly, leaving herembroidery frame and moving to the other side of the hearth, where shedropped on her knees by her ladyship's chair, and was almost swallowed upin the ample folds of her brocade train. "Is it not possible that LordFareham is pained to see you so much gayer and more familiar with Monsieurde Malfort than you ever are with him?"

"Gayer! more familiar!" cried Hyacinth. "Can you conceive any creaturegay and familiar with Fareham? One could as soon be gay with Don Quixote;indeed, there is much in common between the knight of the ruefulcountenance and my husband. Gay and familiar! And pray, mistress, whyshould I not take life pleasantly with a man who understands me, and inwhose friendship I have grown up almost as if we were brother and sister?Do you forget that I have known Henri ever since I was ten years old--thatwe played battledore and shuttlecock together in our dear garden in the Ruede Touraine, next the bowling-green, when he was at school with the JesuitFathers, and used to spend all his holiday afternoons with the Marquise?I think I only learnt to know the saints' days because they brought me myplayfellow. And when I was old enough to attend the Court--and, indeed, I was but a child when I first appeared there--it was Henri who sang mypraises, and brought a crowd of admirers about me. Ah, what a life it was!Love in the city, and war at the gates: plots, battles, barricades! Howhappy we all were! except when there came the news of some great mankilled, and walls were hung with black, where there had been a thousand waxcandles and a crowd of dancers. Châtillon, Chabot, Laval! _Hélas_, thosewere sad losses!"

"Dear sister, I can understand your affection for an old friend, but Iwould not have you place him above your husband; least of all would I havehis lordship suspect that you preferred the friend to the husband----"

"Suspect! Fareham! Are you afraid I shall make Fareham jealous, becauseI sing duets and cudgel these poor brains to make _bouts rimés_ with DeMalfort? Ah, child, how little those watchful eyes of yours have discoveredthe man's character! Fareham jealous! Why, at St. Germain he has seen mesurrounded by adorers; the subject of more madrigals than would fill a bigbook. At the Louvre he has seen me the--what is that Mr. What's-his-name, your friend's old school-master, the Republican poet, calls it--'thecynosure of neighbouring eyes. ' Don't think me vain, ma mie. I am an oldwoman now, and I hate my looking-glass ever since it has shown me myfirst wrinkle; but in those days I had almost as many admirers as MadameHenriette, or the Princess Palatine, or the fair-haired Duchess. I wascalled la belle Anglaise. "

It was difficult to sound a warning-note in ears so obstinately deaf toall serious things. Papillon came bounding in after her dancing-lesson--exuberant, loquacious. 

"The little beast has taught me a new step in the coranto. See, mother, "and the slim small figure was drawn up to its fullest, and the thin littlelithe arms were curved with a studied grace, as Papillon slid and trippedacross the room, her dainty little features illumined by a smirk ofineffable conceit. 

"Henriette, you are an ill-bred child to call your master so rude a name, "remonstrated her mother, languidly. 

"'Tis the name you called him last week when his dirty shoes left markson the stairs. He changes his shoes in my presence, " added Papillon, disgustedly. "I saw a hole in his stocking. Monsieur de Malfort calls himCut-Caper. "

CHAPTER XII. 

LADY FAREHAM'S DAY. 

A month later the _Oxford Gazette_ brought Lady Fareham the welcomest newsthat she had read for ever so long. The London death-rate had decreased, and his Majesty had gone to Hampton Court, attended by the Duke and PrinceRupert, Lord Clarendon, and his other indispensable advisers, and a retinueof servants, to be within easy distance of that sturdy soldier Albemarle, who had remained in London, unafraid of the pestilence; and who declaredthat while it was essential for him to be in frequent communication withhis Majesty, it would be perilous to the interests of the State for him toabsent himself from London; for the Dutch war had gone drivelling on eversince the victory in June, and that victory was not to be supposed final. Indeed, according to the General, there was need of speedy action and aconsiderable increase of our naval strength. 

Windsor had been thought of in the first place as a residence for the King;but the law courts had been transferred there, and the judges and theirfollowing had overrun the town, while there was a report of an infectedhouse there. So it had been resolved that his Majesty should make a briefresidence at Hampton Court, leaving the Queen, the Duchess, and theirbelongings at Oxford, whither he could return as soon as the business ofproviding for the setting out of the fleet had been arranged between himand the General, who could travel in a day backwards and forwards betweenthe Cockpit and Wolsey's palace. 

When this news came they were snowed up at Chilton. Sport of all kinds hadbeen stopped, and Fareham, who, in his wife's parlance, lived in his bootsall the winter, had to amuse himself without the aid of horse and hound;while even walking was made difficult by the snowdrifts that blockedthe lanes, and reduced the face of Nature to one muffled and monotonouswhiteness, while all the edges of the landscape were outlined vaguelyagainst the misty greyness of the sky. 

Hyacinth spent her days half in yawning and sighing, and half in idlelaughter and childish games with Henriette and De Malfort. When she was gayshe was as much a child as her daughter; when she was fretful and hipped, it was a childish discontent. 

They played battledore and shuttlecock in the picture-gallery, and my ladylaughed when her volant struck some reverend judge or venerable bishop arap on the nose. They sat for hours twanging guitars, Hyacinth taking hermusic-lesson from De Malfort, whose exquisite taste and touch made a guitarseem a different instrument from that on which his pupil's delicate fingersnipped a wiry melody, more suggestive of finger-nails than music. 

He taught her, and took all possible pains in the teaching, and laughed ather, and told her plainly that she had no talent for music. He told herthat in her hands the finest lute Laux Maler ever made, mellowed by threecenturies, would be but wood and catgut. 

"It is the prettiest head in the world, and a forehead as white as QueenAnne's, " he said one day, with a light touch on the ringletted brow, "butthere is nothing inside. I wonder if there is anything here?" and the samelight touch fluttered for an instant against her brocade bodice, at thespot where fancy locates the faculty of loving and suffering. 

She laughed at his rude speeches, just as she laughed at his flatteries--asif there were safety in that atmosphere of idle mirth. Angela heard andwondered, wondering most perhaps what occupied and interested Lord Farehamin those white winter days, when he lived for the greater part alone in hisown rooms, or pacing the long walks from which the gardeners had clearedthe snow. He spent some of his time indoors, deep in a book. She knew asmuch as that. He had allowed Angela to read some of his favourites, thoughhe would not permit any of the new comedies, which everybody at Court wasreading, to enter his house, much to Lady Fareham's annoyance. 

"I am half a century behind all my friends in intelligence, " she said, "because of your Puritanism. One tires of your everlasting gloomytragedies--your _Broken Hearts_ and _Philasters_. I am all for the geniusof comedy. "

"Then satisfy your inclinations, and read Molière. He is second only toShakespeare. "

"I have him by heart already. "

The _Broken Heart_ and _Philaster_ delighted Angela; indeed, she had readthe latter play so often, and with such deep interest, that many passagesin it had engraved themselves on her memory, and recurred to her sometimesin the silence of wakeful nights. 

That character of Bellario touched her as no heroine of the "Grand Cyrus"had power to move her. How elaborately artificial seemed the Scudèry'spolished tirades, her refinements and quintessences of the grand passion, as compared with the fervid simplicity of the woman-page--a love so humble, so intense, so unselfish!

Sir Denzil came to Chilton nearly every day, and was always graciouslyreceived by her ladyship. His Puritan gravity fell away from him like apilgrim's cloak, in the light air of Hyacinth's amusements. He seemed togrow younger; and Henriette's sharp eyes discovered an improvement in hisdress. 

"This is your second new suit since Christmas, " she said, "and I'll swearit is made by the King's tailor. Regardez done, madame! What exquisiteembroidery, silver and gold thread intermixed with little sparks of garnetssewn in the pattern! It is better than anything of his lordship's. I wish Ihad a father who dressed well. I'm sure mine must be the shabbiest lord atWhitehall. You have no right to be more modish than monsieur mon père, SirDenzil. "

"Hold that insolent tongue, p'tit drôle!" cried the mother. "Sir Denzil isyounger by a dozen years than his lordship, and has his reputation to makeat Court, and with the ladies he will meet there. I hope you are coming toLondon, Denzil. You shall have a seat in one of our coaches as soon as thedeath-rate diminishes, and this odious weather breaks up. "

"Your ladyship is all goodness. I shall go where my lode-star leads, "answered Denzil, looking at Angela, and blushing at the audacity of hisspeech. 

He was one of those modest lovers who rarely bring a blush to the cheek ofthe beloved object, but are so poor-spirited as to do most of the blushingthemselves. 

A week later Lady Fareham could do nothing but praise that severe weatherwhich she had pronounced odious, for her husband, coming in from Oxfordafter a ride along the road, deep with melting snow, brought the news of aconsiderable diminution in the London death-rate; and the more startlingnews that his Majesty had removed to Whitehall for the quicker despatch ofbusiness with the Duke of Albemarle, albeit the bills of mortality recordedfifteen hundred deaths from the pestilence in the previous week, andalthough not a carriage appeared in the deserted streets of the metropolisexcept those in his Majesty's train. 

"How brave, how admirable!" cried Hyacinth, clapping her hands in theexuberance of her joy. "Then we can go to London to-morrow, if horses andcoaches can be made ready. Give your orders at once, Fareham, I beseechyou. The thaw has set in. There will be no snow to stop us. "

"There will be floods which may make fords impassable. "

"We can avoid every ford--there is always a _détour_ by the lanes. "

"Have you any idea what the lanes will be like after two feet deep of snow?Be sure, my love, you are happier twanging your lute by this fireside thanyou would be stuck in a quagmire, perishing with cold in a windy coach. "

"I will risk the quagmires and the windy coach. Oh, my lord, if you everloved me let us set out to-morrow. I languish for Fareham House--mybasset-table, my friends, my watermen to waft me to and fro betweenBlackfriars and Westminster, the mercers in St. Paul's Churchyard, theMiddle Exchange. I have not bought myself anything pretty since Christmas. Let us go to-morrow. "

"And risk spoiling the prettiest thing you own--your face--by aplague-spot. "

"The King is there--the plague is ended. "

"Do you think he is a God, that the pestilence will flee at his coming?"

"I think his courage is godlike. To be the first to return to thatabandoned city. "

"What of Monk and the Archbishop, who never left it?"

"A rough old soldier! A Churchman! Such lives were meant to face danger. But his Majesty! A man for whom existence should be one long holiday?"

"He has done his best to make it so; but the pestilence has shown him thatthere are grim realities in life. Don't fret, dearest. We will go to townas soon as it is prudent to make the move. Kings must brave great hazards;and there is no reason that little people like us should risk our livesbecause the necessities of State compel his Majesty to imperil his. "

"We shall be laughed at if we do not hasten after him. "

"Let them laugh who please. I have passed through the ordeal, Hyacinth. Idon't want a second attack of the sickness; nor would I for worlds that youor your sister should run into the mouth of danger. Besides, you can loselittle pleasure by being absent; for the play-houses are all closed, andthe Court is in mourning for the French Queen-mother. "

"Poor Queen Anne!" sighed Hyacinth. "She was always kind to me. And todie of a cancer--after out-living those she most loved! King Louis wouldscarcely believe she was seriously ill, till she was at the point of death. But we know what mourning means at Whitehall--Lady Castlemaine in blackvelvet, with forty thousand pounds in diamonds to enliven it; a concertinstead of a play, perhaps; and the King sitting in a corner whisperingwith Mrs. Stewart. But as for the contagion, you will see that everybodywill rush back to London, and that you and I will be laughing-stocks. "

The next week justified Lady Fareham's assertion. As soon as it was knownthat the King had established himself at Whitehall, the great people cameback to their London houses, and the town began to fill. It was as if a Godhad smiled upon the smitten city, and that healing and happiness radiatedfrom the golden halo round that anointed head. Was not this the monarch ofwhom the most eloquent preacher of the age had written, "In the arms ofwhose justice and wisdom we lie down in safety"?

London flung off her cerements--erased her plague-marks. The dead-cart'sdreadful bell no longer sounded in the silence of an afflicted city. Coffins no longer stood at every other door; the pits at Finsbury, inTothill Fields, at Islington, were all filled up and trampled down; and thegrass was beginning to grow over the forgotten dead. The Judges came backto Westminster. London was alive again--alive and healed; basking in thesunshine of Royalty. 

Nowhere was London more alive in the month of March than at FarehamHouse on the Thames, where the Fareham liveries of green and gold showedconspicuous upon his lordship's watermen, lounging about the stone stepsthat led down to the water, or waiting in the terraced garden, which wasone of the finest on the river. Wherries of various weights and sizesfilled one spacious boathouse, and in another handsome stone edifice witha vaulted roof Lord Fareham's barge lay in state, glorious in cream colourand gold, with green velvet cushions and Oriental carpets, as splendid asthat blue-and-gold barge which Charles had sent as a present to Madame, avessel to out-glitter Cleopatra's galley, when her ladyship and her friendsand their singing-boys and musicians filled it for a voyage to HamptonCourt. 

The barge was used on festive occasions, or for country voyages, as toHampton or Greenwich; the wherries were in constant requisition. Alongthat shining waterway rank and fashion, commerce and business, were movingbackwards and forwards all day long. That more novel mode of transit, thehackney coach, was only resorted to in foul weather; for the Legislaturehad handicapped the coaching trade in the interests of the watermen, andcoaches were few and dear. 

If Angela had loved the country, she was not less charmed with Londonunder its altered aspect. All this gaiety and splendour, this movement andbrightness, astonished and dazzled her. 

"I am afraid I am very shallow-minded, " she told Denzil when he asked heropinion of London. "It seems an enchanted place, and I can scarcely believeit is the same dreadful city I saw a few months ago, when the dead werelying in the streets. Oh, how clearly it comes back to me--those emptystreets, the smoke of the fires, the wretched ragged creatures begging forbread! I looked down a narrow court, and saw a corpse lying there, anda child wailing over it; and a little way farther on a woman flung up awindow, and screamed out, 'Dead, dead! The last of my children is dead! HasGod no relenting mercy?'"

"It is curious, " said Hyacinth, "how little the town seems changed afterall those horrors. I miss nobody I know. "

"Nay, madam, " said Denzil, "there have only died one hundred and sixtythousand people, mostly of the lower classes; or at least that is therecord of the bills; but I am told the mortality has been twice as much, for people have had a secret way of dying and burying their dead. If yourladyship could have heard the account that Mr. Milton gave me this morningof the sufferings he saw before he left London, you would not think thevisitation a light one. "

"I wonder you consort with such a rebellious subject as Mr. Milton, " saidHyacinth. "A creature of Cromwell's, who wrote with hideous malevolence anddisrespect of the murdered King, who was in hiding for ever so long afterhis Majesty's return, and who now escapes a prison only by the royalclemency. "

"The King lacks only that culminating distinction of having persecuted thegreatest poet of the age in order to stand equal to the bigots who murderedGiordano Bruno, " said Denzil. 

"The greatest poet! Sure you would not compare Milton with Waller?"

"Indeed I would not, Lady Fareham. "

"Nor with Cowley, nor Denham--dear cracked-brained Denham?"

"Nor with Denham. To my fancy he stands as high above them as the pole-starover your ladyship's garden lamps. "

"A pamphleteer who has scribbled schoolboy Latin verses, and a few shortpoems; and, let me see, a masque--yes, a masque that he wrote for LordBridgewater's children before the troubles. I have heard my father talk ofit. I think he called the thing _Comus_. "

"A name that will live, Lady Fareham, when Waller and Denham are shadows, remembered only for an occasional couplet. "

"Oh, but who cares what people will think two or three hundred years hence?Waller's verses please us now. The people who come after me can pleasethemselves, and may read _Comus_ to their hearts' content. I know hislordship reads Milton, as he does Shakespeare, and all the cramped oldplay-wrights of Elizabeth's time. Henri, sing us that song of Waller's, 'Go, lovely rose. ' I would give all Mr. Milton has written for thatperfection. "

They were sitting on the terrace above the river in the golden light ofan afternoon that was fair and warm as May, though by the calendar 'twasMarch. The capricious climate had changed from austere winter to smilingspring. Skylarks were singing over the fields at Hampstead, and over theplague-pits at Islington, and all London was rejoicing in blue skies andsunshine. Trade was awakening from a death-like sleep. The theatres wereclosed; but there were plays acted now and then at Court. The New and theMiddle Exchange were alive with beribboned fops and painted belles. 

It was Lady Fareham's visiting-day. The tall windows of her saloon wereopen to the terrace, French windows that reached from ceiling to floor, like those at the Hôtel de Rambouillet, and which Hyacinth had substitutedfor the small Jacobean casements, when she took possession of her husband'sancestral mansion. Saloon and terrace were one on a balmy afternoon likethis; and her ladyship's guests wandered in and out at their pleasure. Herlackeys, handing chocolate and cakes on silver or gold salvers, were somany as to seem ubiquitous; and in the saloon, presided over by Angela, there was a still choicer refreshment to be obtained at a tea-table, wheretiny cups of the new China drink were dispensed to those who cared forexotic novelties. 

"Prythee, take your guitar and sing to us, were it but to change theconversation, " cried Hyacinth; and De Malfort took up his guitar and began, in the sweetest of tenors, "Go, lovely rose. "

He had all her ladyship's visitors, chiefly feminine, round him before hehad finished the first verse. That gift of song, that exquisite touch uponthe Spanish guitar, were irresistible. 

Lord Fareham landed at the lower flight of steps as the song ended, andcame slowly along the terrace, saluting his wife's friends with a gravecourtesy. He brought an atmosphere of silence and restraint with him, itseemed to some of his wife's visitors, for the babble that usually followsthe end of a song was wanting. 

Most of Lady Fareham's friends affected literature, and professedfamiliarity with two books which had caught the public taste on oppositesides of the Channel. In London people quoted Butler, and vowed there wasno wit so racy as the wit in "Hudibras. " In Paris the cultured were allstriving to talk like Rochefoucauld's "Maxims, " which had lately delightedthe Gallic mind by the frank cynicism that drew everybody's attention tosomebody else's failings. 

"Himself the vainest of men, 'tis scarce wonderful that he takes vanity tobe the mainspring that moves the human species, " said De Malfort, when someone had found fault with the Duke's analysis. 

"Oh, now we shall hear nothing but stale Rochefoucauldisms, sneers at loveand friendship, disparagement of our ill-used sex! Where has my gravehusband been, I wonder?" said Hyacinth. "Upon my honour, Fareham, your browlooks as sombre as if it were burdened with the care of the nation. "

"I have been with one who has to carry the greater part of that burden, mylady, and my spirits may have caught some touch of his uneasiness. "

"You have been prosing with that pragmatical personage at Dunkirk--nay, Ibeg the Lord Chancellor's pardon, Clarendon House. Are not his marblesand tapestries much finer than ours? And yet he began life as a sneakinglawyer, the younger son of a small Wiltshire squire----"

"Lady Fareham, you allow your tongue too much licence----"

"Nay, I speak but the common feeling. Everybody is tired of a Minister whois a hundred years behind the age. He should have lived under Elizabeth. "

"A pretty woman should never talk politics, Hyacinth. "

"Of what else can I talk when the theatres are closed, and you deny me theprivilege of seeing the last comedy performed at Whitehall? Is it not ranktyranny in his lordship, Lady Sarah?" turning to one of her intimates, alady who had been a beauty at the court of Henrietta Maria in the beginningof the troubles, and who from old habit still thought herself lovely andbeloved. "I appeal to your ladyship's common sense. Is it not monstrous todeprive me of the only real diversion in the town? I was not allowed toenter a theatre at all last year, except when his favourite Shakespeare orFletcher was acted, and that was but a dozen times, I believe. "

"Oh, hang Shakespeare!" cried a gentleman whose periwig occupied nearly asmuch space against the blue of a vernal sky as all the rest of his dapperlittle person. "Gud, my lord, it is vastly old-fashioned in your lordshipto taste Shakespeare!" protested Sir Ralph Masaroon, shaking a cloud ofpulvilio out of his cataract of curls. "There was a pretty enough playconcocted t'other day out of two of his--a tragedy and comedy--_Measure forMeasure_ and _Much Ado about Nothing_, the interstices filled in with theutmost ingenuity. But Shakespeare unadulterated--faugh!"

"I am a fantastical person, perhaps, Sir Ralph; but I would rather mywife saw ten of Shakespeare's plays--in spite of their occasionalcoarseness--than one of your modern comedies. "

"I should revolt against such tyranny, " said Lady Sarah. "I have alwaysappreciated Shakespeare, but I adore a witty comedy, and I never allowed myhusband to dictate to me on a question of taste. "

"Plays which her Majesty patronises can scarcely be unfit entertainment forher subjects, " remarked another lady. 

"Our Portuguese Queen is an excellent judge of the niceties of ourlanguage, " said Fareham. "I question if she understands five sentences inas many acts. "

"Nor should _I_ understand anything low or vulgar, " said Hyacinth. 

"Then, madam, you are best at home, for the whole entertainment would beHebrew to you. "

"That cannot be, " protested Lady Sarah; "for all our plays are written bygentlemen. The hack writers of King James's time have been shoved aside. Itis the mark of a man of quality to write a comedy. "

"It is a pity that fine gentlemen should write foul jests. Nay, it is asubject I can scarce speak of with patience, when I remember what theEnglish stage has been, and hear what it is; when I recall what LordClarendon has told me of his Majesty's father, for whom Shakespeare wasa closet companion, who loved all that was noblest in the drama of theElizabethan age. Time, which should have refined and improved the stage, has sunk it in ignominy. We stand alone among nations in our worship of theobscene. You have seen plays enough in Paris, Hyacinth. Recall the themesthat pleased you at the Marais and the Hôtel de Bourgogne; the stories ofclassic heroism, of Christian fortitude, of manhood and womanhood liftedto the sublime. You who, in your girlhood, were familiar with the austeregenius of Corneille----"

"I am sick of that Frenchman's name, " interjected Lady Sarah. "St. Évremondwas always praising him, and had the audacity to pronounce him superior toDryden; to compare _Cinna_ with the _Indian Queen_. "

"A comparison which makes one sorry for Mr. Dryden, " said Fareham. "I haveheard that Condé, when a young man, was affected to tears at the scenebetween Augustus and his foe. "

"He must have been very young, " said Lady Fareham. "But I am not going todepreciate Corneille, or to pretend that the French theatre is not vastlysuperior to our own. I would only protest that if our laughter-loving Kingprefers farce to tragedy, and rhyme to blankverse, his subjects shouldaccommodate themselves to his taste, and enjoy the plays he likes. It is afoolish prejudice that deprives me of such a pleasure. I could always go ina mask. "

"Can you put a mask upon your mind, and preserve that unstained in anatmosphere of corruption? Indeed, your ladyship does not know what youare asking for. To sit and simper through a comedy in which the filthiestsubjects are discussed in the vilest language; to see all that is foolishor lascivious in your own sex exaggerated with a malignant licence, whichmakes a young and beautiful woman an epitome of all the vices, uniting theextreme of masculine profligacy with the extreme of feminine silliness. Will you encourage by your presence the wretches who libel your sex? Willyou sit smiling to see your sisters in the pillory of satire?"

"I should smile as at a fairy tale. There are no such women among myfriends----"

"And if the satire hits an enemy, it is all the more pungent, " said LadySarah. 

"An enemy! The man who can so write of women is your worst enemy. The daywill come, perhaps, long after we are dust, when the women in _Epsom Wells_will be thought pictures from life. 'Such an one, ' people will say, asthey stand to read your epitaph, 'was this Lady Sarah, whose virtues arerecorded here in Latin superlatives. We know her better in the pages ofShadwell. '"

Lady Sarah paled under her rouge at that image of a tomb, as Fareham'sfalcon eye singled her out in the light-hearted group of which De Malfortwas the central figure, sitting on the marble balustrade, in an easyimpertinent attitude, swinging his legs, and dandling his guitar. She wasless concerned at the thought of what posterity might say of her moralsthan at the idea that she must inevitably die. 

"Not a word against Shad, " protested Sir Ralph. "I have roared withlaughter at his last play. Never did any one so hit the follies of town andcountry. His rural Put is perfection; his London rook is to the very life. "

"And if the generality of his female characters conduct themselves badlythere is always one heroine of irreproachable morals, " said Lady Sarah. 

"Who talks like a moral dragoon, " said Fareham. 

"Oh, dem, we must have the play-houses!" cried Masaroon. "Consider how dulltown is without them. They are the only assemblies that please quality andriffraff alike. Sure 'tis the nature of wit to bubble into licentiousness, as champagne foams over the rim of a glass; and, after all, who listens tothe play? Half the time one is talking to some adventurous miss, who willswallow a compliment from a stranger if he offer it with a china orange. Or, perhaps, there is quarrelling; and all our eyes and ears are on thescufflers. One may ogle a pretty actress on the stage; but who listens tothe play, except the cits and commonalty?"

"And even they are more eyes than ears, " said Lady Sarah, "and are gazingat the King and Queen, or the Duke and Duchess, when they should be'following an intrigue by Shadwell or Dryden. "

"Pardieu!" exclaimed De Malfort, "there are tragedies and comedies in theboxes deeper and more human than anything that is acted on the stage. Towatch the Queen, sitting silent and melancholy, while Madame Barbara lollsacross half a dozen people to talk to his Majesty, dazzling him with herbrilliant eyes, bewildering him by her daring speech. Or, on other nightsto see the same lady out of favour, sitting apart, with an ivory shoulderturned towards Royalty, scowling at the audience like a thunder-cloud. "

"Well, it is but natural, perhaps, that such a Court should inspire such astage, " returned Fareham, "and that for the heroic drama of Beaumont andFletcher, Webster, Massinger, and Ford, we should have a gross caricatureof our own follies and our own vices. Nay, so essential is foulness to themodern stage that when the manager ventures a serious play, he takes careto introduce it with some filthy prologue, and to spice the finish with afilthier epilogue. "

"Zounds, Fareham!" cried Masaroon, "when one has yawned or slept throughfive acts of dull heroics, one needs to be stung into wakefulness by ahigh-spiced epilogue. For my taste your epilogue can't be too pungentto give a flavour to my oysters and Rhenish. Gud, my lord, we must havesomething to talk about when we leave the play-house!"

"His lordship is spoilt; we are all spoilt for London after having lived inthe most exquisite city in the world, " drawled Mrs. Danville, one of LadyFareham's particular friends, who had been educated at the Visitandineswith the Princess Henrietta, now Duchess of Orleans. "Who can tolerate thecoarse manners and sea-coal fires of London after the smokeless skies andexquisite courtesies of Parisian good company in the Rue St. Thomas duLouvre--a society so refined that a fault in grammar shocks as much as aslit nose at Charing Cross? I shudder when I recall the Saturdays in theRue du Temple, and compare the conversations there, the play of wit andfancy, the elaborate arguments upon platonic love, the graceful raillery, with any assembly in London--except yours, Hyacinth. At Fareham House webreathe a finer air, although his lordship's esprit moqueur will not allowus any superiority to the coarse English mob. "

"Indeed, Mrs. Danville, even your prejudice cannot deny London finegentlemen and wits, " remonstrated Sir Ralph. "A court that can boast aBuckhurst, a Rochester, an Etherege, a Sedley----"

"There is not one of them can compare with Voiture or Godeau, with Bussy orSt. Évremond, still less with Scarron or Molière, " said De Malfort. "I haveheard more wit in one evening at Scarron's than in a week at Whitehall. Witin France has its basis in thought and erudition. Here it is the sparkleand froth of empty minds, a trick of speech, a knack of saying brutalthings under a pretence of humour, varnishing real impertinence with mockwit. I have heard Rowley laugh at insolences which, addressed to Louis, would have ensured the speaker a year in the Bastille. "

"I would not exchange our easy-tempered King for your graceful despot, "said Fareham. "Pride is the mainspring that moves Louis' self-absorbedsoul. His mother instilled it into his mind almost before he could speak. He was bred in the belief that he has no more parallel or fellow than thesun which he has chosen for his emblem. And then, for moral worth, he islittle better than his cousin, Louis has all Charles's elegant vices, plustyranny. "

"Louis is every inch a King. Your easy-tempered gentleman at Whitehall isonly a tradition, " answered De Malfort. "He is but an extravagantly paidofficial, whose office is a sinecure, and who sells something of hisprerogative every session for a new grant of money. I dare adventure, bythe end of his reign, Charles will have done more than Cromwell to increasethe liberty of the subject and to demonstrate the insignificance of kings. "

"I doubt the easy-tempered sinecurist who trusts the business of the Stateto the nation's representatives will wear longer than your officioustyrant, who wants to hold all the strings in his own fingers. "

"He may do that safely, so long as he has men like Colbert for puppets----"

"Men!" cried Fareham. "A man of so rare an honesty must not be thought ofin the plural. Colbert's talent, probity, and honour constitute a phoenixthat appears once in a century; and, given those rare qualities in the man, it needs a Richelieu to inspire the minister, and a Mazarin to teach himhis craft, and to prepare him for double-dealing in others which hisown direct mind could never have imagined. Trained first by one of thegreatest, and next by one of the subtlest statesmen the world has everseen, the provincial woollen-draper's son has all the qualities needed toraise France to the pinnacle of fortune, if his master will but give him afree hand. "

"At any rate, he will make Jacques Bonhomme pay handsomely for hisMajesty's new palaces and new loves, " said De Malfort. "Colbert adores theKing, and is blind to his follies, which are no more economical than thevulgar pleasures of your jovial Rowley. "

"Who takes four shillings in every country gentleman's pound to spendon the pleasures of London, " interjected Masaroon. "Royalty is plagueyexpensive. "

The company sighed a melancholy assent. 

"And one can never tell whether the money they squeeze out of us goes tobuild a new ship, or to pay Lady Castlemaine's gambling debts, " said LadySarah. 

"Oh, no doubt the lady, as Hyde calls her, has her tithes, " said DeMalfort. "I have observed she always flames in new jewels after a subsidy. "

"Royal accounts should be kept so that every tax-payer could look intothem, " said Masaroon. "The King has spent millions. We were all sofoolishly fond of him in the joyful day of his restoration that we allowedhim to wallow in extravagance, and asked no questions; and for a man whohad worn threadbare velvet and tarnished gold, and lived upon loans andgratuities from foreign princes and particulars, it was a new sensation todraw _ad libitum_ upon a national exchequer. "

"The exchequer Rowley draws upon should be as deep and wide as the riverPactolus; for he is a spendthrift by instinct, " said Fareham. 

"Yet his largest expenditure can hardly equal his cousin's drain upon therevenue. Mansart is spending millions on Versailles, with his bastardItalian architecture, his bloated garlands and festoons, his stone liliesand pomegranates. Charles builds no palaces, initiates no war----"

"And will leave neither palace nor monument; will have lived only to havediminished the dignity and importance of his country. Restored to kingdomand power as if by a miracle, he makes it his chief business to showEnglishmen how well they could have done without him, " said Denzil Warner, who had been hanging over Angela's tea-table until just now, when they bothsauntered on to the terrace, the lady's office being fulfilled, the littleChinese teapot emptied of its costly contents, and the tiny tea-cupsdistributed among the modish few who relished, or pretended to relish, thenew drink. 

"You are a Republican, Sir Denzil, fostered by an arrant demagogue!"exclaimed Masaroon, with a contemptuous shake of his shoulder ribbons. "Youhate the King because he is a King. "

"No, sir, I despise him because he is so much less than a King. Nobodycould hate Charles the Second. He is not big enough. "

"Oh, dem, we want no meddlesome Kings to quarrel with their neighbours, andset Europe by the ears! The treaty of the Pyrenees may be a fine thing forFrance; but how many noble gentlemen's lives it cost, to say nothing of thecommon people! Rowley is the finest gentleman in his kingdom, and the mostgood-natured. Eh, gud, sirs! what more would you have?"

"A MAN--like Henry the Fifth, or Oliver Cromwell, or Elizabeth. "

"Faith, she had need possess the manly virtues, for she must have beenan untowardly female--a sour, lantern-jawed spinster, with all theinclinations but none of the qualities of a coquette. "

"Greatness has the privilege of small failings, or it would scarcebe human. Elizabeth and Julius Caesar might be excused some harmlessvanities. "

 * * * * *

The spring evenings were now mild enough for promenading St. James's Park, and the Mall was crowded night after night by the finest company in London. Hyacinth walked in the Mall, and appeared occasionally in her coach inHyde Park; but she repeatedly reminded her friends how inferior was themill-round of the Ring to the procession of open carriages along the Coursla Reine, by the side of the Seine; the splendour of the women's dress, outshone sometimes by the extravagant decoration of their coaches and therichness of their liveries; the crowds of horsemen, the finest gentlemen inFrance, riding at the coach doors, and bandying jests and compliments withBeauty, enthroned in her triumphal chariot. Gay, joyous sunsets; lightlaughter; delicate feasting in Renard's garden, hard by the Tuileries. Toremember that fairer and different scene was to recall the freshness ofyouth, the romance of a first love. 

Here in the Mall there was gaiety enough and to spare. A crowd of finepeople that sometimes thickened to a mob, hustled by the cits andstarveling poets who came to stare at them. 

Yet, since St. James's Park was fashion's favourite promenade, Lady Farehamaffected it, and took a turn or two nearly every evening, alighting fromher chair at one gate and returning to it at another, on her way to routor dance. She took Angela with her; and De Malfort and Sir Denzil weregenerally in attendance upon them, Denzil's devotion stopping at nothingexcept a proposal of marriage, for which he had not mustered courage in afriendship that had lasted half a year. 

"Because there was one so favoured as Endymion, am I to hope for the moonto come down and give herself to me?" he said one day, when Lady Farehamrebuked him for his reticence. "I know your sister does not love me; yet Ihang on, hoping that love will come suddenly, like the coming of spring, which is ever a surprise. And even if I am never to win her, it ishappiness to see her and to talk with her. I will not spoil my chance byrashness; I will not hazard banishment from her dear company. "

"She is lucky in such an admirer, " sighed Hyacinth. "A silent, respectfulpassion is the rarest thing nowadays. Well, you deserve to conquer, Denzil;and if my sister were not of the coldest nature I ever met in woman shewould have returned your passion ages ago, when you were so much in hercompany at Chilton. "

"I can afford to wait as long as the Greeks waited before Troy, " saidDenzil; "and I will be as constant as they were. If I cannot be her lover Ican be her friend, and her protector. "

"Protector! Nay, surely she needs no protector out-of-doors, when she hasFareham and me within!"

"Beauty has always need of defenders. "

"Not such beauty as Angela's. In the first place, her charms are of nodazzling order; and in the second, she has a coldness of temper and anold-fashioned wisdom which would safeguard her amidst the rabble rout ofComus. "

"There I believe you are right, Lady Fareham. Temptation could not touchher. Sin, even the subtlest, could not so disguise itself that her puritywould not take alarm. Yes; she is like Milton's lady. The tempter couldnot touch the freedom of her mind. Sinful love would wither at a look fromthose pure eyes. "

He turned away suddenly and walked to the window. 

"Denzil! Why, what is the matter? You are weeping!"

"Forgive me!" he said, recovering himself. "Indeed, I am not ashamed of atributary tear to virtue and beauty like your sister's. "

"Dear friend, I shall not be happy till I call you brother. "

She gave him both her hands, and he bent down to kiss them. 

"I swear you are losing all your Anabaptist stiffness, " she said, laughingly. "You will be ruffling it in Covent Garden with Buckhurst andhis crew before long. "

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE SAGE OF SAYES COURT. 

One of Angela's letters to her convent companion, the chosen friend andconfidante of childhood and girlhood, Léonie de Ville, now married to theBaron de Beaulieu, and established in a fine house in the Place Royale, will best depict her life and thoughts and feelings during her first Londonseason. 

"You tell me, chère, that this London, which I have painted in somewhatbrilliant colours, must be a poor place compared with your exquisite city;but, indeed, despite all you say of the Cours la Reine, and your splendourof gilded coaches, fine ladies, and noble gentlemen, who ride at your coachwindows, talking to you as they rein in their spirited horses, I cannotthink that your fashionable promenade can so much surpass our Ring in HydePark, where the Court airs itself daily in the new glass coaches, or outviefor gaiety our Mall in St. James's Park, where all the world of beauty andwit is to be met walking up and down in the gayest, easiest way, everybodyfamiliar and acquainted, with the exception of a few women in masks, whoare never to be spoken to or spoken about. Indeed, my sister and I haveacquired the art of appearing neither to see nor to hear objectionablecompany, and pass close beside fine flaunting masks, rub shoulders withthem even--and all as if we saw them not. It is for this that Lord Farehamhates London. Here, he says, vice takes the highest place, and flaunts inthe sun, while virtue blushes, and steals by with averted head. But thoughI wonder at this Court of Whitehall, and the wicked woman who reignsempress there, and the neglected Queen, and the ladies of honour, whose badconduct is on every one's lips, I wonder more at the people and the lifeyou describe at the Louvre, and St. Germain, and Fontainebleau, and yournew palace of Versailles. 

"Indeed, Léonie, the world must be in a strange way when vice can put onall the grace and dignity of virtue, and hold an honourable place amonggood and noble women. My sister says that Madame de Montausier is a womanof stainless character, and her husband the proudest of men; yet you tellme that both husband and wife are full of kindness and favours for thatunhappy Mlle. De la Vallière, whose position at Court is an open insult toyour Queen. Have Queens often been so unhappy, I wonder, as her Majestyhere, and your own royal mistress? One at least was not. The martyred Kingwas of all husbands the most constant and affectionate, and, in the opinionof many, lost his kingdom chiefly through his fatal indulgence of QueenHenrietta's caprices, and his willingness to be governed by her opinions incircumstances of difficulty, where only the wisest heads in the landshould have counselled him. But how I am wandering from my defence of thisbeautiful city against your assertion of its inferiority! I hope, chère, that you will cross the sea some day, and allow my sister to lodge you inthis house where I write; and when you look out upon our delightful river, with its gay traffic of boats and barges passing to and fro, and itspalaces, rising from gardens and Italian terraces on either side of thestream; when you see our ancient cathedral of St. Paul; and the Abbey ofSt. Peter, lying a little back from the water, grand and ancient, andsomewhat gloomy in its massive bulk; and eastward, the old fortress-prison, with its four towers; and the ships lying in the Pool; and fertileBermondsey with its gardens; and all the beauty of verdant shores andcitizens' houses between the bridge and Greenwich, you will own that Londonand its adjacent villages can compare favourably with any metropolis in theworld. 

"The only complaint one hears is of its rapid growth, which is fastencroaching upon the pleasant fields and rustic lanes behind the LambsConduit and Southampton House; and on the western side spreading so rapidlythat there will soon be no country left between London and Knightsbridge. 

"How I wish thou couldst see our river-terrace on my sister's visiting-day, when De Malfort is lolling on the marble balustrade, singing one of yourfavourite chansons to the guitar which he touches so exquisitely, and whenHyacinth's fine lady friends and foppish admirers are sitting about in thesunshine! Thou wouldst confess that even Renard's garden can show no gayerscene. 

"It was only last Tuesday that I had the opportunity of seeing more of thecity than I had seen previously--and at its best advantage, as seen fromthe river. Mr. Evelyn, of Sayes Court, had invited my sister and herhusband to visit his house and gardens. He is a great gardener andarboriculturist, as you may have heard, for he has travelled much on theContinent, and acquired a world-wide reputation for his knowledge of treesand flowers. 

"We were all invited--the Farehams, and my niece Henriette; and even I, whom Mr. Evelyn had seen but once, was included in the invitation. We wereto travel by water, in his lordship's barge, and Mr. Evelyn's coach was tomeet us at a landing-place not far from his house. We were to start in themorning, dine with him, and return to Fareham House before dark. Henriettewas enchanted, and I found her at prayers on Monday night praying St. Swithin, whom she believes to have care of the weather, to allow no rain onTuesday. 

"She looked so pretty next morning, dressed for the journey, in a lightblue cloth cloak embroidered with silver, and a hood of the same; but shebrought me bad news--my sister had a feverish headache, and begged us to gowithout her. I went to Hyacinth's room to try to persuade her to go withus, in the hope that the fresh air along the river would cure her headache;but she had been at a dance overnight, and was tired, and would do nothingbut rest in a dark room all day--at least, that was her resolve in themorning; but later she remembered that it was Lady Lucretia Topham'svisiting-day, and, feeling better, ordered her chair and went off toBloomsbury Square, where she met all the wits, full of a new play which hadbeen acted at Whitehall, the public theatres being still closed on accountof the late contagion. 

"They do not act their plays here as often as Molière is acted at theHôtel de Bourgogne. The town is constant in nothing but wanting perpetualvariety, and the stir and bustle of a new play, which gives something forthe wits to dispute about. I think we must have three play-wrights to oneof yours; but I doubt if there is wit enough in a dozen of our writers toequal your Molière, whose last comedy seems to surpass all that has gonebefore. His lordship had a copy from Paris last week, and read the play tous in the evening. He has no accent, and reads French beautifully, withspirit and fire, and in the passionate scenes his great deep voice has afine effect. 

"We left Fareham House at nine o'clock on a lovely morning, worthy thismonth of May. The lessening of fires in the city since the warmer weatherhas freed our skies from sea-coal smoke, and the sky last Tuesday was bluerthan the river. 

"The cream-coloured and gold barge, with twelve rowers in the Farehamgreen velvet liveries, would have pleased your eyes, which have ever lovedsplendour; but you might have thought the master of this splendid barge toosombre in dress and aspect to become a scene which recalled Cleopatra'sgalley. To me there is much that is interesting in that severe and seriousface, with its olive complexion and dark eyes, shadowed by the strong, thoughtful brow. People who knew Lord Stafford say that my brother-in-lawhas a look of that great, unfortunate man--sacrificed to stem the risingflood of rebellion, and sacrificed in vain. Fareham is his kinsman onthe mother's side, and may have perhaps something of his powerful mind, together with the rugged grandeur of his features and the bent carriage ofhis shoulders, which some one the other day called the Stratford stoop. 

"I have been reading some of Lord Stafford's letters, and the accountof his trial. Indeed he was an ill-used man, and the victim of privatehatred--from the Vanes and others--as much as of public faction. His trialand condemnation were scarce less unfair--though the form and tribunal mayhave been legal--than his master's, and indeed did but forecast that mostunwarrantable judgment. Is it not strange, Léonie, to consider how much oftragical history you and I have lived through that are yet so young? Butto me it is strangest of all to see the people in this city, who abandonthemselves as freely to a life of idle pleasures and sinful folly--atleast, the majority of them--as if England had never seen the tragedy ofthe late monarch's murder, or been visited by death in his most horribleaspect, only the year last past. My sister tells every one, smiling, thatshe misses no one from the circle of her friends. She never saw the redcross on almost every door, the coffins, and the uncoffined dead, as I sawthem one stifling summer day, nor heard the shrieks of the mourners inhouses where death was master. Nor does she suspect how near she was tomissing her husband, who was hanging between life and death when I foundhim, forsaken and alone. He never talks to me of those days of sickness andslow recovery; yet I think the memory of them must be in his mind as it isin mine, and that this serves as a link to draw us nearer than many a realbrother and sister. I am sending you a little picture which I made of himfrom memory, for he has one of those striking faces that paint themselveseasily upon the mind. Tell me how you, who are clever at reading faces, interpret this one. 

"Hélas, how I wander from our excursion! My pen winds like the river whichcarried us to Deptford. Pardon, chèrie, sije m'oublie trop; mais c'est sidoux de causer avec une amie d'enfance. 

"At the Tower stairs we stopped to take on board a gentleman in a very finepeach-blossom suit, and with a huge periwig, at which Papillon began tolaugh, and had to be chid somewhat harshly. He was a very civil-spoken, friendly person, and he brought with him a lad carrying a viol. He is anofficer of the Admiralty, called Pepys, and, Fareham tells me, a useful, indefatigable person. My sister met him at Clarendon House two years ago, and wrote to me about him somewhat scornfully; but my brother respects himas shrewd and capable, and more honest than such persons usually are. Wewere to fetch him to Sayes Court, where he also was invited by Mr. Evelyn;and in talking to Henriette and me, he expressed great regret that his wifehad not been included, and he paid my niece compliments upon her grace andbeauty which I could but think very fulsome and showing want of judgment inaddressing a child. And then, seeing me vexed, he hoped I was not jealous;at which I could hardly command my anger, and rose in a huff and left him. But he was a person not easy to keep at a distance, and was following me tothe prow of the boat, when Fareham took hold of him by his cannon sleeveand led him to a seat, where he kept him talking of the navy and the greatships now a-building to replace those that have been lost in the Dutch War. 

"When we had passed the Pool, and the busy trading ships, and all the noiseof sailors and labourers shipping or unloading cargo, and the traffic ofsmall boats hastening to and fro, and were out on a broad reach of theriver with the green country on either side, the lad tuned his viol, andplayed a pretty, pensive air, and he and Mr. Pepys sang some verses byHerrick, one of our favourite English poets, set for two voices--

 "'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time still is a-flying; And this same flower that smiles to-day, To-morrow will be dying. "

The boy had a voice like Mere Ursule's lovely soprano, and Mr. Pepys apretty tenor; and you can imagine nothing more silvery sweet than the unionof the two voices to the staccato notes of the viol, dropping in here andthere like music whispered. The setting was Mr. Pepys' own, and he seemedovercome with pride when we praised it. When the song was over, Farehamcame to the bench where Papillon and I were sitting, and asked me what Ithought of this fine Admiralty gentleman, whereupon I confessed I liked thesong better than the singer, who at that moment was strutting on the decklike a peacock, looking at every vessel we passed as if he were Neptune, and could sink navies with a nod. 

"Misericorde! how my letter grows! But I love to prattle to you. My sisteris all goodness to me; but she has her ideas and I have mine; and though Ilove her none the less because our fancies pull us in opposite directions, I cannot talk to her as I can write to you; and if I plague you with toomuch of my own history you must not fear to tell me so. Yet if I dare judgeby my own feelings, who am never weary of your letters--nay, can neverhear enough of your thoughts and doings--I think you will bear with myexpatiations, and not deem them too impertinent. 

"Mr. Evelyn's coach was waiting at the landing-stage; and that goodgentleman received us at his hall door. He is not young, and has gonethrough much affliction in the loss of his dear children--one, who diedof a fever during that wicked reign of the Usurper Cromwell, was a boyof gifts and capacities that seemed almost miraculous, and had morescholarship at five years old than my poor woman's mind could compass wereI to live till fifty. Mr. Evelyn took a kind of sad delight in talking toHenriette and me of this gifted child, asking her what she knew of thisand that subject, and comparing her extensive ignorance at eleven with hislamented son's vast knowledge at five. I was more sorry for him than Idared to say; for I could but think this dear overtaught child might havedied from a perpetual fever of the brain as likely as from a four days'fever of the body; and afterwards when Mr. Evelyn talked to us of a mannerof forcing fruits to grow in strange shapes--a process in which he wasgreatly interested--I thought that this dear infant's mind had beenconstrained and directed, like the fruits, into a form unnatural tochildhood. Picture to yourself, Léonie, at an age when he should have beenchasing butterflies or making himself a garden of cut-flowers stuck in theground, this child was labouring over Greek and Latin, and all his dreamsmust have been filled with the toilsome perplexities of his daily tasks. Itis happy for the bereaved father that he takes a different view, and thathis pride in the child's learning is even greater than his grief at havinglost him. 

"At dinner the conversation was chiefly of public affairs--the navy, thewar, the King, the Duke, and the General. Mr. Evelyn told Fareham much ofhis embarrassments last year, when he had the Dutch prisoners, and the sickand wounded from the fleet, in his charge; and when there was so terriblea scarcity of provision for these poor wretches that he was constrained todraw largely on his own private means in order to keep them from starving. 

"Later, during the long dinner, Mr. Pepys made allusions to an unhappypassion of his master and patron, Lord Sandwich, that had diverted his mindfrom public business, and was likely to bring him to disgrace. Nothing wassaid plainly about this matter, but rather in hints and innuendoes, and mybrother's brow darkened as the conversation went on; and then, at last, after sitting silent for some time while Mr. Evelyn and Mr. Pepysconversed, he broke up their discourse in a rough, abrupt way he has whengreatly moved. 

"'He is a wretch--a guilty wretch--to love where he should not, to hazardthe world's esteem, to grieve his wife, and to dishonour his name! And yet, I wonder, is he happier in his sinful indulgence than if he had played aRoman part, or, like the Spartan lad we read of, had let the wild-beastpassion gnaw his heart out, and yet made no sign? To suffer and die, thatis virtue, I take it, Mr. Evelyn; and you Christian sages assure us thatvirtue is happiness. A strange kind of happiness!'

"'The Christian's law is a law of sacrifice, ' Mr. Evelyn said, in hismelancholic way. 'The harvest of surrender here is to be garnered in abetter world. '

"'But if Sandwich does not believe in the everlasting joys of the heavenlyJerusalem--and prefers to anticipate his harvest of joy!' said Fareham. 

"'Then he is the more to be pitied, ' interrupted Mr. Evelyn. 

"'He is as God made him. Nothing can come out of a man but what hisMaker put in him. Your gold vase there will not turn vicious and producecopper--nor can all your alchemy turn copper to gold. There are some of uswho believe that a man can live only once, and love only once, and be happyonly once in that pitiful span of infirmities which we call life; and thathe is wisest who gathers his roses while he may--as Mr. Pepys sang to usthis morning. '

"Mr. Evelyn sighed, and looked at my brother with mild reproof. 

"'If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men mostmiserable, ' he said. 'My lord, when those you love people the HeavenlyCity, you will begin to believe and hope as I do. '

"I have transcribed this conversation at full length, Léonie, because itgives you the keynote to Fareham's character, and accounts for much that isstrange in his conduct. Alas, that I must say it of so noble a man! He isan infidel! Bred in our Church, he has faith neither in the Church norin its Divine Founder. His favourite books are metaphysical works byDescartes, Hobbes, Spinoza. I have discovered him reading those perniciouswritings whose chief tendency is to make us question the most blessedtruths our Church has taught us, or to confuse the mind by leading us todoubt even of our own existence. I was curious to know what there couldbe in books that so interested a man of his intelligence, and asked to beallowed to read them; but the perusal only served to make me unhappy. Thisdaring attempt to reduce all the mysteries of life to a simple sum inarithmetic, and to make God a mere attribute in the mind of man, disturbedand depressed me. Indeed, there can be no more unhappy moment in any lifethan that in which for the first time a terrible 'if' flashes upon themind. _If_ God is not the God I have worshipped, and in whose goodness Irest all my hopes of future bliss; _if_ in the place of an all-powerfulCreator, who gave me my life and governs it, and will renew it after thegrave, there is nothing but a quality of my mind, which makes it necessaryto me to invent a Superior Being, and to worship the product of my ownimagination! Oh, Léonie, beware of these modern thinkers, who assail thecreed that has been the stronghold and comfort of humanity for sixteenhundred years, and who employ the reason which God has given them todisprove the existence of their Maker. Fareham insists that Spinoza is areligious man--and has beautiful ideas about God; but I found only doubtand despair in his pages; and I ascribe my poor brother's melancholicdisposition in some part to his study of such philosophers. 

"I wonder what you would think of Fareham, did you see him daily andhourly, almost, as I do. Would you like or dislike, admire or scorn him?I cannot tell. His manners have none of the velvet softness which is thefashion in London--where all the fine gentlemen shape themselves upon theParisian model; yet he is courteous, after his graver mode, to allwomen, and kind and thoughtful of our happiness. To my sister he is allbeneficence; and if he has a fault it is over-much indulgence of her whimsand extravagances--though Hyacinth, poor soul, thinks him a tyrant becausehe forbids her some places of amusement to which other women of qualityresort freely. Were he my husband, I should honour him for his desire tospare me all evil sounds and profligate company; and so would Hyacinth, perhaps, had she leisure for reflection. But in her London life, surroundedever with a bevy of friends, moving like a star amidst a galaxy of greatladies, there is little time for the free exercise of a sound judgment, and she can but think as others bid her, who swear that her husband is adespot. 

"Mrs. Evelyn was absent from home on a visit; so after dinner Henriette andI, having no hostess to entertain us, walked with our host, who showedus all the curiosities and beauties of his garden, and condescended toinstruct us upon many interesting particulars relating to trees andflowers, and the methods of cultivation pursued in various countries. Hisfig trees are as fine as those in the convent garden at Louvain; and, indeed, walking with him in a long alley, shut in by holly hedges of whichhe is especially proud, and with orchard trees on either side, I was takenback in fancy to the old pathway along which you and I have paced so oftenwith Mother Agnes, talking of the time when we should go out into theworld. You have been more than three years in that world of which you thenknew so little, but it lacks still a quarter of one year since I left thatquiet and so monotonous life; and already I look back and wonder if I everreally lived there. I cannot picture myself within those walls. I cannotcall back my own feelings or my own image at the time when I had never seenLondon, when my sister was almost a stranger to me, and my sister's husbandonly a name. Yet a day of sorrow might come when I should be fain to finda tranquil retreat in that sober place, and to spend my declining years inprayer and meditation, as my dear aunt did spend nearly all her life. MayGod maintain us in the true faith, sweet friend, so that we may ever havethat sanctuary of holy seclusion and prayer to fly to--and, oh, howdeep should be our pity for a soul like Fareham's, which knows not theconsolations nor the strength of religion, for whom there is no armouragainst the arrows of death, no City of Refuge in the day of mourning!

"Indeed he is not happy. I question and perplex myself to find a reason forhis melancholy. He is rich in money and in powerful friends; has a wifewhom all the world admires; houses which might lodge Royalty. Perhaps it isbecause his life has been over prosperous that he sickens of it, like onewho flings away from a banquet table, satiated by feasting. Life to him maybe like the weariness of our English dinners, where one mountain of food iscarried away to make room on the board for another; and where after peoplehave sat eating and drinking for over an hour comes a roasted swan, or apeacock, or some other fantastical dish, which the company praise as apretty surprise. Often, in the midst of such a dinner, I recall our sparingmeals in the convent; our soup maigre and snow eggs, our cool salads andblack bread--and regret that simple food, while the reeking joints andhecatombs of fowl nauseate my senses. 

"It was late in the afternoon when we returned to the barge, for Mr. Pepyshad business to transact with our host, and spent an hour with him in hisstudy, signing papers, and looking at accounts, while Papillon and I roamedabout the garden with his lordship, conversing upon various subjects, andabout Mr. Evelyn, and his opinions and politics. 

"'The good man has a pretty trivial taste that will keep him amused andhappy till he drops into the grave--but, lord! what insipid trash it allseems to the heart on fire with passion!' Fareham said in his impetuousway, as if he despised Mr. Evelyn for taking pleasure in bagatelles. 

"The sun was setting as we passed Greenwich, and I thought of those who hadlived and made history in the old palace--Queen Elizabeth, so great, solonely; Shakespeare, whom his lordship honours; Bacon, said to be one ofthe wisest men who have lived since the Seven of Greece; Raleigh, so brave, so adventurous, so unhappy! Surely men and women must have been made ofanother stuff a century ago; for what will those who come after us rememberof the wits and beauties of Whitehall, except that they lived and died?

"Mr. Pepys was somewhat noisy on the evening voyage, and I was very gladwhen he left the barge. He paid me ridiculous compliments mixed with scrapsof French and Spanish, and, finding his conversation distasteful, heinsisted upon attempting several songs--not one of which he was able tofinish, and at last began one which for some reason made his lordshipangry, who gave him a cuff on his head that scattered all the scentedpowder in his wig; on which, instead of starting up furious to return theblow, as I feared to see him, Mr. Pepys gave a little whimpering laugh, muttered something to the effect that his lordship was vastly nice, andsank down in a corner of the cushioned seat, where he almost instantly fellasleep. 

"Henriette and I were spectators of this scene at some distance, I am gladto say, for all the length of the barge divided us from the noisy singer. 

"The sun went down, and the stars stole out of the deep blue vault, andtrembled between us and those vast fields of heaven. Papillon watched theirreflection in the river, or looked at the houses along the shore, few andfar apart, where a solitary candle showed here and there. Fareham came andseated himself near us, but talked little. We drew our cloaks closer, forthe air was cold, and Papillon nestled beside me and dropped asleep. Eventhe dipping of the oars had a ghostly sound in the night stillness; and weseemed so melancholy in this silence, and so far away from one another, that I could but think of Charon's boat laden with the souls of the dead. 

"Write to me soon, dearest, and as long a letter as I have written to you. 

"À toi de coeur, "ANGELA. "

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE MILLBANK GHOST. 

One of the greatest charms of London has ever been the facility of gettingaway from it to some adjacent rustic or pseudo-rustic spot; and in 1666, though many people declared that the city had outgrown all reason, and waseating up the country, a two-mile journey would carry the Londoner frombricks and mortar to rusticity, and while the tower of St Paul's Cathedralwas still within sight he might lie on the grass on a wild hillside, and hear the skylark warbling in the blue arch above him, and scentthe hawthorn blowing in untrimmed hedge-rows. And then there were thefashionable resorts--the gardens or the fields which the town had marked asits own. Beauty and wit had their choice of such meeting-grounds betweenWestminster and Barn Elms, where in the remote solitudes along the rivermurder might be done in strict accordance with etiquette, and was tooseldom punished by law. 

Among the rendezvous of fashion there was one retired spot less widelyknown than Fox Hall or the Mulberry Garden, but which possessed a certainrepute, and was affected rather by the exclusives than by the crowd. It wasa dilapidated building of immemorial age, known as the "haunted Abbey, "being, in fact, the refectory of a Cistercian monastery, of which all otherremains had disappeared long ago. The Abbey had flourished in the lifetimeof Sir Thomas More, and was mentioned in some of his familiar epistles. The ruined building had been used as a granary in the time of Charles theFirst; and it was only within the last decade that it had been redeemedfrom that degraded use, and had been in some measure restored and madehabitable for the occupation of an old couple, who owned the surroundingfields, and who had a small dairy farm from which they sent fresh milk intoLondon every morning. 

The ghostly repute of the place and the attraction of new milk, cheesecakes, and syllabubs, had drawn a certain number of those satiatedpleasure-seekers who were ever on the alert for a new sensation, among whomthere was none more active or more noisy than Lady Sarah Tewkesbury. Shehad made the haunted Abbey in a manner her own, had invited her friendsto midnight parties to watch for the ghost, and to morning parties to eatsyllabubs and dance on the grass. She had brought a shower of gold into thelap of the miserly freeholder, and had husband and wife completely underher thumb. 

Doler, the husband, had fought in the civil war, and Mrs. Doler had beena cook in the Fairfax household; but both had scrupulously sunk allCromwellian associations since his Majesty's return, and in boasting, as heoften did boast, of having fought desperately and been left for dead at thebattle of Brentford, Mr. Doler had been careful to suppress the fact thathe was a hireling soldier of the Parliament. He would weep for the martyredKing, and tell the story of his own wounds, until it is possible he hadforgotten which side he had fought for, in remembering his personal prowessand sufferings. 

So far there had been disappointment as to the ghost. Sounds had been heardof a most satisfying grimness, during those midnight and early morningwatchings; rappings, and scrapings, and scratching on the wall, groaningsand meanings, sighings and whisperings behind the wainscote; but nothingspectral had been seen; and Mrs. Doler had been severely reprimanded by herpatrons and patronesses for the unwarrantable conduct of a spectre whichshe professed to have seen as often as she had fingers and toes. 

It was the phantom of a nun--a woman of exceeding beauty, but white as thelinen which banded her cheek and brow. There was a dark story of violatedoaths, priestly sin, and the sleepless conscience of the dead, who couldnot rest even in that dreadful grave where the sinner had been immuredalive, but must needs haunt the footsteps of the living, a wandering shade. Some there were who disbelieved in the traditions of that living grave, and who even went so far as to doubt the ghost; but the spectre had anestablished repute of more than a century, was firmly believed in by allthe children and old women of the neighbourhood, and had been written aboutby students of the unseen. 

One of Lady Sarah's parties took place at full moon, not long after thevisit to Deptford, and Lord Fareham's barge was again employed, this timeon a nocturnal expedition up the river to the fields near the hauntedAbbey, to carry Hyacinth, her sister, De Malfort, Lord Rochester, Sir RalphMasaroon, Sir Denzil Warner, and a bevy of wits and beauties--beauties whohad, some of them, been carrying on the beauty-business and trading in eyesand complexion for more than one decade, and who loved that night seasonwhen paint might be laid on thicker than in the glare of day. 

The barge wore a much more festive aspect under her ladyship's managementthan when used by his lordship for a daylight voyage like the trip toDeptford. Satin coverlets and tapestry curtains had been brought fromLady Fareham's own apartments, to be flung with studied carelessness overbenches and tabourets. Her ladyship's singing-boys and musicians weregrouped picturesquely under a silken canopy in the bows, and a row oflanterns hung on chains festooned from stem to stern, pretty gew-gaws, thathad no illuminating power under that all-potent moon, but which glitteredwith coloured light like jewels, and twinkled and trembled in the summerair. 

A table in the stern was spread with a light collation, which gave anexcuse for the display of parcel-gilt cups, silver tankards, and Venetianwine-flasks. A miniature fountain played perfumed waters in the midst ofthis splendour; and it amused the ladies to pull off their long gloves, dipthem in the scented water, and flap them in the faces of their beaux. 

The distance was only too short, since Lady Fareham's friends declared thevoyage was by far the pleasanter part of the entertainment. Denzil, amongothers, was of this opinion, for it was his good fortune to have securedthe seat next Angela, and to be able to interest her by his account of thebuildings they passed, whose historical associations were much better knownto him than to most young men of his epoch. He had sat at the feet of a manwho scoffed at Pope and King, and hated Episcopacy, but who revered allthat was noble and excellent in England's past. 

"Flams, mere flams!" cried Hyacinth, acknowledging the praises bestowed onher barge; "but if you like clary wine better than skimmed milk you hadbest drink a brimmer or two before you leave the barge, since 'tis oddsyou'll get nothing but syllabubs and gingerbread from Lady Sarah. "

"A substantial supper might frighten away the ghost, who doubtless partedwith sensual propensities when she died, " said De Malfort. "How do we watchfor her? In a severe silence, as if we were at church?"

"Aw would keep silence for a week o' Sawbaths gin Aw was sure o' seeing abogle, " said Lady Euphemia Dubbin, a Scotch marquess's daughter, who hadmarried a wealthy cit, and made it the chief endeavour of her life toignore her husband and keep him at a distance. 

She hated the man only a little less than his plebeian name, which she hadnot succeeded in persuading him to change, because, forsooth, there hadbeen Dubbins in Mark Lane for many generations. All previous Dubbins hadlived over their warehouses and offices; but her ladyship had broughtThomas Dubbin from Mark Lane to my Lord Bedford's Piazza in the ConventGarden, where he endured the tedium of existence in a fine new house inwhich he was afraid of his fine new servants, and never had anything to eatthat he liked, his gastronomic taste being for dishes the very names ofwhich were intolerable to persons of quality. 

This evening Mr. Dubbin had been incorrigible, and had insisted onintruding his clumsy person upon Lady Fareham's party, arguing with a dullpersistence that his name was on her ladyship's billet of invitation. 

"Your name is on a great many invitations only because it is my misfortuneto be called by it, " his wife told him. "To sit on a barge after teno'clock at night in June--the coarsest month in summer--is to courtlumbago; and all I hope is ye'll not be punished by a worse attack thancommon. "

Mr. Dubbin had refused to be discouraged, even by this churlishness fromhis lady, and appeared in attendance upon her, wearing a magnificentbirthday suit of crimson velvet and green brocade, which he meant topresent to his favourite actor at the Duke's Theatre, after he hadexhibited himself in it half a dozen times at Whitehall, for the benefitof the great world, and at the Mulberry Garden for the admiration of the_bona-robas_. He was a fat, double-chinned little man, the essence of goodnature, and perfectly unconscious of being an offence to fine people. 

Although not a wit himself, Mr. Dubbin was occasionally the cause of wit inothers, if the practice of bubbling an innocent rustic or citizen can becalled wit. Rochester and Sir Ralph Masaroon, and one Jerry Spavinger, a gentleman jockey, who was a nobody in town, but a shining light atNewmarket, took it upon themselves to draw the harmless citizen, and, as apreliminary to making him ridiculous, essayed to make him drunk. 

They were clustered together in a little group somewhat apart from therest of the company, and were attended upon by a lackey who brought a fulltankard at the first whistle on the empty one, and whom Mr. Dubbin, aftera rapid succession of brimmers, insisted on calling "drawer. " It was veryseldom that Rochester condescended to take part in any entertainment onwhich the royal sun shone not, unless it were some post-midnight maraudingwith Buckhurst, Sedley, and a band of wild coursers from the purlieus ofDrury Lane. He could see no pleasure in any medium between Whitehall andAlsatia. 

"If I am not fooling on the steps of the throne, let me sprawl inthe gutter with pamphleteers and orange-girls, " said this precociousprofligate. "I abhor a reputable party among your petty nobility, and ifI had not been in love with Lady Fareham off and on, ever since I cut mysecond teeth, I would have no hand in such a humdrum business as this. "

"There's not a neater filly in the London stable than her ladyship, " saidJerry, "and I don't blame your taste. I was side-glassing her yesterday inHi' Park, but she didn't seem to relish the manoeuvre, though I was wearinga Chedreux peruke that ought to strike 'em dead. "

"You don't give your peruke a chance, Jerry, while you frame that ugly phizin it. "

"Why not buffle the whole company, my lord?" said Masaroon, while Mr. Dubbin talked apart with Lady Euphemia, who had come from the other end ofthe barge to warn her husband against excess in Rhenish or Burgundy. "Youare good at disguises. Why not act the ghost and frighten everybody out oftheir senses?"

"Il n'y a pas de quoi, Ralph. The creatures have no sense to be robbedof. They are second-rate fashion, which is only worked by machinery. Theyimitate us as monkeys do, without knowing what they aim at. Their womenhave virtuous instincts, but turn wanton rather than not be like the maidsof honour; and because we have our duels their men murder each other fora shrugged shoulder or a casual word. No, I'll not chalk my face or smearmyself with phosphorus to amuse such trumpery. It was worth my pains todisguise myself as a German Nostradamus, in order to fool the lovelyJennings and her friend Price--who won't easily forget their adventuresas orange-girls in the heart of the city. But I have done with all suchfollies. "

"You are growing old, Wilmot. The years are telling upon your spirits. "

"I was nineteen last birthday, and 'tis fit I should feel the burden oftime, and think of virtue and a rich wife. "

"Like Mrs. Mallet, for example. "

"Faith, a man might do worse than win so much beauty and wealth. But thecreature is arrogant, and calls me 'child;' and half the peerage is afterher. But we'll have our jest with the city scrub, Ralph; not because I bearhim malice, but because I hate his wife. And we'll have our masqueradingsome time after midnight; if you can borrow a little finery. "

Mr. Dubbin was released from his lady's _sotto voce_ lecture at thisinstant, and Lord Rochester continued his communication in a whisper, theHonourable Jeremiah assenting with nods and chucklings, while Masaroonwhistled for a fresh tankard, and plied the honest merchant with a glasswhich he never allowed to be empty. 

The taste for masquerading was a fashion of the time, as much as combing aperiwig, or flirting a fan. While Rochester was planning a trick upon thecitizen, Lady Fareham was whispering to De Malfort under cover of thefiddles, which were playing an Italian pazzemano, an air belovedby Henrietta of Orleans, who danced to that music with her royalbrother-in-law, in one of the sumptuous ballets at St. Cloud. 

"Why should they be disappointed of their ghost, " said Hyacinth, "when itwould be so easy for me to dress up as the nun and scare them all? Thiswhite satin gown of mine, with a few yards of white lawn arranged on myhead and shoulders----"

"Ah, but you have not the lawn at hand to-night, or your woman to arrangeyour head, " interjected De Malfort quickly. "It would be a capital joke;but it must be for another occasion and choicer company. The rabbleyou have to-night is not worth it. Besides, there is Rochester, who ispast-master in disguises, and would smoke you at a glance. Let me arrangeit some night before the end of the summer--when there is a waning moon. Itwere a pity the thing were done ill. "

"Will you really plan a party for me, and let me appear to them on thestroke of one, with my face whitened? I have as slender a shape as mostwomen. "

"There is no such sylph in London. "

"And I can make myself look ethereal. Will you draw the nun's habit for me?and I will give your picture to Lewin to copy. "

"I will do more. I will get you a real habit. "

"But there are no nuns so white as the ghost. "

"True, but you may rely upon me. The nun's robes shall be there, thephosphorous, the blue fire, and a selection of the choicest company totremble at you. Leave the whole business to my care. It will amuse me toplan so exquisite a jest for so lovely a jester. "

He bent down to kiss her hand, till his forehead almost touched her knee, and in the few moments that passed before he raised it, she heard himlaughing softly to himself, as if with irrepressible delight. 

"What a child you are, " she said, "to be pleased with such folly!"

"What children we both are, Hyacinth! My sweet soul, let us always bechildish, and find pleasure in follies. Life is such a poor thing, that ifwe had leisure to appraise its value we should have a contagion of suicidethat would number more deaths than the plague. Indeed, the wonder is, notthat any man should commit _felo de se_, but that so many of us should takethe trouble to live. "

Lady Sarah received them at the landing-stage, with an escort of fops andfine ladies; and the festival promised to be a success. There was a bettersupper, and more wine than people expected from her ladyship; and aftersupper a good many of those who pretended to have come to see the ghost, wandered off in couples to saunter along the willow-shaded bank, while onlythe more earnest spirits were content to wait and watch and listen in thegreat vaulted hall, with no light but the moon which sent a flood of silverthrough the high Gothic window, from which every vestige of glass had longvanished. 

There were stone benches along the two side walls, and Lady Sarah's_prévoyance_ had secured cushions or carpets for her guests to sit upon;and here the superstitious sat in patient weariness, Angela among them, with Denzil still at her side, scornful of credulous folly, but loving tobe with her he adored. Lady Fareham had been tempted out-of-doors by DeMalfort to look at the moonlight on the river, and had not returned. Rochester and his crew had also vanished directly after supper; and forcompany Angela had on her left hand Mr. Dubbin, far advanced in liquor, andtrembling at every breath of summer wind that fluttered the ivy round theruined window, and at every shadow that moved upon the moonlit wall. Hiswife was on the other side of the hall, whispering with Lady Sarah, andboth so deep in a court scandal--in which the "K" and the "D" recurredvery often--that they had almost forgotten the purpose of that moonlightsitting. 

Suddenly in the distance there sounded a long shrill wailing, as of a soulin agony, whereupon Mr. Dubbin, after clinging wildly to Angela, and beingsomewhat roughly flung aside by Denzil, collapsed altogether, and rolledupon the ground. 

"Lady Euphemia, " cried Mrs. Townshend, a young lady who had been sittingnext the obnoxious citizen, "be pleased to look after your drunken husband. If you take the low-bred sot into company, you should at least chargeyourself with the care of his manners. "

The damsel had started to her feet, and indignantly snatched her satinpetticoat from contact with the citizen's porpoise figure. 

"I hate mixed company, " she told Angela, "and old maids who marrytallow-chandlers. If a woman of rank marries a shopkeeper she ought neverto be allowed west of Temple Bar. "

This young lady was no believer in ghosts; but others of the company weretoo scared for speech. All had risen, and were staring in the directionwhence that dismal shriek had come. A trick, perhaps, since anybody withstrong lungs--dairymaid or cowboy--could shriek. They all wanted to _see_something, a real manifestation of the supernatural. 

The unearthly sound was repeated, and the next moment a spectral shape, inflowing white garments, rushed through the great window, and crossed thehall, followed by three other shapes in dark loose robes, with hoodedheads. One carried a rope, another a pickaxe, the third a trowel and hod ofmortar. They crossed the hall with flying footsteps--shadowlike--the paleshape in distracted flight, the dark shapes pursuing, and came to a stopclose against the wall, which had been vacated by the scared assembly, scattering as if the king of terrors had appeared among them--yet withfascinated eyes fixed on those fearsome figures. 

"It is the nun herself!" cried Lady Sarah, apprehension and triumphcontending in her agitated spirits; for it was surely a feather in herladyship's cap to have produced such a phantasmal train at her party. "Thenun and her executioners!"

The company fell back from the ghostly troop, recoiling till they were allclustered against the opposite wall, leaving a clear space in front of thespectres, whence they looked on, shuddering, at the tragedy of the erringSister's fate, repeated in dumb show. The white-robed figure knelt andgrovelled at the feet of those hooded executioners. One seized and boundher, with strange automatic action, unlike the movements of livingcreatures, and another smote the wall with a pickaxe that made no sound, while the third waited with his trowel and mortar. It was a gruesome sightto those who knew the story--a gruesome, yet an enjoyable spectacle; since, as Lady Sarah's friends had not had the pleasure of knowing the sinningSister in the flesh, they watched this ghostly representation of hersuffering with as keen an interest as they would have felt had they beenprivileged to see Claud Duval swing at Tyburn. 

The person most terrified by this ghostly show was the only one who had thehardihood to tackle the performers. This was Mr. Dubbin, who sat on theground watching the shadowy figures, sobered by fear, and his shrewd citysenses gradually returning to a brain bemused by Burgundy. 

"Look at her boots!" he cried suddenly, scrambling to his feet, andpointing to the nun, who, in sprawling and writhing at the feet of herexecutioner, had revealed more leg and foot than were consistent with herspectral whiteness. "She wears yaller boots, as substantial as any shoeleather among the company. I'll swear to them yaller boots. "

A chorus of laughter followed this attack--laughter which found a smotheredecho among the ghosts. The spell was broken; disillusion followed theexquisite thrill of fear; and all Lady Sarah's male visitors made a rushupon the guilty nun. The loose white robe was stripped off, and littleJerry Spavinger, gentleman jock, famous on the Heath, and at Doncaster, stood revealed, in his shirt and breeches, and those light riding-bootswhich he rarely exchanged for a more courtly chaussure. 

The monks, hustled out of their disguise, were Rochester, Masaroon, andLady Sarah's young brother, George Saddington. 

"From my Lord Rochester I expect nothing but pot-house buffoonery; butI take it vastly ill on your part, George, to join in making me alaughing-stock, " remonstrated Lady Sarah. 

"Indeed, sister, you have to thank his light-headed lordship for giving aspirited end to your assembly. Could you conceive how preposterous youand your friends looked sitting against the walls, mute as stockfish, andsuggesting nothing but a Quaker's meeting, you would make us your lowestcurtsy, and thank us kindly for having helped you out of a dilemma. "

Lady Sarah, who was too much of a woman of the world to quarrel seriouslywith a Court favourite, furled the fan with which she had been cooling herindignation, and tapped young Wilmot playfully on that oval cheek where thebeard had scarce begun to grow. 

"Thou art the most incorrigible wretch of thy years in London, " she said, "and it is impossible to help being angry with thee or to help forgivingthee. "

The saunterers on the willow-shadowed banks came strolling in. LadyFareham's cornets and fiddles sounded a March in Alceste; and the partybroke up in laughter and good temper, Mr. Dubbin being much complimentedupon his having detected Spavinger's boots. 

"I ought to know 'em, " he answered ruefully. "I lost a hundred meggs on himToosday se'nnight, at Windsor races; and I had time to take the pattern ofthem boots while he was crawling in, a bad third. "

CHAPTER XV. 

FALCON AND DOVE. 

"Has your ladyship any commands for Paris?" Lord Fareham asked, one Augustafternoon, when the ghost party at Millbank was almost forgotten amid asuccession of entertainments on land and river; a fortnight at Epsom todrink the waters; and a fortnight at Tunbridge--where the Queen and Courtwere spending the close of summer--to neutralise the bad effects of Epsomchalybeates with a regimen of Kentish sulphur. If nobody at either resortdrank deeper of the medicinal springs than Hyacinth--who had ordered herphysician to order her that treatment--the risk of harm or the possibilityof benefit was of the smallest. But at Epsom there had been a good deal ofgay company, and a greater liberty of manners than in London; for, indeed, as Rochester assured Lady Fareham, "the freedom of Epsom allowed almostnothing to be scandalous. " And at Tunbridge there were dances by torchlighton the common. "And at the worst, " Lady Fareham told her friends, "afortnight or so at the Wells helps to shorten the summer. "

It was the middle of August when they went back to Fareham House, hot, dryweather, and London seemed to be living on the Thames, so thick was thethrong of boats going up and down the river, so that with an afternoon tiderunning up it seemed as if barges, luggers, and wherries were moving in onesolid block into the sunset sky. 

De Malfort had been attached to her ladyship's party at Epsom, and atTunbridge Wells. He had his own lodgings, but seldom occupied them, except in that period between four or five in the morning and two in theafternoon, which Rochester and he called night. His days were passedchiefly in attendance upon Lady Fareham--singing and playing, fetching andcarrying combing her favourite spaniel with the same ivory pocket-comb thatarranged his own waterfall curls; or reading a French romance to her, orteaching her the newest game of cards, or the last dancing-step importedfrom Fontainebleau or St. Cloud, or some new grace or fashion in dancing, the holding of the hand lower or higher; the latest manner of passagingin a bransle or a coranto, as performed by the French King and MadameHenriette, the two finest dancers in France; Condé, once so famous for hisdancing, now appearing in those gay scenes but seldom. 

"Have you any commands for Paris, Hyacinth?" repeated Lord Fareham, hiswife being for the moment too surprised to answer him. "Or have you, sister? I am starting for France to-morrow. I shall ride to Dover--lying anight at Sittingbourne, perhaps--and cross by the Packet that goes twice aweek to Calais. "

"Paris! And pray, my lord, what business takes you to Paris?"

"There is a great collection of books to be sold there next week. Thelibrary of your old admirer, Nicolas Fouquet, whom you knew in hissplendour, but who has been a prisoner at Pignerol for a year and a half. "

"Poor wretch!" cried De Malfort, "I was at the Chamber with Madame deSévigné very often during his long tedious trial. Mon dieu! what courage, what talent he showed in defending himself! Every safeguard of the law wasviolated in order to silence him and prove him guilty; his papers seizedin his absence, no friend or servant allowed to protect his interest, no inventory taken--documents suppressed that might have served for hisdefence, forgeries inserted by his foes. He had an implacable enemy, andhe the highest in the land. He was the scapegoat of the past, and hadto answer for a system of plunder that made Mazarin the richest man inFrance. "

"I don't wonder that Louis was angry with a servant who had the insolenceto entertain his Majesty with a splendour that surpassed his own, " saidLady Fareham. "I should like to have been at those fêtes at Vaux. Butalthough Fareham talks so lightly of travelling to Paris to choose a fewdusty books, he has always discouraged me from going there to see oldfriends, and my own house--which I grieve to think of--abandoned to thecarelessness of servants. "

"Dearest, the cleverest woman in the world cannot be in two places at once;and it seems to me you have ever had your days here so full of agreeableengagements that you can have scarcely desired to leave London, " answeredFareham, with his grave smile. 

"To leave London--no! But there have been long moping months in Oxfordshirewhen it would have been a relief to change the scene. "

"Then, indeed, had you been very earnest in wanting such a change, I amsure you would have taken it. I have never forbidden your going to Paris, nor refused to accompany you there. You may go with me to-morrow, if youcan be ready. "

"Which you know I cannot, or you would scarce make so liberal an offer. "

"Très chère, you are pleased to be petulant. But I repeat my question. Isthere anything you want at Paris?"

"Anything? A million things! Everything! But they are things which youwould not be able to choose--except, perhaps, some of the new lace. Imight trust you to buy that, though I'll wager you will bring me a hideouspattern--and some white Cypress powder--and a piece of the ash-colouredvelvet Madame wore last winter. I have friends who can choose for you, ifI write to them; and you will have but to bring the goods, and see theysuffer no harm on the voyage. And you can go to the Rue de Tourain and seewhether my servants are keeping the house in tolerable order. "

"With your ladyship's permission I will lodge there while I am in Paris, which will be but long enough to attend the sale of books, and see some oldfriends. If I am detained it will be by finding my friends out of town, andhaving to make a journey to see them. I shall not go beyond Fontainebleauat furthest. "

"Dear Fontainebleau! It is of all French palaces my favourite. I alwaysenvy Diana of Poitiers for having her cypher emblazoned all over thatlovely gallery--Henri and Diane! Diane and Henri! Ah, me!"

"You envy her a kind of notoriety which I do not covet for my wife!"

"You always take one au pied de la lettre; but seriously, Madame de Brézéwas an honest woman compared with the lady who lodges by the Holbein Gate. "

"I admit that sin wears a bolder front than it did in the last century. Angela, can I find nothing for you in Paris?"

"No; I thank your lordship. You and sister are both so generous to me thatI have lost the capacity to wish for anything. "

"And as Lewin crosses the Channel three or four times a year, I doubt wepositively have the Paris fashions as soon as the Parisians themselves, "added Hyacinth. 

"That is an agreeable hallucination with which Englishwomen have everconsoled themselves for not being French, " said De Malfort, who sat lollingagainst the marble balustrade, nursing the guitar on which he had beenplaying when Fareham interrupted their noontide idleness; "but yourladyship may be sure that London milliners are ever a twelvemonth in therear of Paris fashions. It is not that they do not see the new mode. Theysee it, and think it hideous; and it takes a year to teach them that it isthe one perfect style possible. "

"I was not thinking of kerchiefs or petticoats, " said Fareham. "You are abook-lover, sister, like myself. Can I bring you no books you wish for?"

"If there were a new comedy by Molière; but I fear it is wrong to read him, since in his late play, performed before the King at Versailles, he is socruel an enemy to our Church. "

"A foe only to hypocrites and pretenders, Angela. I will bring you his_Tartuffe_, if it is printed; or still better, _Le Misanthrope_, which I amtold is the finest comedy that was ever written; and the latest romance, intwenty volumes or so, by one of those lady authors Hyacinth so admires, butwhich I own to finding as tedious as the divine Orinda's verses. "

"You can jeer at that poor lady's poetry, yet take pleasure in suchbalderdash as Hudibras!"

"I love wit, dearest; though I am not witty. But as for your Princesse deCleves, I find her ineffably dull. "

"That is because you do not take the trouble to discover for whom thecharacters are meant. You lack the key to the imbroglio, " said his wife, with a superior air. 

"I do not care for a book that is a series of enigmas. Don Quixote needs nosuch guess-work. Shakespeare's characters are painted not from the pettymodels of yesterday and to-day, but from mankind in every age and everyclimate. Molière's and Calderon's personages stand on as solid a basis. Inless than half a century your 'Grand Cyrus' will be insufferable jargon. "

"Not more so than your _Hamlet_ or _Othello_. Shakespeare was but kept infashion during the late King's reign because his Majesty loved him--andwill soon be forgotten, now that we have so many gayer and briskerdramatists. "

"Whoever quotes Shakespeare, nowadays?" asked Lady Sarah Tewkesbury, whohad been showing a rustic niece the beauties of the river, as seen fromFareham House. "Even Mr. Taylor, whose sermons bristle with elegantallusions, never points one of his passionate climaxes with a Shakespearianline. And yet there are some very fine lines in _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_, which would scarce sound amiss from the pulpit, " added her ladyship, condescendingly. "I have read all the plays, some of them twice over. And Idoubt that though Shakespeare cannot hold the stage in our more enlightenedage, and will be less and less acted as the town grows more refined, hisworks will always be tasted by scholars; among whom, in my modest way, Idare reckon myself. "

 * * * * *

Lord Fareham left London on horseback, with but one servant, in the earlyAugust dawn, before the rest of the household were stirring. Hyacinth laynearly as late of a morning as Henrietta Maria, whom Charles used sometimesto reproach for not being up in time for the noonday office at her ownchapel. Lady Fareham had not Portuguese Catherine's fervour, who was oftenat Mass at seven o'clock; but she did usually contrive to be present atHigh Mass at the Queen's chapel; and this was the beginning of her day. Bythat time Angela and her niece and nephew had spent hours on the river, orin the meadows at Chiswick, or on Putney Heath, ever glad to escape fromthe great overgrown city, which was now licking up every stretch of greensward, and every flowery hedgerow west of St. James's Street. Soon therewould be no country between the Haymarket and "The Pillars of Hercules. "

Denzil sometimes enjoyed the privilege of accompanying Angela, children, and _gouvernante_, on these rural expeditions by the great waterway; and onsuch occasions he and Angela would each take an oar and row the boat forsome part of the voyage, while the watermen rested, and in this mannerAngela, instructed by Sir Denzil, considerably advanced her power asan oarswoman. It was an exercise she loved, as indeed she loved allout-of-door exercises, from riding with hawks and hounds to battledoreand shuttlecock. But most of all, perhaps, she loved the river, and therhythmical dip of oars in the fresh morning air, when every curve of thefertile shores seemed to reveal new beauty. 

It had been a hot, dry summer, and the grass in the parks was burnt to adull brown--had, indeed, almost ceased to be grass--while the atmosphere intown had a fiery taste, and was heavy with the dust which whitened all theroadways, and which the faintest breath of wind dispersed. Here on theflowing tide there was coolness, and the long rank grass upon those lowsedgy shores was still green. 

Lady Fareham supported the August heats sitting on her terrace, with acluster of friends about her, and her musicians and singing-boys groupedin the distance, ready to perform at her bidding; but Henriette and herbrother soon tired of that luxurious repose, and would urge their auntto assist in a river expedition. The _gouvernante_ was fat and lazy andgood-tempered, had attended upon Henriette from babyhood, and always did asshe was told. 

"Her ladyship says I must have some clever person instead of Priscillabefore I am a year older, " Henriette told her aunt; "but I have promisedpoor old Prissy to hate the new person consumedly. "

Angela and Denzil laughed as they rowed past the ruined abbey, seen dimlyacross the low water-meadow, where cows of the same colour were all lyingin the same attitude, chewing the cud. 

"I think Mr. Spavinger's trick must have cured your sister's fine friendsof all belief in ghosts, " he said. 

"I doubt they would be as ready to believe--or to pretend tobelieve--to-morrow, " answered Angela. "They think of nothing from morningtill night but how to amuse themselves; and when every pleasure has beenexhausted, I suppose fear comes in as a form of entertainment, and theywant the shock of seeing a ghost. "

"There have been no more midnight parties since Lady Sarah's assembly, Ithink?"

"Not among people of quality, perhaps; but there have been citizens'parties. I heard Monsieur de Malfort telling my sister about a supper givenby a wealthy wine-cooper's lady from Aldersgate. The city people copyeverything that their superiors wear or do. "

"Even to their morals, " said Denzil. "'Twere happy if the so-calledsuperiors would remember that, and upon what a fertile ground they sowthe seed of new vices. It is like the importation of a new weed or a newinsect, which, beginning with an accident, may end in ruined crops and acountry's famine. "

Without deliberate disobedience to her husband, Lady Fareham made the bestuse of her time during his absence in Paris. The public theatres had notyet re-opened after the horror of the plague. Whitehall was a desert, theKing and his chief following being at Tunbridge. It was the dullest seasonof the year, and the recrudescence of the contagion in the low-lying townsalong the Thames--Deptford, Greenwich, and the neighbourhood--together withsome isolated cases in London, made people more serious than usual, despiteof the so-called victory over the Dutch, which, although a mixed benefit, was celebrated piously by a day of General Thanksgiving. 

Hyacinth, disgusted at the dulness of the town, was for ordering hercoaches and retiring to Chilton. 

"It is mortal dull at the Abbey, " she said, "but at least we have thehawks, and breezy hills to ride over, instead of this sickly cityatmosphere, which to my nostrils smells of the pestilence. "

Henri de Malfort argued against such a retreat. 

"It were a deliberate suicide, " he said. "London, when everybody hasleft--all the bodies we count worthy to live, _par exemple_--is a moredelightful place than you can imagine. There are a host of vulgaramusements which you would not dare to visit when your friends are in town;and which are ten times as amusing as the pleasures you know by heart. Haveyou ever been to the Bear Garden? I'll warrant you no, though 'tis butacross the river at Bankside. We'll go there this afternoon, if you like, and see how the common people taste life. Then there are the gardens atIslington. There are mountebanks, and palmists, and fortune-tellers, who will frighten you out of your wits for a shilling. There's a man atClerkenwell, a jeweller's journeyman from Venice, who pretends to practisethe transmutation of metals, and to make gold. He squeezed hundreds out ofthat old miser Denham, who was afraid to have the law of him for imposture, lest all London should laugh at his own credulity and applaud thecheat. And you have not seen the Italian puppet-play, which is vastlyentertaining. I could find you novelty and amusement for a month. "

"Find anything new, even if it fail to amuse me. I am sick of everything Iknow. "

"And then there is our midnight party at Millbank, the ghost-party, atwhich you are to frighten your dearest friends out of their poor littlewits. "

"Most of my dearest friends are in the country. "

"Nay, there is Lady Lucretia Topham, whom I know you hate; and Lady Sarahand the Dubbins are still in Covent Garden. "

"I will have no Dubbin--a toping wretch--and she is a too incongruousmixture, with her Edinburgh lingo and her Whitehall arrogance. Besides, thewhole notion of a mock ghost was vulgarised by Wilmot's foolery, who oughtto have been born a saltimbanque, and spent his life in a fair. No, I haveabandoned the scheme. "

"What! after I have been taxing my invention to produce the most terribleillusion that was ever witnessed? Will you let a clown like Spavinger--awell-born stable-boy--baulk us of our triumph? I am sending to Paris fora powder to burn in a corner of the room, which will throw the ghastliestpallor upon your countenance. When I devise a ghost, it shall be noimpromptu spectre in yellow riding-boots, but a vision so awful, so truean image of a being returned from the dead, that the stoutest nerves willthrill and tremble at the apparition. The nun's habit is coming from Paris. I have asked my cousin, Madame de Fiesque, to obtain it for me at theCarmelites. "

"You are taking a vast deal of trouble. But what kind of assembly can wemuster at this dead season?" "Leave all in my hands. I will find you someof the choicest spirits. It is to be _my_ party. I will not even tell youwhat night I fix upon, till all is ready. So make no engagements for yourevenings, and tell nobody anything. "

"Who invented that powder?"

"A French chemist. He has it of all colours, and can flood a scene ingolden light, or the rose of dawn, or the crimson of sunset, or a palesilvery blueness that you would swear was moonshine. It has been used inall the Court ballets. I saw Madame once look as ghastly as death itself, and all the Court was seized with terror. Some blundering fool hadburnt the wrong powder, which cast a greenish tint over the faces, andHenriette's long thin features had a look of death. It seemed the forecastof an early grave; and some of us shuddered, as at a prophecy of evil. "

"You might expect the worst in her case, knowing the wretched life sheleads with Monsieur. "

"Yes, when she is with him; but that is not always. There arecompensations. "

"If you mean scandal, I will not hear a word. She is adorable. The mostsympathetic person I know--good even to her enemies--who are legion. "

"You had better not say that, for I doubt she has only one kind of enemy. "

"As how?"

"The admirers she has encouraged and disappointed. Yes, she is adorable, wofully thin, and, I fear, consumptive, but royal: and adorable, 'douceuret lumière, ' as Bossuet calls her. But to return to my ghost-party. "

"If you were wise, you would abandon the notion. I doubt that in spite ofyour powders your friends will never believe in a ghost. "

"Oh yes, they will. It shall be my business to get them in the propertemper. "

That idea of figuring in a picturesque habit, and in a halo of churchyardlight, was irresistible. Hyacinth promised to conform to Malfort's plans, and to be ready to assume her phantom _rôle_ whenever she was called upon. 

Angela knew something of the scheme, and that there was to be anotherassembly at Millbank; but her sister had seemed disinclined to talk ofthe plan in her presence--a curious reticence in one whose sentiments andcaprices were usually given to the world at large with perfect freedom. Foronce in her life Hyacinth had a secret air, and checked herself suddenly inthe midst of her light babble at a look from De Malfort, who had urged herto keep her sister out of their midnight party. 

"I pledge my honour that there shall be nothing to offend, " he told her, "but I hope to have the wittiest coxcombs in London, and we want no prudesto strangle every jest with a long-drawn lip and an alarmed eye. Yoursister has a pale, fragile prettiness which pleases an eye satiated withthe exuberant charms of your Rubens and Titian women; but she is nothandsome enough to give herself airs; and she is a little inclined thatway. By the faith of a gentleman, I have suffered scowls from her that Iwould scarce have endured from Barbara!"

"Barbara! You are vastly free with her ladyship's name. "

"Not freer than she has ever been with her friendship. "

"Henri, if I thought----"

"What, dearest?"

"That you had ever cared for that--wanton----"

"Could you think it, when you know my life in England has been one longtragedy of loving in vain--of sighing only to be denied--of secrettears--and public submission. "

"Do not talk so, " she exclaimed, starting up from her low tabouret, andmoving hastily to the open window, to fresh air and sunshine, ripplingriver and blue sky, escaping from an atmosphere that had become feverish. 

"De Malfort, you know I must not listen to foolish raptures. "

"I know you have been refusing to hear for the last two years. "

They were on the terrace now, she leaning on the broad marble balustrade, he standing beside her, and all the traffic of London moving with the tidebelow them. 

"To return to our party, " she said, in a lighter tone, for that spurt ofjealousy had betrayed her into seriousness. "It will be very awkward not toinvite my sister to go with me. "

"If you did she would refuse, belike, for she is under Fareham's thumb; andhe disapproves of everything human. "

"Under Fareham's thumb! What nonsense! Indeed I must invite her. She wouldthink it so strange to be omitted. "

"Not if you manage things cleverly. The party is to be a surprise. You cantell her next morning you knew nothing about it beforehand. "

"But she will hear me order the barge--or will see me start. "

"There will be no barge. I shall carry you to Millbank in my coach, afteryour evening's entertainment, wherever that may be. "

"I had better take my own carriage at least, or my chair. "

"You can have a chair, if you are too prudish to use my coach, but it shallbe got for you at the moment. We won't have your own chairman and links tochatter and betray you before you have played the ghost. Remember youcome to my party not as a guest, but as a performer. If they ask why LadyFareham is absent I shall say you refused to take part in our foolery. "

"Oh, you must invent some better excuse. They will never believe anythingrational of me. Say I was disappointed of a hat or a mantua. Well, itshall be as you wish. Angela is apt to be tiresome. I hate a disapprovingcarriage, especially in a younger sister. "

Angela was puzzled by Hyacinth's demeanour. A want of frankness in one sofrank by nature aroused her fears. She was puzzled and anxious, and longedfor Fareham's return, lest his giddy-pated wife should be guilty of someinnocent indiscretion that might vex him. 

"Oh! if she but valued him at his just worth she would value his opinionsecond only to the approval of conscience, " she thought, sadly, everregretful of her sister's too obvious indifference towards so kind ahusband. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

WHICH WAS THE FIERCER FIRE?

It was Saturday, the first of September, and the hot dry weather havingcontinued with but trifling changes throughout the month, the atmospherewas at its sultriest, and the burnt grass in the parks looked as if eventhe dews of morning and evening had ceased to moisten it, while the aridand dusty foliage gave no feeling of coolness, and the very shadows castupon that parched ground seemed hot. Morning was sultry as noon; eveningbrought but little refreshment; while the night was hotter than the day. People complained that the season was even more sickly than in the plagueyear, and prophesied a new and worse outbreak of the pestilence. Was notthis the fatal year about which there had been darkest prophecies? 1666!Something awful, something tragical was to make this triplicate of sixesfor ever memorable. Sixty-five had been terrible, sixty-six was to bringa greater horror; doubtless a recrudescence of that dire malady which haddesolated London. 

"And this time, " says one modish raven, "'twill be the quality that willsuffer. The lower 'classis' has paid its penalty, and only the strong andhardy are left. We. Have plenty of weaklings and corrupt constitutions thatwill take fire at a spark. I should not wonder were the contagion to rageworst at Whitehall. The buildings lie low, and there is ever a nucleusof fever somewhere in that conglomeration of slaughter-houses, bakeries, kitchens, stables, cider-houses, coal-yards, and over-crowded servants'lodgings. "

"One gets but casual whiffs from their private butcheries and bakeries, "says another. "What I complain of is the atmosphere of his Majesty'sapartments, where one can scarce breathe for the stench of those cursedspaniels he so delights in. "

Every one agreed that the long dry summer menaced some catastrophic changewhich should surprise this easy-going age as the plague had done last year. But oh, how lightly that widespread calamity had touched those light minds!and, if Providence had designed to warn or to punish, how vain had beenthe warning, and how soon forgotten the penalty that had left the worstoffenders unstricken!

There was to be a play at Whitehall that evening, his Majesty and the Courthaving returned from Tunbridge Wells, the business of the navy callingCharles to council with his faithful General--_the_ General _parexcellence_, George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, and his Lord High Admiral andbrother--_par excellence_ the Duke. Even in briefest residence, and onsternest business intent, with the welfare and honour of the nationcontingent on their consultations, to build or not to build warships of thefirst magnitude, the ball of pleasure must be kept rolling. So Killigrewwas to produce a new version of an old comedy, written in the forties, but now polished up to the modern style of wit. This new-old play, _TheParson's Widow_, was said to be all froth and sparkle and current interest, fresh as the last _London Gazette_, and spiced with allusions to thelate sickness, an admirable subject, and allowing a wide field for theridiculous. 

Hyacinth was to be present at this Court function; but not a word was to besaid to Angela about the entertainment. 

"She would only preach me a sermon upon Fareham's tastes and wishes, andurge me to stay away because he abhors a fashionable comedy, " she told DeMalfort, "I shall say I am going to Lady Sarah's to play basset. Ange hatescards, and will not desire to go with me. She is always happy with thechildren, who adore her. "

"Faute de mieux. "

"You are so ready to jeer! Yes, I know I am a neglectful mother. But whatwould you have?"

"I would have you as you are, " he answered, "and only as you are; or forchoice a trifle worse than you are; and so much nearer my own level. "

"Oh, I know you! It is the wicked women you admire--like Madame Palmer. "

"Always harping upon Barbara. 'My mother had a maid called Barbara. ' HisMajesty has--a lady of the same melodious name. Well, I have a world ofengagements between now and nine o'clock, when the play begins. I shall beat the door to lift you out of your chair. Cover yourself with your richestjewels--or at least those you love best--so that you may blaze like the sunwhen you cast off the nun's habit. All the town will be there to admireyou. "

"All the town! Why, there is no one in London!"

"Indeed, you mistake. Travelling is so easy nowadays. People tear to andfro between Tunbridge and St James's as often as they once circulatedbetwixt London and Chelsea. Were it not for the highwaymen we should bealways on the road. "

Angela and her niece were on the terrace in the evening coolness. Theatmosphere was less oppressive here by the flowing tide than anywhereelse in London; but even here there was a heaviness in the night air, andHenriette sprawled her long thin legs wearily on the cushioned bench whereshe lay, and vowed that it would be sheer folly for Priscilla to insistupon her going to bed at her usual hour of nine, when everybody knew shecould not sleep. 

"I scarce closed my eyes last night, " she protested, "and I had half amind to put on a petticoat and come down to the terrace. I could have comethrough the yellow drawing-room, where the men usually forget to close theshutters. And I should have brought my theorbo and serenaded you. Shouldyou have taken me for a fairy, chère, if you had heard me singing?"

"I should have taken you for a very silly little person who wanted tofrighten her friends by catching an inflammation of the lungs. "

"Well, you see, I thought better of it, though it would have beenimpossible to catch cold on such a stifling night I heard every clockstrike in Westminster and London. It was light at five, yet the nightseemed endless. I would have welcomed even a mouse behind the wainscot. Priscilla is an odious tyrant, " making a face at the easy-temperedgouvernante sitting by; "she won't let me have my dogs in my room atnight. "

"Your ladyship knows that dogs in a bed-chamber are unwholesome, " saidPriscilla. 

"No, you foolish old thing; my ladyship knows the contrary; for hisMajesty's bed-chamber swarms with them, and he has them on his bedeven--whole families--mothers and their puppies. Why can't I have a fewdear little mischievous innocents to amuse me in the long dreary nights?"

By dint of clamour and expostulation the honourable Henriette contrivedto stay up till ten o'clock was belled with solemn tone from St. Paul'sCathedral, which magnificent church was speedily to be put in hand forrestoration, at a great expenditure. The wooden scaffolding which had beennecessary for a careful examination of the building was still up. Untilthe striking of the great city clock, Papillon had resolutely disputed thelateness of the hour, putting forward her own timekeeper as infallible--alittle fat round purple enamel watch with diamond figures, and gold handsmuch bent from being pushed backwards and forwards, to bring recorded timeinto unison with the young lady's desires--a watch to which no sensibleperson could give the slightest credit. The clocks of London havingdemonstrated the futility of any reference to that ill-used Geneva toy, sheconsented to retire, but was reluctant to the last. 

"I am going to bed, " she told her aunt, "because this absurd old Prissyinsists upon it, but I don't expect a quarter of an hour's sleep betweennow and morning; and most of the time I shall be looking out of the window, watching for the turn of the tide, to see the barges and boats swinginground. "

"You will do nothing of the kind, Mrs. Henriette; for I shall sit in yourroom till you are sound asleep, " said Priscilla. 

"Then you will have to sit there all night; and I shall have somebody totalk to. "

"I shall not allow you to talk. "

"Will you gag me, or put a pillow over my face, like the Blackamoor in theplay?"

The minx and her governess retired, still disputing, after Angela had beendesperately hugged by Henriette, who brimmed over with warmest affection inthe midst of her insolence. They were gone, their voices sounding in thestillness on the terrace, and then on the staircase, and through the greatempty rooms, where the windows were open to the sultry night, while thehost of idle servants caroused in the basement, in a spacious room with avaulted roof, like a college hall, where they were free to be as noisy oras drunken as they pleased. My lady was out, had taken only her chair, andrunning footmen, and had sent chairmen and footmen back from Whitehall, with an intimation that they would be wanted no more that night. 

Angela lingered on the terrace in the sultry summer gloom, watchingsolitary boats moving to and fro, shadowy as Charon's. She dreaded thestillness of silent rooms, and to be alone with her own thoughts, whichwere not of the happiest. Her sister's relations with De Malfort troubledher, innocent as they doubtless were: innocent as that close friendship ofHenrietta of England with her cousin of France, when they two spent thefair midsummer nights roaming in palace gardens, close as lovers, butonly fast friends. Malicious tongues had babbled even of that innocentfriendship; and there were those who said that if Monsieur behaved likeda brute to his lovely young wife, it was because he had good reason forjealousy of Louis in the past, as well as of De Guiche in the present. These innocent friendships are ever the cause of uneasiness to thelookers-on. It is like seeing children at play on the edge of a cliff. Theyare too near danger and destruction. 

Hyacinth, being about as able to carry a secret as to carry an elephant, had betrayed by a hundred indications that a plot of some kind was beinghatched between her and De Malfort. And to-night, before going out, shehad made too much fuss about so simple a matter as a basset-party at LadySarah's, who had her basset-table every night, and was popularly supposedto keep house upon her winnings, and to have no higher code of honour thanDe Gramont had when he invited a brother officer to supper on purpose torook him. 

Mr. Killigrew's comedy had been discussed in Angela's hearing. People whohad been deprived of the theatre for over a year were greedy and eagerspectators of all the plays produced at Court; but this production was anexceptional event. Killigrew's wit and impudence and impecuniosity were thetalk of the town, and anything written by that audacious jester was sure tobe worth hearing. 

Had her sister gone to Whitehall to see the new comedy, in directdisobedience to her husband, instead of to so accustomed an entertainmentas Lady Sarah's basset-table? And was that the only mystery betweenHyacinth and De Malfort? Or was there something else--some ghost-party, such as they had planned and talked about openly till a fortnight ago, and had suddenly dropped altogether, as if the notion were abandoned andforgotten? It was so unlike Hyacinth to be secret about anything; andher sister feared, therefore, that there was some plot of De Malfort'scontriving--De Malfort, whom she regarded with distrust and evenrepugnance; for she could recall no sentiment of his that did not makefor evil. Beneath that gossamer veil of airy language which he flung overvicious theories, the conscienceless, unrelenting character of the man hadbeen discovered by those clear eyes of the meditative onlooker. Alas!what a man to be her sister's closest friend, claiming privileges by longassociation, which Hyacinth would have been the last to grant her dissoluteadmirers of yesterday, but which were only the more perilous for thosememories of childhood that justified a so dangerous friendship. 

She was startled from these painful reflections by the clatter of horses'hoofs on the paved courtyard east of the house, and the jingle ofsword-belt and bit, sounds instantly followed by the ringing of the bell atthe principal door. 

Was it her sister coming home so early? No, Lady Fareham had gone out inher chair. Was it his lordship returning unannounced? He had stated no timefor his return, telling his wife only that, on his business in Paris beingfinished, he would come back without delay. Indeed, Hyacinth had debatedthe chances of his arrival this very evening with half a dozen of herparticular friends, who knew that she was going to see Mr. Killigrew'splay. 

"Fate cannot be so perverse as to bring him back on the only night when hisreturn would be troublesome, " she said. 

"Fate is always perverse, and a husband is very lucky if there is but oneday out of seven on which his return would be troublesome, " answered one ofher gossips. 

Fate had been perverse, for Angela heard her brother-in-law's deep strongvoice talking in the hall, and presently he came down the marble steps tothe terrace, and came towards her, white with Kentish dust, and carrying anopen letter in his hand. She had risen at the sound of the bell, and washurrying to the house as he met her. He came close up to her, scarcelyaccording her the civility of greeting. Never had she seen his countenancemore gloomy. 

"You can tell me truer than those drunken devils below stairs, " he said. "Where is your sister?"

"At Lady Sarah Tewkesbury's. "

"So her major-domo swears; but her chairmen, whom I found asleep in thehall, say they set her down at the palace. "

"At Whitehall?"

"Yes, at Whitehall. There is a modish performance there to-night, I hear;but I doubt it is over, for the Strand was crowded with hackney coachesmoving eastward. I passed a pair of handsome eyes in a gilded chair, thatflashed fury at me as I rode by, which I'll swear were Mrs. Palmer's; and, waiting for me in the hall, I found this letter, that had just been handedin by a link, who doubtless belonged to the same lady. Read, Angela; thecontents are scarce long enough to weary you. " She took the letter from himwith a hand that trembled so that she could hardly hold the sheet of paper. 

"Watch! There is an intrigue afoot this night; and you must be a greaterdullard than I think you if you cannot unmask a deceitful----"

The final word was one which modern manners forbid in speech or printedpage. Angela's pallid cheek flushed crimson at the sight of the vileepithet. Oh, insane lightness of conduct which made such an insultpossible! Standing there, confronting the angry husband, with thatdetestable paper in her hand, she felt a pang of compunction at the thoughtthat she might have been more strenuous in her arguments with her sister, more earnest and constant in reproof. When the peace and good repute of twolives were at stake, was it for her to consider any question of older oryounger, or to be restrained by the fear of offending a sister who had beenso generous and indulgent to her?

Fareham saw her distress, and looked at her with angry suspicion. 

"Come, " he said, "I scarce expected a lying answer from you; and yet youjoin with servants to deceive me. You know your sister is not at LadySarah's. "

"I know nothing, except that, wherever she is, I will vouch that sheis innocently employed, and has done nothing to deserve that infamousaspersion, " giving him back the letter. 

"Innocently employed! You carry matters with a high hand. Innocentlyemployed, in a company of she-profligates, listening to Killigrew's ribaldjokes--Killigrew, the profanest of them all, who can turn the greatestcalamity this city ever suffered to horseplay and jeering. Innocentlyemployed, in direct disobedience to her husband! So innocently employedthat she makes her servants--and her sister--tell lies to cover herinnocence!"

"Hector as much as you please, I have told your lordship no lies; and, withyour permission, I will leave you to recover your temper before my sister'sreturn, which I doubt will happen within the next hour. "

She moved quickly past him towards the house. 

"Angela, forgive me----" he began, trying to detain her; but she hurriedon through the open French window, and ran upstairs to her room, where shelocked herself in. 

For some minutes she walked up and down, profoundly agitated, thinking outthe position of affairs. To Fareham she had carried matters with a highhand, but she was full of fear. The play was over, and her sister, whodoubtless had been among the audience, had not come home. Was she stayingat the palace, gossiping with the maids-of-honour, shining among thatbrilliant, unscrupulous crowd, where intrigue was in the very air, where nowoman was credited with virtue, and every man was remorseless?

The anonymous letter scarcely influenced Angela's thoughts in theseagitated moments--that was but a foul assault on character by a foul-mindedwoman. But the furtive confabulations of the past week must have had somemotive; and her sister's fluttered manner before leaving the house hadmarked this night as the crisis of the plot. 

Angela could imagine nothing but that ghostly masquerading which had, inthe first place, been discussed freely in her presence; and she could butwonder that De Malfort and her sister should have made a mystery about aplan which she had known in its inception. The more deeply she consideredall the circumstances, the more she inclined to suspect some evil intentionon De Malfort's part, of which Hyacinth, so frank, so shallow, might be tooeasy a dupe. 

"I do little good doubting and suspecting and wondering here, " she said toherself; and after hastily lighting the candles on her toilet-table, shebegan to unlace the bodice of her light-coloured silk mantua, and in a fewminutes had changed her elegant evening attire for a dark cloth gown, shortin the skirt, and loose in the sleeves, which had been made for her to wearupon the river. In this costume she could handle a pair of sculls as freelyas a waterman. 

When she had put on a little black silk hood, she extinguished her candles, pulled aside the curtain which obscured the open window, and looked out onthe terrace. There was just light enough to show her that the coast wasclear. The iron gate at the top of the water-stairs was seldom locked, norwere the boat-houses often shut, as boats were being taken in and out atall hours, and, for the rest, neglect and carelessness might always bereckoned upon in the Fareham household. 

She ran lightly down a side staircase, and so by an obscure door to theriver-front. No, the gate was not locked, and there was not a creaturewithin sight to observe or impede her movements. She went down the steps tothe paved quay below the garden terrace. The house where the wherries werekept was wide open, and, better still, there was a skiff moored by the sideof the steps, as if waiting for her; and she had but to take a pair ofsculls from the rack and step into the boat, unmoor and away westward, withswiftly dipping oars, in the soft summer silence, broken now and then bysounds of singing--a tipsy, unmelodious strain, perhaps, were it heard toonear, but musical in the distance--as the rise and fall of voices creptalong a reach of running water. 

The night was hot and oppressive, even on the river. But it was better herethan anywhere else; and Angela breathed more freely as she bent over hersculls, rowing with all her might, intent upon reaching that landing-stageshe knew of in the very shortest possible time. The boat was heavy, but shehad the incoming tide to help her. 

Was Fareham hunting for his wife, she wondered? Would he go to LadySarah's lodgings, in the first place; and, not finding Hyacinth there, toWhitehall? And then, would he remember the assembly at Millbank, in whichhe had taken no part, and apparently no interest? And would he extend hissearch to the ruined abbey? At the worst, Angela would be there before him, to prepare her sister for the angry suspicions which she would have tomeet. He was not likely to think of that place till he had exhausted allother chances. 

It was not much more than a mile from Fareham House to that desolate bitof country betwixt Westminster and Chelsea, where the modern dairy-farmoccupied the old monkish pastures. As Angela ran her boat inshore, sheexpected to see Venetian lanterns, and to hear music and voices, andall the indications of a gay assembly; but there were only silence anddarkness, save for one lighted window in the dairyman's dwelling-house, andshe thought that she had come upon a futile errand, and had been mistakenin her conjectures. 

She moored her boat to the wooden landing-stage, and went on shore toexamine the premises. The revelry might be designed for a later hour, though it was now near midnight, and Lady Sarah's party had assembled ateleven. She walked across a meadow, where the dewy grass was cool under herfeet, and so to the open space in front of the dairyman's house--a shabbybuilding attached like a wen to the ruined refectory. 

She started at hearing the snort of a horse, and the jingling of bit andcurb-chain, and came suddenly upon a coach-and-four, with a couple ofpost-boys standing beside their team. 

"Whose coach is this?" she asked. 

"Mr. Malfy's, your ladyship. "

"The French gentleman from St. James's Street, my lady, " explained theother man. 

"Did you bring Monsieur de Malfort here?"

"No, madam. We was told to be here at eleven, with horses as fresh as fire;and the poor tits be mighty impatient to be moving. Steady, Champion!You'll have work enough this side Dartford, "--to the near leader, who wasshaking his head vehemently, and pawing the gravel. 

Angela waited to ask no further questions, but made straight for theunglazed window, through which Mr. Spavinger and his companions hadentered. 

There was no light in the great vaulted room, save the faint light ofsummer stars, and two figures were there in the dimness--a woman standingstraight and tall in a satin gown, whose pale sheen reflected thestarlight; a woman whose right arm was flung above her head, bare andwhite, her hand clasping her brow distractedly; and a man, who knelt ather feet, grasping the hand that hung at her side, looking up at her, andtalking eagerly, with passionate gestures. 

Her voice was clearer than his; and Angela heard her repeating with apiteous shrillness, "No, no, no! No, Henri, no!"

She stayed to hear no more, but sprang through the opening between thebroken mullions, and rushed to her sister's side; and as De Malfort startedto his feet, she thrust him vehemently aside, and clasped Hyacinth in herarms. 

"You here, Mistress Kill-joy?" he muttered, in a surly tone. "May I askwhat business brought you? For I'll swear you wasn't invited. "

"I have come to save my sister from a villain, sir. But oh, my sweet, Ilittle dreamt thou hadst such need of me!"

"Nay, love, thou didst ever make tragedies out of nothing, " said Hyacinth, struggling to disguise hysterical tears with airy laughter. "But I am rightglad all the same that you are come; for this gentleman has put a scurvytrick upon me, and brought me here on pretence of a gay assembly that hasno existence. "

"He is a villain and a traitor, " said Angela, in deep, indignant tones. "Dear love, thou hast been in danger I dare scarce think of. Fareham issearching for you. "

"Fareham! In London?"

"Returned an hour ago. Hark!"

She lifted her finger warningly as a bell rang, and the well-known voicesounded outside the house, calling to some one to open the door. 

"He is here!" cried Hyacinth, distractedly. "For God's sake, hide me fromhim! Not for worlds--not for worlds would I meet him!"

"Nay, you have nothing to fear. It is Monsieur de Malfort who has to answerfor what he has done. "

"Henri, he will kill you! Alas, you know not what he is in anger! I haveseen him, once in Paris, when he thought a man was insolent to me. God! Thethunder of his voice, the blackness of his brow! He will kill you! Oh, ifyou love me--if you ever loved me--come out of his way! He is fatal withhis sword!"

"And am I such a tyro at fence, or such a poltroon as to be afraid to meethim? No, Hyacinth, I go with you to Dover, or I stand my ground and facehim. "

"You shall not!" sobbed Hyacinth. "I will not have your blood on my head!Come, come--by the garden--by the river!"

She dragged him towards the window; he pretending to resist, as Angelathought, yet letting himself be led as she pleased to lead him. They hadbut just crossed the yawning gap between the mullions and vanished intothe night, when Fareham burst into the room with his sword drawn, andcame towards Angela, who stood in shadow, her face half hidden in herclose-fitting hood. 

"So, madam, I have found you at last, " he said; "and in time to stop yourjourney, though not to save myself the dishonour of a wanton wife! But itis your paramour I am looking for, not you. Where is that craven hiding?"

He went back to the inhabited part of the house, and returned after ahasty examination of the premises, carrying the lamp which had lighted hissearch, only to find the same solitary figure in the vast bare room. Angelahad moved nearer the window, and had sunk exhausted upon a large carved oakchair, which might be a relic of the monkish occupation. Fareham came toher with the lamp in his hand. 

"He has given me a clean pair of heels, " he said; "but I know where to findhim. It is but a pleasure postponed. And now, woman, you had best return tothe house your folly, or your sin, has disgraced. For to-night, at least, it must needs shelter you. Come!"

The hooded figure rose at his bidding, and he saw the face in thelamplight. 

"You!" he gasped. "You!"

"Yes, Fareham, it is I. Cannot you take a kind view of a foolish business, and believe there has been only folly and no dishonour in the purpose thatbrought me here?"

"You!" he repeated. "You!"

His bearing was that of a man who staggers under a crushing blow, a strokeso unexpected that he can but wonder and suffer. He set down the lamp witha shaking hand, then took two or three hurried turns up and down the room;then stopped abruptly by the lamp, snatched the anonymous letter from hisbreast, and read the lines over again. 

"'An intrigue on foot----' No name. And I took it for granted my wife wasmeant. I looked for folly from her; but wisdom, honour, purity, all thevirtues from you. Oh, what was the use of my fortitude, what the motiveof self-conquest here, " striking himself upon the breast, "if you wereunchaste? Angela, you have broken my heart. "

There was a long pause before she answered, and her face was turned fromhim to hide her streaming tears. At last she was able to reply calmly--

"Indeed, Fareham, you do wrong to take this matter so passionately. You maytrust my sister and me. On my honour, you have no cause to be angry witheither of us. "

"And when I gave you this letter to read, " he went on, disregarding herprotestations, "you knew that you were coming here to meet a lover. Youhurried away from me, dissembler as you were, to steal to this lonely placeat midnight, to fling yourself into his arms. Tell me where he is hiding, that I may kill him; now, while I pant for vengeance. Such rage as minecannot wait for idle forms. Now, now, now, is the time to reckon with yourseducer!"

"Fareham, you cover me with insults!"

He had rushed to the door, still carrying his naked sword; but he turnedback as she spoke, and stood looking at her from head to foot with a savagescornfulness. 

"Insult!" he cried. "You have sunk too low for insult. There are no wordsthat I know vile enough to stigmatise such disgrace as yours! Do youknow what you have been to me, Angela? A saint--a star; ineffably pure, ineffably remote; a creature to worship at a distance; for whose sake itwas scarce a sacrifice to repress all that is common to the base heart ofman; from whom a kind word was enough for happiness--so pure, so far away, so detached from this vile age we live in. God, how that saintly face hascheated me! Mock saint, mock nun; a creature of passions like my own butmore stealthy; from top to toe an incarnate lie!"

He flung out of the room, and she heard his footsteps about the house, andheard doors opened and shut. She waited for no more; but, being sure bythis time that her sister had left the premises, her own desire was toreturn to Farebam House as soon as possible, counting upon finding Hyacinththere; yet with a sick fear that the seducer might take base advantage ofher sister's terror and confused spirits, and hustle her off upon the fataljourney he had planned. 

The boat lay where she had moored it, at the foot of the wooden stair, andshe was stepping into it when Fareham ran hastily to the bank. 

"Your paramour has got clear off, " he said; and then asked curtly, "Howcame you by that boat?"

"I brought it from Fareham House. "

"What! you came here alone by water at so late an hour! You heaven-bornadventuress! Other women need education in vice; but to you it comes bynature. "

He pulled off his doublet as he stepped into the boat; then seated himselfand took the sculls. 

"Has your lordship not left a horse waiting for you?" Angela inquiredhesitatingly. 

"My lordship's horse will find his stables before morning with the groomthat has him in charge. I am going to row you home. Love expectant is bold;but disappointed love may lack courage for a solitary jaunt after midnight. Come, mistress, let us have no ceremony. We have done with that forever--as we have done with friendship. There are thousands of women inEngland, all much of a pattern; and you are one of them. That is the end ofour romance. "

He bent to his work, and rowed with a steady stroke, and in a stubbornsilence, which lasted till it was more strangely broken than such angrysilence is apt to be. 

The tide was still running up, and it was as much as the single oarsmancould do, in that heavy boat, to hold his own against the stream. 

Angela sat watching him, with her gaze rooted to that dark countenance andbare head, on which the iron-grey hair waved thick and strong, for Farehamhad never consented to envelop his neck and shoulders in a mantle of deadmen's tresses, and wore his own hair after the fashion of Charles theFirst's time. So intent was her watch, that the objects on either shorepassed her like shadows in a dream. The Primate's palace on her right hand, as the boat swept round that great bend which the river makes oppositeLambeth Marsh; on her left, as they neared London, the stern grandeur ofthe Abbey and St. Margaret's. It was only as they approached Whitehall thatshe became aware of a light upon the water which was not the reflectionof daybreak, and, looking suddenly up, she saw the fierce glare of aconflagration in the eastern sky, and cried--

"There is a fire, my lord!--a great fire, I doubt, in the city. "

The long roof and massive tower of St Paul's stood dark against the vividsplendour of that sky, and every timber in the scaffolding showed like ablack lattice across the crimson and sulphur of raging flames. 

Fareham looked round, without moving his sculls from the rowlocks. 

"A great fire in verity, mistress! Would God it meant the fulfilment ofprophecy!"

"What prophecy, sir?"

"The end of the world, with which we are threatened in this year. God, howthe flames rage and mount! Would it were the great fire, and He had cometo judge us, and to empty the vials of His wrath upon profligates andseducers!"

He looked at the face opposite, radiant with reflected rose and gold, supernal in that strange light, and, oh, so calm in every line and feature, the large dark eyes meeting his with a gaze that seemed to him halfindignant, half reproachful. 

"Oh, what hypocrites these women are!" he told himself. "And all alike--allalike. What comedians! For acting one need not go to the Duke's or theKing's. One may see it at one's own board, by one's own hearth. Acting, nothing but acting! And I thought that in the universal mass of falsehoodand folly there were some rare stars, dwelling apart here and there, andthat she was one of them. An idle dream! Nature has made them all in onemould, and it is but by means and opportunity that they differ. "

Higher and higher rose that vast sheet of vivid colour; and now every towerand steeple was bathed in rosy light, or else stood black against theradiant sky--towers illuminated, towers in densest shadow; the slim sparsof ships showing as if drawn with pen and ink on a sulphur background--ascene of surpassing splendour and terror. Fareham had seen Flemish villagesblazing, Flemish citadels exploding, their fragments hurled skyward in ablue flame of gunpowder; but never this vast arch of crimson, glowing andgrowing before his astonished gaze, as he paddled the boat inshore, andstood up to watch the great disaster. 

"God has remembered the new Sodom, " he said savagely. "He punished us withpestilence, and we took no heed. And now He tries us with fire. But if itcome not yonder, " pointing to Whitehall, which was immediately abovethem, for their boat lay close to the King's landing-stage--"if, like thecontagion, it stays in the east and only the citizens suffer, why, vive labagatelle! We--and our concubines--have no part in the punishment. We, whocall down the fire, do not suffer it"

Spellbound by that strange spectacle, Fareham stood and gazed, and Angelawas afraid to urge him to take the boat on to Fareham House, anxious asshe was to span those few hundred yards of distance, to be assured of hersister's safety. 

They waited thus nearly an hour, the sky ever increasing in brilliancy, andthe sounds of voices and tramp of hurrying feet growing with every minute. Whitehall was now all alive--men and women, in a careless undress, at everywindow, some of them hanging half out of the window to talk to people inthe court below. Shrieks of terror or of wonder, ejaculations, and oathssounding on every side; while Fareham, who had moored the boat to an ironring in the wall by his Majesty's stairs, stood gloomy and motionless, andmade no further comment, only watched the conflagration in dismal silence, fascinated by that prodigious ruin. 

It was but the beginning of that stupendous destruction, yet it was alreadygreat enough to seem like the end of all things. 

"And last night, in the Court theatre, Killigrew's players were making ajest of a pestilence that filled the grave-pits by thousands, " Farehammuttered, as if awaking from a dream. "Well, the wits will have a newsubject for their mirth--London in flames. "

He untied the rope, took his seat and rowed out into the stream. Withinthat hour in which they had waited, the Thames had covered itself withtraffic; boats were moving westward, loaded with frightened souls in casualattire, and with heaps of humble goods and chattels. Some whose houses werenearest the river had been quick enough to save a portion of their poorpossessions, and to get them packed on barges; but these were the wiseminority. The greater number of the sufferers were stupefied by thesuddenness of the calamity, the rapidity with which destruction rushed uponthem, the flames leaping from house to house, spanning chasms of emptiness, darting hither and thither like lizards or winged scorpions, or breakingout mysteriously in fresh places, so that already the cry of arson hadarisen, and the ever-growing fire was set down to fiendish creatureslabouring secretly at a work of universal destruction. 

Most of the sufferers looked on at the ruin of their homes, paralysed byhorror, unable to help themselves or to mitigate their losses by energeticaction of any kind. Dumb and helpless as sheep, they saw their propertydestroyed, their children's lives imperilled, and could only thankProvidence, and those few brave men who helped them in their helplessness, for escape from a fiery death. Panic and ruin prevailed within a mileeastward of Fareham House, when the boat ground against the edge of themarble landing-stage, and Angela alighted and ran quickly up the stairs, and made her way straight to the house. The door stood wide open, andcandles were burning in the vestibule. The servants were at the eastern endof the terrace watching the fire, too much engrossed to see their masterand his companion land at the western steps. 

At the foot of the great staircase Angela heard herself called by acrystalline voice, and, looking up, saw Henriette hanging over the banisterrail. 

"Auntie, where have you been?"

"Is your mother with you?" Angela asked. 

"Mother is locked in her bed-chamber, and mighty sullen. She told me to goto bed. As if anybody could lie quietly in bed with London burning!" addedPapillon, her tone implying that a great city in flames was a kind ofentertainment that could not be too highly appreciated. 

She came flying downstairs in her pretty silken deshabille, with her hairstreaming, and flung her arm round her aunt's neck. 

"Ma chatte, where have you been?"

"On the terrace. "

"Fi donc, menteuse! I saw you and my father land at the west stairs, fiveminutes ago. "

"We had been looking at the fire. "

"And never offered to take me with you! What a greedy pig!"

"Indeed, dearest, it is no scene for little girls to look upon. "

"And when I am grown up what shall I have to talk about if I miss all thegreat sights?"

"Come to your room, love. You will see only too much from your windows. Iam going to your mother. "

"Ce n'est pas la peine. She is in one of her tempers, and has lockedherself in. "

"No matter. She will see me. "

"Je m'en doute. She came home in a coach-and-four nearly two hours ago, with Monsieur de Malfort; and I think they must have quarrelled. They badeeach other good night so uncivilly; but he was more huffed than mother. "

"Where were you that you know so much?"

"In the gallery. Did I not tell you I shouldn't be able to sleep? I wentinto the gallery for coolness, and then I heard the coach in the courtyard, and the doors opened, and I listened. "

"Inquisitive child!"

"No, I was not inquisitive. I was only vastly hipped for want of knowingwhat to do with myself. And I ran to bid her ladyship good morning, for itwas close upon one o'clock; but she frowned at me, and pushed me asidewith a 'Go to your bed, troublesome imp! What business have you up at thishour?' 'As much business as you have riding about in your coach, ' I hada mind to say, mais je me tenais coy; and made her ladyship la belleJennings' curtsy instead. She sinks lower and rises straighter than any ofthe other ladies. I watched her on mother's visiting-day. Lord, auntie, howwhite you are! One might take you for a ghost!"

Angela put the little prattler aside, more gently, perhaps, than the motherhad done, and passed hurriedly on to Lady Fareham's room. The door wasstill locked, but she would take no denial. 

"I must speak with you, " she said. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE MOTIVE--MURDER. 

For Lady Fareham and her sister September and October made a blank intervalin the story of life--uneventful as the empty page at the end of a chapter. They spent those months at Fareham, a house which Hyacinth detested, a neighbourhood where she had never condescended to make friends. Shecondemned the local gentry as a collection of nobodies, and had never takenthe trouble to please the three or four great families within a twenty-miledrive, because, though they had rank and consequence, they had not fashion. The _haut gout_ of Paris and London was wanting to them. 

Lord Fareham had insisted upon leaving London on the third of September, and had, his wife declared, out of pure malignity, taken his family toFareham, a place she hated, rather than to Chilton, a place she loved, at least as much as any civilised mortal could love the country. Never, Hyacinth protested, had her husband been so sullen and ferocious. 

"He is not like an angry man, " she told Angela, "but like a wounded lion;and yet, since your goodness took all the blame of my unlucky escapade uponyour shoulders, and he knows nothing of De Malfort's insolent attempt tocarry me off, I see no reason why he should have become such a gloomysavage. "

She accepted her sister's sacrifice with an amiable lightness. How couldit harm Angela to be thought to have run out at midnight for a frolicrendezvous? The maids of honour had some such adventure half a dozen timesin a season, and were found out, and laughed at, and laughed again, andwound up their tempestuous careers by marrying great noblemen. 

"If you can but get yourself talked about you may marry as high as youchoose, " Lady Fareham told her sister. 

 * * * * *

Early in November they went back to London, and though all Hyacinth's finepeople protested that the town stank of burnt wood, smoked oil, and resin, and was altogether odious, they rejoiced not the less to be back again. Lady Fareham plunged with renewed eagerness into the whirlpool of pleasure, and tried to drag Angela with her; but it was a surprise to both, and toone a cause for uneasiness, when his lordship began to show himself inscenes which he had for the most part avoided as well as reviled. Forsome unexplained reason he became now a frequent attendant at the eveningfestivities at Whitehall, and without even the pretence of being interestedor amused there. 

Fareham's appearance at Court caused more surprise than pleasure in thatbrilliant circle. The statue of the Comandante would scarcely have seemeda grimmer guest. He was there in the midst of laughter and delight, withnever a smile upon his stern features. He was silent for the most part, orif badgered into talking by some of his more familiar acquaintances, wouldvent his spleen in a tirade that startled them, as the pleasant chirpingsof a poultry-yard are startled by the raid of a dog. They laughed at hisconversation behind his back; but in his presence, under the angry lightof those grey eyes, the gloom of those bent brows, they were chilled intosubmission and civility. He had a dignity which made his Puritanicalplainness more patrician than Rochester's finery, more impressive thanBuckingham's graceful splendour. The force and vigour of his countenancewere more striking than Sedley's beauty. The eyes of strangers singled himout in that gay throng, and people wanted to know who he was and what hehad done for fame. 

A soldier, yes, cela saute aux yeux. He could be nothing else than asoldier. A cavalier of the old school. Albeit younger by half a lifetimethan Southampton and Clarendon, and the other ghosts of the troubles. 

Charles treated him with chill civility. 

"Why does the man come here without his wife?" he asked De Malfort. "Thereis a sister, too, fresher and fairer than her ladyship. Why are we to havethe shadow without the sun? Yet it is as well, perhaps, they keep away;for I have heard of a visit which was not returned--a condescension from awoman of the highest rank slighted by a trumpery baron's wife--and after anoffence of that kind she could only have brought us trouble. Why do womenquarrel, Wilmot?"

"Why are there any men in the world, sir? If there were none, women wouldlive together like lambs in a meadow. It is only about us they fight. Asfor Lady Fareham, she is adorable, though no longer young. I believe shewill be thirty on her next birthday. "

"And the sister? She had a wild-rose prettiness, I thought, when I saw herat Oxford. She looked like a lily till I spoke to her, and then flamedlike a red rose. So fresh, so easily startled. 'Tis pity that shynessof youthful purity wears off in a week. I dare swear by this time Mrs. Kirkland is as brazen as the boldest of our young houris yonder, " witha glance in the direction of the maids of honour, the Queen's and theDuchess's, a bevy of chatterers, waving fans, giggling, whispering, shoulder to shoulder with the impudentest men in his Majesty's kingdom;the men who gave their mornings to writing comedies coarser than Dryden orEtherege, and their nights to cards, dice, and strong drink; roving thestreets half clad, dishevelled, wanton; beating the watch, and insultingdecent pedestrians; with occasional vicious outbreaks which would have beenrevolting in a company of inebriated coal-heavers, and which brought thesefine gentlemen before a too lenient magistrate. But were not these themanners of which St. Evremond lightly sang--

 "'La douce erreur ne s'appelait point crime; Les vices délicats se nommaient des plaisirs. '"

"Mistress Kirkland has an inexorable modesty which would outlive even aweek at Whitehall, sir, " answered Rochester. "If I did not adore the matronI should worship the maid. Happily for the wretch who loves her I amotherwise engaged!"

"Thou insolent brat! To be eighteen years of age and think thyselfirresistible!"

"Does your Majesty suppose I shall be more attractive at six and thirty?"

"Yes, villain; for at my age thou wilt have experience. "

"And a reputation for incorrigible vice. No woman of taste can resistthat. "

"And pray who is Mrs. Kirkland's lover?"

"A Puritan baronet. One Denzil Warner. "

"There was a Warner killed at Hoptown Heath. "

"His son, sir. A fellow who believes in extempore prayer and republicangovernment; and swears England was never so happy or prosperous as underCromwell. "

"And the lady favours this psalm-singing rebel?"

"I know not. For all I have seen of the two she has been barely civil tohim. That he adores her is obvious; and I know Lady Fareham's heart is setupon the match. "

"Why did not Lady Fareham return the Countess's visit?"

There was no need to ask what Countess. 

"Be sure, sir, the husband was to blame, if there was want of respect forthat lovely lady. I can answer for Lady Fareham's right feeling in thatmatter. "

"The husband takes a leaf out of Hyde's book, and forgets that what may bepassed over in the Lord Chancellor, and a man of prodigious usefulness, isintolerable in a person of Fareham's insignificance. "

"Nay, sir, insignificance is scarcely the word. I would as soon call athunderstorm insignificant. The man is a volcano, and may explode at anyprovocation. "

"We want no such suppressed fires at Whitehall. Nor do we want long faces;as Clarendon may discover some day, if his sermons grow too troublesome. "

"The Chancellor is a domestic man; as your Majesty may infer from the sizeand splendour of his new house. "

"He is an expensive man, Wilmot I believe he got more by the sale ofDunkirk than his master did. "

"In that case your Majesty cannot do better than shift all the disgrace ofthe transaction on to his shoulders. Dunkirk will be a sure card to playwhen Clarendon has to go overboard. "

That incivility of Lady Fareham's in the matter of an unreturned visit hadrankled deep in the bosom of the King's imperious mistress. To sin moreboldly than woman ever sinned, and yet to claim all the privileges andhonours due to virtue was but a trifling inconsistency in a mind sofortified by pride that it scarce knew how to reckon with shame. That she, in her supremacy of beauty and splendour, a fortune sparkling in eitherear, the price of a landed estate on her neck--that she, Barbara, Countessof Castlemaine, should have driven in a windowless coach through dustylanes, eating dirt, as it were, with her train of court gallants onhorseback at her coach doors, her ladies in a carriage in the rear, tovisit a person of Lady Fareham's petty quality, a Buckinghamshire Knight'sdaughter married to a Baron of Henry the Eighth's creation! And thatthis amazing condescension--received with a smiling and curtsyingcivility--should have been unacknowledged by any reciprocal courtesy was anaffront that could hardly be wiped out with blood. Indeed, it could neverbe atoned for. The wound was poisoned, and would rankle and fester to theend of that proud life. 

Yet on Fareham's appearance at Whitehall Lady Castlemaine distinguishedwith a marked civility, and even condescended, smilingly, as if there wereno cause of quarrel, to inquire after his wife. 

"Her ladyship is as pretty as ever, though we are all growing old, " shesaid. "We exchanged curtsies at Tunbridge Wells the other day. I wonder howit is we never get further than smiles and curtsies? I should like to showthe dear woman some more substantial civility. She is buried alive in yourstately house by the river, for the want of an influential friend to showher the world we live in. "

"Indeed, madam, my wife has all the pleasure she desires--her visiting-day, her friends. "

"And her admirers. Rochester is always hanging about your garden, orlanding from his wherry, when I go by; or, if he himself be not visible, there are a couple of his watermen on your steps. "

"My Lord Rochester has a precocious wit which amuses my wife and hersister. "

"And then there is De Malfort--an impertinent, second only to Gramont. Heand Lady Fareham are twin stars. I have seldom seen them apart. "

"Since De Malfort has the honour of being somewhat intimate with yourladyship, he has doubtless given you full particulars of his friendship formy wife. I assure you it will bear being talked about. There are no secretsin it. "

"Really; I thought I had heard something about a sedan which took the wrongroad after Killigrew's play. But that was the night before the fire. GoodGod! my lord, your face darkens as if a man had struck you. Whateverhappened before the fire should have been burnt out of our memories by thistime. "

"I see his Majesty looking this way, madam, and I have not yet paid myrespects to him, " Fareham said, moving away, but a dazzling hand on hissleeve arrested him. 

"Oh, your respects will keep; he has Miss Stewart giggling at his elbow. Strange, is it not, that a woman with as much brain as a pigeon can amuse aman who reckons himself both wise and witty?"

"It is not the lady who amuses the gentleman, madam. She has the good senseto pretend that he amuses her. "

"And no more understands a jest than she does Hebrew. "

"She is conscious of pretty teeth and an enchanting smile. Wit orunderstanding would be superfluous, " answered Fareham, bowing his adieu tothe Sultana in chief. 

There was a great assembly, with music and dancing, on the Queen'sbirthday, to which Lord and Lady Fareham and Mistress Kirkland wereinvited; and again Angela saw and wondered at the splendid scene, andat this brilliant world, which calamity could not touch. Pestilence hadravaged the city, flames had devoured it--yet here there were only smilingpeople, gorgeous dress, incomparable jewels. The plague had not touchedthem, and the fire had not reached them. Such afflictions are forthe common herd. Angela promenaded with De Malfort in the spaciousbanqueting-hall, with its ceiling of such prodigious height that theapotheosis of King James, and all the emblematical figures, triumphal cars, lions, bears and rams, corn-sheaves and baskets of fruit, which filledthe panels, might as well have been executed by a sign-painter'srough-and-ready brush, as by the pencil of the great Fleming. 

"We are a little kinder to Rubens at the Louvre, " said De Malfort, notingher upward gaze; "for we allow his elaborate glorification of his Majesty'sgrandfather and grandmother about half a mile of wall. But I forgot, youhave not seen Paris, nor those acres of gaudy colouring which Henri'svanity inflicted upon us. Florentine Marie, with her carnation cheeks andopulent shoulders--the Roman-nosed Béarnais, with his pointed beard andstiff ruff. Mon Dieu, how the world has changed since Ravaillac's knifesnapped that valiant life! And you have never seen Paris? You look aboutyou with wide-open eyes, and take this crowd, this ceiling, those candlebrafor splendour. "

"Can there be a scene more splendid?" asked Angela, pleased to keep him byher side, rather than see him devote himself to her sister; grateful forhis attention in that crowd where most people were strangers, and whereLord Fareham had not vouchsafed the slightest notice of her. 

"When you have seen the Louvre, you will wonder that any King, with asense of his own consequence in the world, can inhabit such a hovel asWhitehall--this congeries of shabby apartments, the offices of servants, the lodgings of followers and dependents, soldiers and civilians--huddledin a confused labyrinth of brick and stone--redeemed from squalor only byone fine room. Could you see the grand proportions, the colossal majestyof the great Henri's palace--that palace whose costly completion sat heavyupon Sully's careful soul! Henri loved to build--and his grandson, Louis, inherits that Augustan taste. "

"You were telling us of a new palace at Versailles----"

"A royal city in stone--white--dazzling--grandiose. The mortar was scarcelydry when I was there in March; but you should have seen the mi-careme ball. The finest masquerade that was ever beheld in Europe. All Paris came inmasks to see that magnificent spectacle. His Majesty allowed entrance toall--and those who came were feasted at a banquet which only Rabelaiscould fairly describe. And then with our splendour there is an elegantrestraint--a decency unknown here. Compare these women--Lady Shrewsburyyonder, Lady Chesterfield, the fat woman in sea-green and silver--LadyCastlemaine, brazen in orange velvet and emeralds--compare them withCondé's sister, with the Duchesse de Bouillon, the Princess Palatine----"

"Are those such good women?"

"Humph! They are ladies. These are the kind of women King Charles admires. They are as distinct a race as the dogs that lie in his bed-chamber, andfollow him in his walks, a species of his own creation. They do not evenaffect modesty. But I am turning preacher, like Fareham. Come, there is tobe an entertainment in the theatre. Roxalana has returned to the stage--andJacob Hall, the rope-dancer, is to perform. "

They followed the crowd, and De Malfort remained at Angela's side till theend of the performance, and attended her to the supper-table afterwards. Fareham watched them from his place in the background. He stood ever alooffrom the royal focus, the beauty, and the wit, the most dazzling jewels, the most splendid raiment. He was amidst the Court, but not of it. 

Yes; the passion which these two entertained for each other was patent toevery eye; but had it been an honourable attachment upon De Malfort's side, he would have declared himself before now. He would not have abandoned thefield to such a sober suitor as Denzil. Henri de Malfort loved her, and shefed his passion with her sweetest smiles, the low and tender tones of themost musical voice Fareham had ever listened to. 

"The voice that came to me in my desolation--the sweetest sound that everfell on a dying man's ear, " he thought, recalling those solitary days andnights in the plague year, recalling those vanished hours with a fondlonging, "that arm which shows dazzling white against the purple velvet ofhis sleeve is the arm that held up my aching head, in the dawn of returningreason; those are the eyes that looked down upon mine, so pitiful, soanxious for my recovery. Oh, lovely angel, I would be a leper again, a plague-stricken wretch, only to drink a cup of water from that dearhand--only to feel the touch of those light fingers on my forehead! Therewas a magic in that touch that surpassed the healing powers of kings. Therewas a light as of heaven in those benignant eyes. But, oh, she is changedsince then. She is plague-stricken with the contagion of a profligate age. Her wings are scorched by the fire of this modish Tophet She has beentaught to dress and look like the women around her--a little moremodest--but after the same fashion. The nun I worshipped is no more. "

Some one tapped him on the shoulder with an ostrich fan. He turned, and sawLady Castlemaine close at his elbow. 

"Image of gloom, will you lead me to my rooms?" she asked, in a curiousvoice, her dark blue eyes deepened by the pallor that showed through herrouge. 

"I shall esteem myself too much honoured by that office, " he answered, asshe took his arm and moved quickly, with hurried footsteps, through thelessening throng. 

"Oh, there is no one to dispute the honour with you. Sometimes I have amob to hustle me to my lodgings, borne on the current of theiradulation--sometimes I move through a desert, as I do to-night. Your faceattracted me--for I believe it is the only one at Whitehall as gloomy asmy own--unless there are some of my creditors, men to whom I owe gamingdebts. "

It was curious to note that subtle change in the faces of those theypassed, which Barbara Palmer knew so well--faces that changed, obedient tothe weathercock of royal caprice--the countenances of courtiers whoeven yet had not learnt justly to weigh the influence of that imperialfavourite, or to understand that she ruled their King with a power which notransient fancy for newer faces could undermine. A day or two in the sulks, frowns and mournful looks for gossip Pepys to jot down in his diary, andthe next day the sun would be shining again, and the King would be atsupper with "the lady. "

Perhaps Lady Castlemaine knew that her empire was secure; but she tookthese transient fancies _moult serieusement_. Her jealous soul couldtolerate no rival--or it may be that she really loved the King. He hadgiven himself to her in the flush of his triumphant return, while he wasstill young enough to feel a genuine passion. For her sake he had been acruel husband, an insolent tyrant to an inoffensive wife; for her sake hehad squandered his people's money, and outraged every moral law; and it maybe that she remembered these things, and hated him the more fiercely forthem when he was inconstant. She was a woman of extremes, in whose tropicaltemperament there was no medium between hatred and love. 

"You will sup with me, Fareham?" she said, as he waited on the threshold ofher lodgings, which were in a detached pile of buildings, near the HolbeinGateway, and looking upon an enclosed and somewhat gloomy garden. 

"Your ladyship will excuse me. I am expected at home. "

"What devil! Perhaps you think I am inviting you to a _tête-à-tête_. Ishall have some company, though the drove have gone to the Stewarts' in ahope of getting asked to supper--which but a few of them can realise inher mean lodgings. You had better stay. I may have Buckhurst, Sedley, DeMalfort, and a few more of the pretty fellows--enough to empty your pocketsat basset. "

"Your ladyship is all goodness, " said Fareham, quickly. 

De Malfort's name had decided him. He followed his hostess through a crowdof lackeys, a splendour of wax candles, to her saloon, where she turned andflashed upon him a glorious picture of mature loveliness, her complexionthe peach in its ripest bloom, the orange sheen of her velvet mantuashining out against a background of purple damask curtains embroidered withgold. 

The logs blazed and roared in the wide chimney. Warmth, opulence, hospitality, were all expressed in the brilliantly lighted room, whereluxurious fauteuils, after the new French fashion, stood about, ready toreceive her ladyship's guests. 

These were not long waited for. There was no crowd. Less than twenty men, and about a dozen women, were enough to add an air of living gaiety to thebrilliancy of light and colour. De Malfort was the last who entered. Hekissed her ladyship's hand, looked about him, and recognised Fareham withopen wonder. 

"An Israelite in the house of Dagon!" he said, _sotto voce_, as heapproached him. "What, Fareham, have you given your neck to the yoke?Do you yield to the charm which has subjugated such lighter natures asVilliers and Buckhurst?"

"It is only human to love variety. You have discovered the charm of youthand innocence. "

"Do you think it needs a modish Columbus to discover that? We all worshipinnocence, were it but for its rarity, as we esteem a black pearl or ayellow diamond above a white one. Jarni, but I am pleased to see you here!It is the most human thing I have known of you since you recovered of thecontagion; for you have been a gloomier man from that time. "

"Be assured I am altogether human--at least upon the worser side ofhumanity. "

"How dismal you look! Upon my soul, Fareham, you should fight against thatmelancholic habit. Her ladyship is in the black sulks. We are in fora pleasant evening. Yet, if we were to go away, she would storm at usto-morrow; call us sycophants and time-servers, swear she would hold nofurther commerce with any manjack among our detestable crew. Well, she isa magnificent termagant. If Cleopatra was half as handsome, I can forgiveAntony for following her to ruin at Actium. "

"There is supper in the music-room, gentlemen, " said Lady Castlemaine, whowas standing near the fire in the midst of a knot of whispering women. 

They had been abusing the fair Frances, and ridiculing old Rowley, togratify their hostess. She knew them by heart--their falsehood andhollowness. She knew that they were ready, every one of them, to steal herroyal lover, had they but the chance of such a conquest; yet it solaced hersoreness to hear Miss Stewart depreciated even by those false lips--"Shewas too tall. " "Her Britannia profile looked as if it was cut out of wood. ""She was bold, bad, designing. " "It was she who would have the King, notthe King who would have her. "

"You are too malicious, my dearest Price, " said Lady Castlemaine, with moregood humour than had been seen in her countenance that evening. "Buckhurst, will you take Mrs. Price to supper? There are cards in the gallery. Prayamuse yourselves. "

"But will your ladyship neither sup nor play?" asked Sedley. 

"My ladyship has a raging headache. What devil! Did I not lose enough tosome of you blackguards last night? Do you want to rook me again? Prayamuse yourselves, friends. No doubt his Majesty is being exquisitelyentertained where he is; but I doubt if he will get as good a supper as youwill find in the next room. "

The significant laugh which concluded her speech was too angry for mirth, and the blackness of her brow forbade questioning. All the town knew nextday that she had contrived to get the royal supper intercepted and carriedoff, on its way from the King's kitchen to Miss Stewart's lodgings, andthat his Majesty had a Barmecide feast at the table of beauty. It was ajoke quite in the humour of the age. 

The company melted out of the room; all but Fareham, who watched LadyCastlemaine as she stood by the hearth in an attitude of hopelessself-forgetfulness, leaning against the lofty sculptured chimney-piece, oneslender foot in gold-embroidered slipper and transparent stocking poised onthe brazen fender, and her proud eyelids lowered as if there was nothingin this world worth looking at but the pile of ship's timber, burning withmany-coloured flames upon the silver andirons. 

In spite of that sullen downward gaze she was conscious of Fareham'slingering. 

"Why do you stay, my lord?" she asked, without looking up. "If your purseis heavy there are friends of mine yonder who will lighten it for you, fairly or foully. I have never made up my mind how far a gentleman may be arogue with impunity. If you don't love losing money you had best eat a goodsupper and begone. "

"I thank you, madam. I am more in the mood for cards than for feasting. "

She did not answer him, but clasped her hands suddenly before her face andgave a heart-breaking sigh. Fareham paused on the threshold of the gallery, watching her, and then went slowly back, bent down to take the handthat had dropped at her side, and pressed his lips upon it, silently, respectfully, with a kind of homage that had become strange of late yearsto Barbara Palmer. Adorers she had and to spare, toadeaters and flatterers, a regiment of mercenaries; but these all wanted something of her--kisses, smiles, influence, money. Disinterested respect was new. 

"I thought you were a Puritan, Lord Fareham. "

"I am a man; and I know what it is to suffer the hell-fire of jealousy. "

"Jealousy, yes! I never was good at hiding my feelings. He treats meshamefully. Come, now, you take me for an abandoned profligate woman, acallous wanton. That is what the world takes me for; and, perhaps, I havedeserved no better of the world. But whatever I am 'twas he made me so. If he had been true, I could have been constant. It is the insolence ofabandonment that stings; the careless slights, scarce conscious that hewounds. Before the eyes of the world, too, before wretches that grin andwhisper, and prophesy the day when my pride shall be in the dust. It istreat ment such as this that makes women desperate; and if we cannot keephim we love, we make believe to love some one else, and flaunt our fancy inthe deceiver's face. Do you think I cared for Buckingham, with his heartof ice; or for such a snipe as Jermyn; or for a low-born rope-dancer?No, Fareham; there has been more of rage and hate than of passion in mycaprices. And he is with Frances Stewart to-night. She sets up for a modelof chastity, and is to marry Richmond next month. But we know, Fareham, weknow. Women who ride in glass coaches should not throw stones. I will haveCharles at my feet again. I will have my foot upon his neck again. I cannotuse him too ill for the pain he gives me. There, go--go! Why did you temptme to lay my heart bare?"

"Dearest lady, believe me, I respect your candour. My heart bleeds for yourwrongs. So beautiful, so high above all other women in the capacity tocharm! Ah, be sure such loveliness has its responsibilities. It is a giftfrom Heaven, and to hold it cheap is a sin. "

"There is nothing in this life can be held too cheap. Beauty, love--alltrumpery! You would make life a tragedy. It is a farce, Fareham, a farce;and all our pleasures and diversions only serve to make us forget whatworms we are. There, go--to cards--to supper--as you please. I am going tomy bed-chamber to rest this throbbing head. I may return and take a hand atcards by-and-by, perhaps. Those fellows will game and booze till daylight. "

Fareham opened the door for her, as she went out, regal in port and air. She had moved him to compassion, even while she owned herself a wanton. Tolove passionately--and to see another preferred! There is a brotherhood inagony, that brings even opposite natures into sympathy. He passed into thegallery, a long low room, hung with modern tapestries, richly coloured, voluptuous in design. Clusters of wax tapers in gilded sconces lit up thosePaphian pictures. There were several tables, at which the mixed companywere sitting. Piles of the new guineas, fresh from his Majesty's Mint, shone in the candle-light. At some tables there was a silent absorption inthe game, which argued high play, and the true gambler's spirit; at othersmirth reigned--talk, laughter, animated looks. One of the noisiest was thetable at which De Malfort was the most conspicuous figure; his periwig thehighest, his dress the most sumptuous, his breast glittering with orders. His companions were Sir Ralph Masaroon, Colonel Dangerfield, an oldMalignant, who had hibernated during the Protectorate, and had never lefthis own country, and Lady Lucretia Topham, a visiting acquaintance ofHyacinth's. 

"Come here, Fareham, " cried De Malfort; "there is plenty of room for you. I'll wager Lady Lucretia will pass you her hand, and thank you for takingit. "

"Lady Lucretia is glad to be quit of such dishonest company, " said thelady, tossing her cards upon the table, and rising in a cloud of powder andperfume, and a flutter of lace and brocade. "If I were ill-humoured I wouldsay you marked the cards! but as I'm the soul of good nature, I'll onlyswear you are the luckiest dog in London. "

"You are the soul of good nature, and I am the luckiest dog in the universewhen you smile upon me, " answered De Malfort, without looking up from hiscards, as the lady posed herself gracefully at the back of his chair, leaning over his shoulder to watch his play. "I would not limit the area toany city, however big. "

Fareham seated himself in the chair the lady had vacated, and gathered upthe cards she had abandoned. He took a handful of gold from his pocket, andput it on the table at his elbow, all with a somewhat churlish silence, that escaped notice where everybody was loquacious. De Malfort went onfooling with Lady Lucretia, whose lovely hand and arm, her strongest point, descended upon a card now and then, to indicate the play she deemed wisest. 

Once he caught the hand and kissed it in transit. 

"Wert thou as wise as this hand is fair it should direct my play; but it isonly a woman's hand, and points the way to perdition. "

Fareham had been losing steadily from the moment he took up Lady Lucretia'scards; and his pile of jacobuses had been gradually passed over to DeMalfort's side of the table. He had emptied his pockets, and had scrawledtwo or three I. O. U. 's upon scraps of paper torn from a note-book. Yet hewent on playing, with the same immovable countenance. The room had emptieditself, the rest of the visitors leaving earlier than their usual hour inthat hospitable house. Perhaps because the hostess was missing; perhapsbecause the royal sun was shining elsewhere. 

Lackeys handed their salvers of Burgundy and Bordeaux, and the playersrefreshed themselves occasionally with a brimmer of clary; but no winebrightened Fareham's scowling brow, or changed the glooiay intensity of hisoutlook. 

"My cards have brought your lordship bad luck, " said Lady Lucretia, whowatched De Malfort's winnings with an air of personal interest. 

"I knew my risk before I took them, madam. When an Englishman plays againsta Frenchman he is a fool if he is not prepared to be rooked. "

"Fareham, are you mad?" cried De Malfort, starting to his feet. "To insultyour friend's country, and, by basest implication, your friend. "

"I see no friend here. I say that you Frenchmen cheat at cards--onprinciple--and are proud of being cheats! I have heard De Gramont brag ofhaving lured a man to his tent, and fed him, and wined him, and fleeced himwhile he was drunk. " He took a goblet of claret from the lackey who broughthis salver, emptied it, and went on, hoarse with passion. "To the marrow ofyour bones you are false, all of you! You do not cog your dice, perhaps, but you bubble your friends with finesses, and are as much sharpers atheart as the lowest tat-mongers in Alsatia. You empty our purses, andcozen our women with twanging guitars and jingling rhymes, and laugh at usbecause we are honest and trust you. Seducers, tricksters, poltroons!"

The footman was at De Malfort's elbow now. He snatched a tankard from thesalver, and flung the contents across the table, straight at Fareham'sface. 

"This bully forces me to spoil his Point de Venise, " he said coolly, as heset down the tankard. "There should be a law for chaining up rabid cursthat have run mad without provocation. "

Fareham sprang to his feet, black and terrible, but with a savageexultation in his countenance. The wine poured in a red stream from hispoint-lace cravat, but had not touched his face. 

"There shall be something redder than Burgundy spilt before we have done!"he said. 

"Sacre nom, nous sommes tombes dans un antre de betes sauvages!" exclaimedMasaroon, starting up, and anxiously examining the skirts of his brocadecoat, lest that sudden deluge had caught him. 

"None of your ---- French to show your fine breeding!" growled the oldcavalier. "Fareham, you deserved the insult; but one red will wash outanother. I'm with your lordship. "

"And I'm with De Malfort, " said Masaroon. "He had more than enoughprovocation. "

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, no bloodshed!" cried Lady Lucretia; "or, if you aregoing to be uncivil to each other, for God's sake get me to my chair. Ihave a husband who would never forgive me if it were said you fought for mysake. "

"We will see you safely disposed of, madam, before we begin our business, "said Colonel Dangerfield, bluntly. "Fareham, you can take the lady to herchair, while Masaroon and I discuss particulars. "

"There is no need of a discussion, " interrupted Fareham, hotly. "We havenothing to arrange--nothing to wait for. Time, the present; place, thegarden, under these windows; weapons, the swords we wear. We shall have nowitnesses but the moon and stars. It is the dead middle of the night, andwe have the world all to ourselves. "

"Give me your rapier, then, that I may compare it with the Count's. You aresatisfied, monsieur? 'Tis you that are the offender, and Lord Fareham hasthe choice of weapons. "

"Let him choose. I will fight him with cannon--or with soap-bubbles, "answered De Malfort, lolling back in his chair, tilted at an angle offorty-five, and drumming a gay dance tune with his finger-tips on thetable. "'Tis a foolish imbroglio from first to last: and only his lordshipand I know how foolish. He came here to provoke a quarrel, and I mustindulge him. Come, Lady Lucretia"--he turned to his fair friend, as heunbuckled his sword and flung it on the table--"it is my place to lead youto your chair. Colonel, you and your friend will find me below stairs infront of the Holbein Gate. "

"You are forgetting your winnings, " remonstrated the lady, pointing to thepile of gold. 

"The lackeys will not forget them when they clear the room, " answered DeMalfort, putting her hand through his arm, and leaving the money on thetable. 

Ten minutes later Fareham and De Malfort were standing front to front inthe glare of four torches, held by a brace of her ladyship's lackeys whohad been impressed into the service, and the colder light of a moon thatrode high in the blue-black of a wintry heaven. There was not a sound butthe ripple of the unseen river, and the distant cry of a watchman in PettyFrance, till the clash of swords began. 

It was decided after a brief parley that the principals only should fight. The quarrel was private. The seconds placed their men on a piece of levelturf, five paces apart. They were bare-headed, and without coat or vest, the lace ruffles of their shirt-sleeves rolled back to the elbow, theirnaked arms ghastly white, their faces suggesting ghost or devil as thespectral moonlight or the flame of the flambeaux shone upon them. 

"You mean business, so we may sink the parade of the fencing saloon, " saidDangerfield. "Advance, gentlemen. "

"A pity, " murmured Masaroon, "there is nothing prettier than the salute _àla Française_. "

Dangerfield handed the men their swords. They were nearly similar infashion, both flat-grooved blades, with needle points, and no cutting edge, furnished with shell-guards and cross-bars in the Italian style, and wereabout of a length. 

The word was given, and the business of engagement proceeded slowly andwarily, for a few moments that seemed minutes; and then the blades werefirmly joined in carte, and a series of rapid feints began, De Malforthaving a slight advantage in the neatness of his circles, and the swiftnessof his wrist play. But in these preliminary lounges and parries, he soonfound he needed all his skill to dodge his opponent's point; for Fareham'sblade followed his own, steadily and strongly, through every turn. 

De Malfort had begun the fight with an insolent smile upon his lips, thesmile of a man who believes himself invincible, while Fareham's countenancenever changed from the black anger that had darkened it all that night. Itwas a face that meant death. A man who had never been a duellist, who hadraised his voice sternly against the practice of duelling, stood thereintent upon bloodshed. There could be no mistake as to his purpose. Thequarrel was an artificial quarrel--the object was murder. 

De Malfort, provoked at the unexpected strength of Fareham's fence, attempted a partial disarmament, after the deadly Continental method. Joining his opponent's blade near the point, from a wide circular parry, he made a rapid thrust in seconde, carrying his forte the entire length ofFareham's blade, almost wrenching the sword from his grasp; and then, inthe next instant, reaching forward to his fullest stretch, he lunged at hisenemy's breast, aiming at the vital region of the heart; a thrust that musthave proved fatal had not Fareham sprung aside, and so received the blowwhere the sword only grazed his ribs, inflicting a flesh-wound that showedred upon the whiteness of his shirt. Dangerfield tore off his cravat, andwanted to bind it round his principal's waist; but Fareham repulsed him, and lashed into hot fury by the Frenchman's uncavalier-like ruse, methis adversary's thrusts with a deadly purpose, which drove De Malfort toreckless lunging and riposting, and the play grew fast and fierce, whilethe rattle of steel seemed never likely to end. Suddenly, timing his attackto the fraction of a second, Fareham dropped on his left knee, and plantinghis left hand upon the ground, sent a murderous thrust home under DeMalfort's guard, whose blade passed harmlessly over his adversary's head ashe crouched on the sward. 

De Malfort fell heavily in the arms of the two seconds, who both sprang tohis assistance. 

"Is it fatal?" asked Fareham, standing motionless as stone, while the othermen knelt on either side of De Malfort. 

"I'll run for a surgeon, " said Masaroon. "There's a fellow I know of thisside the Abbey--mends bloody noses and paints black eyes, " and he was off, running across the grass to the nearest gate. 

"It looks plaguily like a coffin, " Dangerfield answered, with his hand onthe wounded man's breast. "There's throbbing here yet; but he may bleed todeath, like poor Lindsey, before surgery can help him. You had better run, Fareham. Take horse to Dover, and get across to Calais or Ostend. You weredevilish provoking. It might go hard with you if he was to die. "

"I shall not budge, Dangerfield. Didn't you hear me say I wanted to killhim? You might guess I didn't care a cast of the dice for my life when Isaid as much. Let them find it murder, and hang me. I wanted him out of theworld, and don't care how soon I follow. "

"You are mad--stark, staring mad!"

The wounded man raised himself on his elbow, groaning aloud in the agony ofmovement, and beckoned Fareham, who knelt down beside him, all of a piece, like a stone figure. 

"Fareham, you had better run; I have powerful friends. There'll be an uglystir if I die of this bout. Kiss me, mon ami. I forgive you. I know whatwound rankled; 'twas for your wife's sister you fought--not the cards. "

He sank into Dangerfield's arms, swooning from loss of blood, as Masarooncame back at a run, bringing a surgeon, an elderly man of that Alsatianclass which is to be found out of bed in the small hours. He broughtstyptics and bandages, and at once set about staunching the wound. 

While this was happening a curtain had been suddenly pulled aside at anupper window in Lady Castlemaine's lodgings, showing a light within. Thewindow was thrown open, and a figure appeared, clad in a white satinnight-gown that glistened in the moonlight, with a deep collar of ermine, from which the handsomest face in London looked across the garden, to thespot where Fareham, the seconds, and the surgeon were grouped about DeMalfort. 

It was Lady Castlemaine. She leant out of the window and called to them. 

"What has happened? Is any one hurt? I'll wager a thousand pounds youdevils have been fighting. "

"De Malfort is stabbed!" Masaroon answered. 

"Not dead?" she shrieked, leaning farther out of the window. 

"No; but it looks dangerous. "

"Bring him into my house this instant! I'll send my fellows to help. Haveyou sent for a surgeon?"

"The surgeon is here. "

The radiant figure vanished like a vision in the skies; and in threeminutes a door was heard opening, and a voice calling, "John, William, Hugh, Peter, every manjack of you. Lazy devils! There's been no time foryou to fall asleep since the company left. Stir yourselves, vermin, and outwith you!"

"We had best levant, Fareham, " muttered Dangerfield, and drew away hisprincipal, who went with him, silent and unresisting, having no more to dothere; not to fly the country, however, but to walk quietly home to FarehamHouse, and to let himself in at the garden door, known to the household ashis lordship's. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

REVELATIONS. 

Lord Fareham stayed in his own house by the Thames, and nobody interferedwith his liberty, though Henri de Malfort lay for nearly a fortnightbetween life and death, and it was only in the beginning of December thathe was pronounced out of danger, and was able to be removed from LadyCastlemaine's luxurious rooms to his own lodgings. Scandal-mongers mighthave made much talk of his lying ill in her ladyship's house, and beingtenderly nursed by her, had not Lady Castlemaine outlived the possibilityof slander. It would have been as difficult for her name to acquire anyblacker stain as for a damaged reputation to wash itself white. The secretof the encounter had been faithfully kept by principals and seconds, DeMalfort behaving with a chivalrous generosity. He appeared, indeed, asanxious for his antagonist's safety as for his own recovery. 

"It was a mistake, " he said, when Masaroon pressed him with home questions. "Every man is mad once in his life. Fareham's madness took an angry turnagainst an old friend. Why, we slept under the same blanket in the trenchesbefore Dunkirk; we rode shoulder to shoulder through the rain of bullets atChitillon; and to pick a trumpery quarrel with a brother-in-arms!"

"I wonder the quarrel was not picked earlier, " Masaroon answered bluntly. "Your courtship of the gentleman's wife has been notorious for the lastfive years. "

"Call it not courtship, Ralph. Lady Fareham and I are old playfellows. Wewere reared in the _pays du tendre_, Loveland--the kingdom of innocentattachments and pure penchants, that country of which Mademoiselle Scudéryhas given us laws and a map. Your vulgar London lover cannot understandplatonics--the affection which is satisfied with a smile or a madrigal. Fareham knows his wife and me better than to doubt us. "

"And yet he acted like a man who was madly jealous. His rudeness at thecard-table was obvious malice afore-thought. He came resolved to quarrel. "

"Ay, he came to quarrel--but not about his wife. "

Pressed to explain this dubious phrase, De Malfort affected a fit oflanguor, and would talk no more. 

The town was told that the Comte de Malfort was ill of a quartain fever, and much was said about his sufferings during the Fronde, his exposure todamp and cold in the sea-marshes by Dunkirk, his rough fare and hard ridingthrough the war of the Princes. This fever, which hung about him so long, was an after-consequence of hardship suffered in his youth--privationsfaced with a boyish recklessness, and which he had paid for with animpaired constitution. Fine ladies in gilded chairs, and vizard-masks inhackney coaches, called frequently at his lodgings in St. James's Streetto inquire about his progress. Lady Fareham's private messenger was at hisdoor every morning, and brought a note, or a book, or a piece of new musicfrom her ladyship, who had been sternly forbidden to visit her old friendin person. 

"You grow every day a gloomier tyrant!" Hyacinth protested, with morepassion in her voice and mien than ever her husband had known. "Why shouldI not go to him when he is ill--dangerously ill--dying perhaps? He is myold, old friend. I remember no joy in life that he did not share. Whyshould I not go to him in his sorrow?"

"Because you are my wife, and I forbid you. I cannot understand thispassion. I thought you suffered the company of that empty-headed fop as yousuffered your lap-dogs--the trivial appendage of a fine lady's state. HadI supposed that there was anything serious in your liking--that you couldthink him worth anger or tears--should have ordered your life differently, and he would have had no place in it. "

"Tyrant! tyrant!"

"You astound me, Hyacinth! Would you dispute the favours of a fop with youryoung sister?"

"With my sister!" she cried, scornfully. 

"Ay, with your sister, whom he has courted assiduously; but with nohonourable motive! I have seen his designs. "

"Well, perhaps you are right. He may care for Angela--and think her toopoor to marry. "

"He is a traitor and a villain----"

"Oh, what fury! Marry my sister to Sir Denzil, and then she will be safefrom all pursuit! He will bury her alive in Oxfordshire--withdraw her forever from this wicked town--like poor Lady Yarborough in Cornwall. "

"I will never ask her to marry a man she cannot love. "

"Why not? Are not you and I a happy couple? And how much love had we foreach other before we married? Why I scarce knew the colour of your eyes;and if I had met you in the street, I doubt if I should have recognisedyou! And now, after thirteen years of matrimony, we are at our firstquarrel, and that no lasting one. Come, Fareham, be pleasant and yielding. Let me go and see my old playfellow. I am heartbroken for lack of hiscompany, for fear of his death. "

She hung upon him coaxingly, the bright blue eyes looking up at him--eyesthat had so often been compared to Madame de Longueville's, eyes that hadsmiled and beamed in many a song and madrigal by the parlour poets of theHôtel de Rambouillet. She was exquisitely pretty in her youthful colouringof lilies and roses, blue eyes, and pale gold hair, and retained at thirtyalmost all the charms and graces of eighteen. 

Fareham took her by both hands and held her away from him, severelyscrutinising a face which he had always been able to admire as calmly as ifit had been on canvas. 

"You look like an innocent woman, " he said, "and I have always believed youa good woman; and have trusted my honour in your keeping--have seen thatman fawning at your feet, singing and sighing in your ear, and have thoughtno evil. But now that you have told me, as plainly as woman can speak toman, that this is the man you love, and have loved all your life, theremust needs come an end to the sighing and singing. You and Henri de Malfortmust meet no more. Nay, look not such angry scorn. I impute no guilt; butbetween innocence and guilt there need be but one passionate hour. The wifegoes out an honest woman, able to look her husband in the face as youare looking at me; the wanton comes home, and the rest of her life is ashameful lie. And the husband awakes some day from his dream of domesticpeace to discover that he has been long the laughing-stock of the town. I will be no such fatuous husband, Hyacinth. I will wait for no secondwarning. "

Lady Fareham submitted in silence, and with deep resentment. She had neverbefore experienced a husband's authority sternly exercised. She had beenforbidden the free run of London play-houses, and some of the pleasures ofCourt society; but then she had been denied with all kindness, and had beenallowed so many counterbalancing extravagances, pleasures, and follies, that it would have been difficult for her to think herself ill-used. 

She submitted angrily, passionately regretting the man whose presence hadlong been the brightest element in her life. Her cheek paled; she grewindifferent to the amusements which had been her sole occupation; shesulked in her rooms, equally avoiding her children and their aunt; and, indeed, seemed to care for no one's society except Mrs. Lewin's. The Courtmilliner had business with her ladyship every day, and was regaled withcakes and liqueurs in her ladyship's dressing-room. 

"You must be very busy about new gowns, Hyacinth, " her husband said to herone day at dinner. "I meet the harridan from Covent Garden on the stairsevery morning. "

"She is not a harridan, whatever that elegant word may mean. And as forgowns, it would be wiser for me to order no new ones, since it is butlikely I shall soon have to wear mourning for an old friend. "

She looked at her husband, defying him. He rose from the table with a sigh, and walked out of the room. There was war between them, or at best an armedneutrality. He looked back, and saw that he had been blind to the things heshould have seen, dull and unobservant where he should have had sense andunderstanding. 

"I did not care enough for my honour, " he thought. "Was it because I caredtoo little for my wife? It is indifference, and not love, that is blind. "

Angela saw the cloud that overshadowed Fareham House with deepest distress;and yet felt herself powerless to bring back sunshine. Her sister met herremonstrances with scorn. 

"Do you take the part of a tyrant against your own flesh and blood?" sheasked. "I have been too tame a slave. To keep me away from the Court whileI was young and worth looking at--to deny me amusements and admirationwhich are the privilege of every woman of quality--to forbid me theplay-house, and make a country cousin of me by keeping me ignorant ofmodern wit. I am ashamed of my compliance. "

"Nay, dearest, was it not an evidence of his love that he should desire youto keep your mind pure as well as your face fair?"

"No, he has never loved me. It is only a churlish jealousy that would shutme up in a harem like a Turk's wife, and part me from the friend I likebest in the world--with the purest platonic affection. "

"Hyacinth, don't be angry with me for being out of the fashion; but indeedI cannot think it right for a wife to care for the company of any other manbut her husband. "

"And my husband is so entertaining! Sure any woman might be contentwith such gay company--such flashes of wit--such light raillery!" criedHyacinth, scornfully, walking up and down the room, plucking at thelace upon her sleeves with restless hands, her bosom heaving, her eyessteel-bright with anger. "Since his sickness last year, he has been theimage of melancholy; he has held himself aloof from me as if _I_ had hadthe pestilence. I was content that it should be so. I had my children andyou, and one who loved me better, in his light way, than any of you--and Icould do without Lord Fareham. But now he forbids me to see an old friendthat is dangerously ill, and every drop of blood in my veins boils inrebellion against his tyranny!"

It was in the early dusk, an hour or so after dinner. Angela sat silent inthe shadow of a bay window, quite as heavy-hearted as her sister--sorry forHyacinth, but still sorrier for Hyacinth's husband, yet feeling that therewas treachery and unkindness in making him first in her thoughts. Butsurely, surely he deserved a better wife than this! Surely he deserved awife's love--this man who stood alone among the men she knew, hating allevil things, honouring all things good and noble! He had been unkind toher--cold and cruel--since that fatal night. He had let her understand thatall friendship between them was at an end for ever, and that she had becomedespicable in his sight; and she had submitted to be scorned by him, sinceit was impossible that she should clear herself. She had made her sisterlysacrifice for a sister who regarded it very lightly; to whose light fancythat night and all it involved counted but as a scene in a comedy; and shecould not unmake it. But having so sacrificed his good opinion whose esteemshe valued, she wanted to see some happy result, and to save this splendidhome from shipwreck. 

Suddenly, with a passionate impulse, she went to her sister, and put herarms round her and kissed her. 

"Hyacinth, you shall not continue in this folly, " she cried, "to fret forthat shallow idler, whose love is lighter than thistledown, whose elementis the ruelle of one of those libertine French duchesses he is ever talkingabout. To rebel against the noblest gentleman in England! Oh, sister, you must know him better than I do; and yet I, who am nothing to him, amwretched when I see him ill-used. Indeed, Hyacinth, you are acting like awicked wife. You should never have wished to see De Malfort again, afterthe peril of that night. You should have known that he had no esteemfor you, that he was a traitor--that his design was the wickedest, cruellest----"

"I don't pretend to know a man's mind as well as you--neither De Malfort'snor my husband's. You have needed but the experience of a year to make youwise enough in the world's ways to instruct your elders. I am not going tobe preached to----Hark!" she cried, running to the nearest window, andlooking out at the river, "that is better than your sermons. "

It was the sound of fiddles playing the symphony of a song she knewwell--one of De Malfort's, a French chanson, her latest favourite, thewords adapted from a little poem by Voiture, "Pour vos beaux yeux. "

She opened the casement, and Angela stood beside her looking down at a boatin which several muffled figures were seated, and which was moored to theterrace wall. 

There were three violins and a 'cello, and a quartette of singing-boys withfair young faces smiling in the light of the lamps that hung in front ofFareham's house. 

The evening was still, and mild as early autumn, and the plash of oarspassing up and down the river sounded like a part of the music--

 "Love in her sunny eyes doth basking play, Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair, Love does on both her lips for ever stray, And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there; In all her outward parts love's always seen; But, oh, he never went within. "

It was a song of Cowley's, which De Malfort had lately set to music, and toa melody which Hyacinth especially admired. 

"A serenade! Only De Malfort could have thought of such a thing. Lying illand alone, he sends me the sweetest token of his regard--my favourite air, his own setting--the last song I ever heard him sing. And you wonder that Ivalue so pure, so disinterested a love!" protested Hyacinth to her sister, in the silence at the end of the song. 

"Sing again, sweet boys, sing again!" she cried, snatching a purse from herpocket, and flinging it with impetuous aim into the boat. 

It hit one of the fiddlers on the head, and there was a laugh, and in atrice the largesse was divided and pocketed. 

"They are from his Majesty's choir; I know their voices, " said Hyacinth, "so fresh, and pure. They are the prettiest singers in the chapel. Thatlittle monkey with the cherub's voice is Purcell--Dr. Blow's favouritepupil--and a rare genius. "

They sang another song from De Malfort's repertoire, an Italian serenade, which Hyacinth had heard in the brilliant days before her marriage, whenthe Italian Opera was still a new thing in Paris. The melody brought backthe memory of her happy girlhood with a rush of sudden tears. 

The little concert lasted for something less than an hour, with intervalsof light music, dances and marches, between the singing. Boats passed andrepassed. Strange voices joined in a refrain now and then, and the sistersstood at the open window enthralled by the charm of the music and thescene. London lay in ruins yonder to the east, and Sir Matthew Hale andother judges were sitting at Clifford's Inn to decide questions of titleand boundary, and the obligation to rebuild; but here in this westernLondon there were long ranges of lighted windows shining through the wintrymists, wherries passing up and down with lanterns at their prows, an air oflife and gaiety hanging over that river which had carried so many a noblevictim to his doom yonder, where the four towers stood black against thestarlit greyness, unscathed by fire, and untouched by time. 

The last notes of a good-night song dwindled and died, to the accompanimentof dipping oars, as the boat moved slowly along the tideway, and lostitself among other boats--jovial cits going eastward, from an afternoon atthe King's theatre, modish gallants voyaging westward from play-house ortavern, some going home to domesticity, others intent upon pleasure andintrigue, as the darkness came down, and the hour for supper and deeperdrinking drew near. And who would have thought, watching the lightedwindows of palace and tavern, hearing those joyous sounds of glee or catchtrolled by voices that reeked of wine--who would have thought of thedead-cart, and the unnumbered dead lying in the pest pits yonder, or thecity in ruins, or the King enslaved to a foreign power, and pledged to ahated Church? London, gay, splendid, and prosperous, the queen-city of theworld as she seemed to those who loved her--could rise glorious from theashes of a fire unparalleled in modern history, and to Charles and Wren itmight be given to realise a boast which in Augustus had been little morethan an imperial phrase. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

DIDO. 

The armed neutrality between man and wife continued, and the domestic skyat Fareham House was dark and depressing. Lady Fareham, who had hithertobeen remarkable for a girlish amiability of speech which went well with hergirlish beauty, became now the height of the mode for acidity and slander. The worst of the evil speakers on her ladyship's visiting-day flavoured theChina tea with no bitterer allusions than those that fell from the rosylips of the hostess. And, for the colouring of those lips, which once owedtheir vermeil tint only to nature, Lady Fareham was now dependent upon Mrs. Lewin, as well as for the carnation of cheeks that looked pallid and sunkenin the glass which reflected the sad mourning face. 

Mrs. Lewin brought roses and lilies in her queer little china pots andpowder boxes, pencils and brushes, perfumes and washes without number. Itcost as much to keep a complexion as to keep a horse. And Mrs. Lewin wasinfinitely useful at this juncture, since she called every day at St. James's Street, to carry a lace cravat, or a ribbon, or a flask of essenceto the invalid languishing in lodgings there, and visited by all the town, except Fareham and his wife. De Malfort had lain for a fortnight at LadyCastlemaine's house, alternately petted and neglected by his fair hostess, as the fit took her, since she showed herself ever of the chameleon breed, and hovered betwixt angel and devil. His surgeon told him in confidencethat when once his wound was healed enough to allow his removal, the soonerhe quitted that feverish company the better it would be for his chance of aspeedy convalescence. So, at the end of the second week, he was moved ina covered litter to his own lodgings, where his faithful valet, who hadfollowed his fortunes since he came to man's estate, was quite capable ofnursing him. 

The town soon discovered the breach between Lord Fareham and his friend--abreach commented upon with many shoulder-shrugs, and not a few coarseinnuendoes. Lady Lucretia Topham insisted upon making her way to the sickman's room, in the teeth of messages delivered by his valet, which, even toa less intelligent mind than Lady Lucretia's, might have conveyed the factthat she was not wanted. She flung herself on her knees by De Malfort'sbed, and wept and raved at the brutality which had deprived the world ofhis charming company--and herself of the only man she had ever loved. DeMalfort, fevered and vexed at her intrusion, and at this renewal of fireslong burnt out, had yet discretion enough to threaten her with his diredispleasure if she betrayed the secret of his illness. 

"I have sworn Dangerfield and Masaroon to silence, " he said. "Exceptservants, who have been paid to keep mute, you are the only other witnessof our quarrel; and if the story becomes town talk, I shall know whose busytongue set it going--and then--well, there are things I might tell thatyour ladyship would hardly like the world to know. "

"Traitor! If your purse has accommodated me once in a way when luck hasbeen adverse----"

"Oh, madam, you cannot think me base enough to blab of a money transactionwith a lady. There are secrets more tender--more romantic. "

"Those secrets can be easily denied, wretch. However, I know you would notinjure me with a husband so odious and tyrannical that I stood excused inadvance for inconstancy when I stooped to wed country manners and stubbornignorance. Indeed, mon ami, if you will but take pains to recover, I willnever breathe a word about the duel; but if--if--" a sob indicated thetragic possibility which Lady Lucretia dared not put into words--"I will doall that a weak woman can do to get Fareham hanged for murder. There hasnever been a peer hanged in England, I believe. He should be the first. "

"Dear soul, there need be no hanging! I have been on the mending hand for aweek, or my doctors would not have let you upstairs. There, go, my prettyLucrèce; but if your milliner or your shoemaker is pressing, there are afew jacobuses in the right-hand drawer of yonder escritoire, and you mayas well take them as leave them for my valet to steal. He is one of thoseexcellent old servants who make no distinctions, and he robs me as freelyas he robbed my father before me. "

"Mrs. Lewin is always pressing, " sighed Lady Lucretia. "She made me a gownlike that of Lady Fareham's, for which you were all eyes. I orderedthe brocade to please you; and now I am wearing it when you are not atWhitehall. Well, as you are so kind, I will be your debtor for anothertrifling loan. It is wicked to leave money where it tempts a good servantto dishonesty. Ah, Henri"--she was pocketing the gold as she talked--"iften years of my life could save you ten days of pain and fever, how gladlywould I give them to you!"

"Ah, douce, if there were a market for the exchange of such commodities, what a roaring trade would be done there! I never loved a woman yet but sheoffered me her life, or an instalment of it. "

"I have emptied your drawer, " laughing coyly. "There is just enough to keepLewin in good humour till you are well again, and we can be partners atbasset. "

"It will be very long before I play basset in London. "

"Oh, but indeed you will soon be well. "

"Well enough to change the scene, I hope. It needs change of places andpersons to make life bearable. I long to be at the Louvre again, to see aplay by Molière's company, as only they can act, instead of the loathsometranslations we get here, in which all that there is of wit and charm inthe original is transmuted to coarseness and vulgarity. When I leave thisbed, Lucrèce, it will be for Paris. "

"Why, it will be ages before you are strong enough for such a journey. "

"Oh, I will risk that. I hate London so badly, that to escape from it willwork a miraculous cure for me. "

 * * * * *

An armed neutrality! Even the children felt the change in the atmosphere ofhome, and nestled closer to their aunt, who never changed to them. 

"Father mostly looks angry, " Henriette complained, "and mother is alwaysunhappy, if she is not laughing and talking in the midst of company; andneither of them ever seems to want me. I wish I was grown up, so that Icould be maid of honour to the Queen or the Duchess, and live at Whitehall. Mademoiselle told me that there is always life and pleasure at Court. "

"Your father does not love the Court, dearest, and mademoiselle should bewiser than to talk to you of such things, when she is here to teach youdancing and French literature. "

"Mademoiselle" was a governess lately imported from Paris, recommended byMademoiselle Scudéry, and full of high-flown ideas expressed in high-flownlanguage. All Paris had laughed at Molière's _Precieuses Ridicules_; butthe Précieuses themselves, and their friends, protested that the popularfarce was aimed only at the low-born imitators of those great ladies whohad originated the school of superfine culture and romantic aspirations. 

"Sapho" herself, in tracing her own portrait with a careful and elaboratepencil, told the world how shamefully she had been imitated by the spuriousmiddle-class Saphos, who set up their salons, and vied with the sacredhouse of Rambouillet, and the privileged coterie of the Rue de Temple. 

Lady Fareham had not ceased to believe in her dear, plain, witty Scudéry, and was delighted to secure a governess of her choosing, whereby Papillon, who loved freedom and idleness, and hated lessons of all kinds, was setdown to write themes upon chivalry, politeness, benevolence, pride, war, and other abstractions; or to fill in bouts-rimés, by way of enlarging heracquaintance with the French language, which she had chattered freely allher life. Mademoiselle insisted upon all the niceties of phraseology asdiscussed in the Rue Saint Thomas du Louvre. 

There had been a change of late in Fareham's manner to his sister-in-law, a change refreshing to her troubled spirit as mercy, that gentle dew fromheaven, to the criminal. He had been kinder; and though he spent very fewof his hours with the women of his household, he had talked to Angelasomewhat in the friendly tone of those fondly remembered days at Chilton, when he had taught her to row and ride, to manage a spirited palfrey andfly a falcon, and had been in all things her mentor and friend. He seemedless oppressed with gloom as time went on, but had his sullen fits still, and, after being kind and courteous to wife and sister, and playful withhis children, would leave them suddenly, and return no more to the saloonor drawing-room that evening. Yet on the whole the sky was lightening. Heignored Hyacinth's resentment, endured her pettishness, and was studiouslypolite to her. 

 * * * * *

It was on Lady Fareham's visiting-day, deep in that very severe winter, that some news was told her which came like a thunder-clap, and which itneeded all the weak soul's power of self-repression to suffer withoutswooning or hysterics. 

Lady Sarah Tewkesbury, gorgeous in velvet and fur, her thickly paintedcountenance framed in a furred hood, entered fussily upon a little coteriein which Masaroon, vapouring about the last performance at the King'stheatre, was the principal figure. 

"There was a little woman spoke the epilogue, " he said, "a little creaturein a monstrous big hat, as large and as round as a cart-wheel, which vastlyamused his Majesty. "

"The hat?"

"Nay, it was woman and hat. The thing is so small it might have beenscarce noticed without the hat, but it has a pretty little, insignificant, crumpled face, and laughs all over its face till it has no eyes, and thenstops laughing suddenly, and the eyes shine out, twinkling and dancing likestars reflected in running water, and it stamps its little foot upon thestage in a comic passion--and--_nous verrons_. It sold oranges in the pit, folks tell me, a year ago. It may be selling sinecures and captaincies in ayear or two, and putting another shilling in the pound upon land. "

"Is it that brazen little comedy actress you are talking of, Masaroon?"Lady Sarah asked, when she had exchanged curtsies with the ladies of thecompany, and established herself on the most comfortable tabouret, nearLady Fareham's tea-table; "Mrs. Glyn--Wynn--Gwyn? I wonder a man of wit cannotice such a vulgar creature, a she-jack-pudden, fit only to please therabble in the gallery. "

"Ay, but there is a finer sort of rabble--a rabble of quality--beginningwith his Majesty, that are always pleased with anything new. And thislittle creature is as fresh as a spring morning. To see her laugh, to hearthe ring of it, clear and sweet as a skylark's song! On my life, madam, thetown has a new toy; and Mrs. Gwyn will be the rage in high quarters. Youshould have seen Castlemaine's scowl when Rowley laughed, and ducked underthe box almost, in an ecstasy of amusement at the huge hat. "

"Lady Castlemaine's brow would thunder-cloud if his Majesty looked at a flyon a window-pane. But she has something else to provoke her frowns to-day. "

"What is that, chère dame?" asked Hyacinth, snatching a favourite fan fromSir Ralph, who was teasing one of the Blenheims with African feathers thatwere almost priceless. 

"The desertion of an old friend. The Comte de Malfort has left England. "

Lady Fareham turned livid under her rouge. Angela ran to her and leantover her, upon a pretence of rescuing the fan and chiding the dogs; and socontrived to screen her sister's change of complexion from the malignity ofher dearest friends. 

"Left England! Why, he is confined to his bed with a fever!" Hyacinth saidfaintly, when she had somewhat recovered from the shock. 

"Nay, it seems that he began to go abroad last week, but would see nocompany, except a confidential friend or so. He left London this morningfor Dover. "

"No doubt he has business in Burgundy, where his estate is, and at Paris, where he is of importance at the Court, " said Hyacinth, as lightly as shecould; "but I'll wager anything anybody likes that he will be in Londonagain in a month. "

"I'll take you for those black pearls in your ears, ma mie, " said LadySarah. "His furniture is to be sold by auction next week. I saw a bill onthe house this afternoon. It is sudden! Perhaps the Castlemaine had becometoo exacting!"

"Castlemaine!" faltered Hyacinth, agitated beyond her power ofself-control. "Why, what is she to him more than she is to other men?"

"Very little, perhaps, " said Sir Ralph, and then everybody laughed, andHyacinth felt herself sitting among them like a child, understandingnothing of their smiles and shrugs, the malice in their sly interchange ofglances. 

She sat among them feeling as if her heart were turned to stone. He hadleft the country without even bidding her farewell--her faithful slave, upon whose devotion she counted as surely as upon the rising of the sun. Whatever her husband might do to separate her from this friend of hergirlhood, she had feared no defection upon De Malfort's part. He wouldalways be near at hand, waiting and watching for the happier days that wereto smile upon their innocent loves. She had written to him every day duringhis illness. Good Mrs. Lewin had taken the letters to him, and had broughther his replies. He had not written so often, or at such length, as she, and had pleaded the languor of convalescence as his excuse; but all hisbillets-doux had been in the same delicious hyperbole, the language ofthe Pays du Tendre. She sat silent while her visitors talked about him, plucking a reputation as mercilessly as a kitchen wench plucks a fowl. Hewas gone. He had left the country deep in debt. It was his landlord whohad stuck up that notice of a sale by auction. Tailors and shoemakers, perruquiers and perfumers were bewailing his flight. 

So much for the sordid side of things. But what of those numerous affairsof the heart--those entanglements which had made his life one longintrigue?

Lady Sarah sat simpering and nodding as Masaroon whispered close in herear. 

Barbara? Oh, that was almost as old as the story of Antony and Cleopatra. She had paid his debts--and he had paid hers. Their purse had been incommon. And the handsome maid of honour? Ah, poor silly soul! That was ahorrid, ugly business, and his Majesty's part in it the horridest. And Mrs. Levington, the rich silk mercer's wife? That was a serious attachment. Itwas said that the husband attempted poison, when De Malfort refused him thesatisfaction of a gentleman. And the poor woman was sent to die of _ennui_and rheumatism in a castle among the Irish bogs, where her citizen husbandhad set up as a landed squire. 

The fine company discussed all these foul stories with gusto, insinuatingmuch more than they expressed in words. Never until to-day had they spokenso freely of De Malfort in Lady Fareham's presence; but the story had gotabout of a breach between Hyacinth and her admirer, and it was supposedthat any abuse of the defaulter would be pleasant in her ears. And then, he was ruined and gone; and there is no vulture's feast sweeter than tobanquet upon a departed rival's character. 

Hyacinth listened in dull silence, as if her sensations were suddenlybenumbed. She felt nothing but a horrible surprise. Her lover--her platoniclover--that other half of her mind and heart--with whom she had been insuch tender sympathy, in unison of spirit, so subtle that the same thoughtssprang up simultaneously in the minds of each, the same language leapt totheir lips, and they laughed to find their words alike. It had been only ashallow woman's shallow love--but trivial woes are tragedies for trivialminds; and when her guests had gradually melted away, dispersing themselveswith reciprocal curtsies and airy compliments, elegant in their modishiniquity as a troop of vicious fairies--Hyacinth stood on the hearth wherethey had left her, a statue of despair. 

Angela went to her, when the stately double doors had closed on the lastof the gossips and lackeys, and they two were alone amidst the spacioussplendour. The younger sister hugged the elder to her breast, and kissedher, and cried over her, like a mother comforting her disappointed child. 

"Don't heed that shameful talk, dearest. No character is safe with them. Besure Monsieur de Malfort is not the reprobate they would make him. You haveknown him nearly all your life. You know him too well to judge him by theidle talk of the town. "

"No, no; I have never known him. He has always worn a mask. He is as falseas Satan. Don't talk to me--don't kiss me, child. You have smeared my facehorribly with your kisses and tears. Your pity drives me mad. How can youunderstand these things--you who have never loved any one? What can youknow of what women feel? There, silly fool! you are trembling as if I hadhit you, " as Angela withdrew her arms suddenly, and stood aloof. "I havebeen a virtuous wife, sister, in a town where scarce one woman in ten istrue to her marriage vows. I have never sinned against my husband; but Ihave never loved him. Henri had my heart before I knew what the word, lovemeant; and in all these years we have loved each other with the purest, noblest affection--at least he made me believe my love was reciprocated. We have enjoyed a most exquisite communion of thought and feeling. Hisletters--you shall read his letters some day--so noble, so brilliant--allpoetry, and chivalry, and wit. I lived upon his letters when fate partedus. And when he followed us to England, I thought it was for my sake thathe came--only for me. And to hear that he was her lover--hers--that woman!To know that he came to me--with sweetest words upon his lips--knelt tokiss the tips of my fingers--as if it were a privilege to die for--fromher arms, from her caresses--the wickedest woman in England--and theloveliest!"

"Dear Hyacinth, it was a childish dream--and you have awakened! You willlive to be glad of being recalled from falsehood to truth. Your husband isworth fifty De Malforts, did you but know it. Oh, dearest, give him yourheart who ought to be its only master. Indeed he is worthy. He standsapart--an honourable, nobly thinking man in a world that is full oflibertines. Be sure he deserves your love. "

"Don't preach to me, child! If you could give me a sleeping-draughtthat would blot out memory for ever--make me forget my childhood in theMarais--my youth at St. Germain--the dances at the Louvre--all the dayswhen I was happiest: why, then, perhaps, you might make me in love withLord Fareham. "

"You will begin a new life, sister, now De Malfort is gone. "

"I will never forgive him for going!" cried Hyacinth, passionately. "Never--never! To give me no note of warning! To sneak away like a thiefwho had stolen my diamonds! To fly for debt, too, and not come to me formoney! Why have I a fortune, if not to help those I love? But--if he wasthat woman's lover--I will never see his face again--never speak hisname--never--from the moment I am convinced of that hellish treason--never!Her lover! Lady Castlemaine's! We have laughed at her, together! Her lover!And there were other women those spiteful wretches talked about just now--atradesman's wife! Oh, how hateful, how hateful it all is! Angela, if it istrue, I shall go mad!"

"Dearest, to you he was but a friend--and though you may be sorry he was sogreat a sinner, his sins cannot concern your happiness----"

"What! not to know him a profligate? The man to whom I gave a chastewoman's love! Angela, that night, in the ruined abbey, I let him kiss me. Yes, for one moment I was in his arms--and his lips were on mine. And hehad kissed her--the same night perhaps. Her tainted kisses were on hislips. And it was you who saved me! Dear sister, I owe you more than life--Imight have given myself to everlasting shame that night. God knows! I wasin his power--her lover--judging all women, perhaps, by his knowledge ofthat----"

The epithet which closed the sentence was not a word for a woman's lips;but it was wrung from the soreness of a woman's wounded heart. 

Hyacinth flung herself distractedly into her sister's arms. 

"You saved me!" she cried, hysterically. "He wanted me to go to Dover withhim--back to France--where we were so happy. He knelt to me, and I refusedhim; but he prayed me again and again; and if you had not come to rescueme, should I have gone on saying no? God knows if my courage would haveheld out. There were tears in his eyes. He swore that he had never lovedany one upon this earth as he loved me. Hypocrite! Deceiver--liar! He lovedthat woman! Twenty times handsomer than ever I was--a hundred times morewicked. It is the wicked women that are best loved, Angela, remember that. Oh, bless you for coming to save me! You saved Fareham's life in the plagueyear. You saved me from everlasting misery. You are our guardian angel!"

"Ah, dearest, if love could guard you, I might deserve that name----"

 * * * * *

It was late in the same evening that Lady Fareham's maid came to herbed-chamber to inquire if she would be pleased to see Mrs. Lewin, who hadbrought a pattern of a new French bodice, with her humble apologies forwaiting on her ladyship so late. 

Her ladyship would see Mrs. Lewin. She started up from the sofa where shehad been lying, her forehead bound with a handkerchief steeped in Hungarywater. She was all excitement. 

"Bring her here instantly!" she said, and the interval necessary to conductthe milliner up the grand staircase and along the gallery seemed an age toHyacinth's impatience. 

"Well? Have you a letter for me?" she asked, when her woman had retired, and Mrs. Lewin had bustled and curtsied across the room. 

"In truly, my lady; and I have to ask your ladyship's pardon for notbringing it early this morning, when his honour gave it to me with his ownhand out of 'his travelling carriage. And very white and wasted he looked, dear gentleman, not fit for a voyage to France in this severe weather. AndI was to carry you his letter immediately; but, eh, gud! your ladyship, there was never such a business as mine for surprises. I was putting on mycloak to step out with your ladyship's letter, when a coach, with a footmanin the royal undress livery, sets down at my door, and one of the Duchess'swomen had come to fetch me to her Highness; and there I was kept in herHighness's chamber half the morning, disputing over a paduasoy for theShrove Tuesday masquerade--for her Highness gets somewhat bulky, and isnot easy to dress to her advantage or to my credit--though she is a beautycompared with the Queen, who still hankers after her hideous Portuguesefashions----"

"And employs your rival, Madame Marifleur----"

"Marifleur! If your ladyship knew the creature as well as I do, you'd callher Sally Cramp. "

"I never can remember a low English name. Marifleur seems to promise allthat there is of the most graceful and airy in a ruffled sleeve and aribbon shoulder-knot. "

"I am glad to see your ladyship is in such good spirits, " said themilliner, wondering at Lady Fareham's flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes. 

They were brilliant with a somewhat glassy brightness, and there was atouch of hysteria in her manner. Mrs. Lewin thought she had been drinking. Many of her customers ended that way--took to cognac and ratafia, whenchoicer pleasures were exhausted and wrinkles began to show through theirpaint. 

Hyacinth was reading De Malfort's letter as she talked, moving about theroom a little, and then stopping in front of the fireplace, where the lightfrom two clusters of wax candles shone down upon the finely written page. 

Mrs. Lewin watched her for a few minutes, and then produced some pieces ofsilk out of her muff. 

"I made so bold as to bring your ladyship some patterns of Italian silkswhich only came to hand this morning, " she said. "There is a cherry-redthat would become your ladyship to the T. "

"Make me a gown of it, my excellent Lewin--and good night to you. "

"But sure your ladyship will look at the colour? There is a pattern ofamber with gold thread might please you better. Lady Castlemaine hasordered a Court mantua----"

Lady Fareham rang her hand-bell with a vehemence that suggested anger. 

"Show Mrs. Lewin to her coach, " she said shortly, when her woman appeared. "When you have done that you may go to bed; I want nothing more to-night. "

"Mrs. Kirkland has been asking to see your ladyship. "

"I will see no one to-night. Tell Mrs. Kirkland so, with my love. "

She ran to the door when the maid and milliner were gone, and locked it, and then ran back to the fireplace, and flung herself down upon the rug toread her letter. 

"Chérie, when this is handed to you, I shall be sitting in my coach on thedull Dover road, with frost-clouded windows and a heart heavier than yourleaden skies. Loveliest of women, all things must end; and, despite yourchildlike trust in man's virtue, you could scarce hope for eternity to abond that was too strong for friendship and too weak for love. Dearest, hadyou given yourself that claim upon love and honour which we have talked of, and which you have ever refused, no lesser power than death should haveparted us. I would have dared all, conquered all, for my dear mistress. But you would not. It was not for lack of fervid prayers that the statueremained a statue; but a man cannot go on worshipping a statue for ever. Ifthe Holy Mother did not sometimes vouchsafe a sign of human feeling, evengood Catholics would have left off kneeling to her image. 

"Or, shall I say, rather, that the child remains a child--fresh, and pure, and innocent, and candid, as in the days when we played our _jeu de volant_in your grandmother's garden--fit emblem of the light love of our futureyears. You remained a child, Hyacinth, and asked childish love-making froma man. Dearest, accept a cruel truth from a man of the world--it is onlythe love you call guilty that lasts. There is a stimulus in sin and mysterythat will fan the flame of passion and keep love alive even for an inferiorobject. The ugly women know this, and make lax morals a substitute forbeauty. An innocent intrigue, a butterfly affection like ours, will seldomoutlive the butterfly's brief day. Indeed, I sometimes admire at myself asa marvel of constancy for having kept faith so long with a mistress who hasrewarded me so sparingly. 

"So, my angel, I am leaving your foggy island, my cramped London lodgings, and extortionate London tradesmen, on whom I have squandered so much of myfortune that they ought to forgive me for leaving a margin of debt, which Ihope to pay the extortioners hereafter for the honour of my name. I doubtif I shall ever revisit England. I have tasted all London pleasures, tillfamiliarity has taken the taste out of them; and though Paris may be onlyLondon with a difference, that difference includes bluer skies, brighterstreets and gardens, and all the originals of which you have here thecopies. There, at least, I shall have the fashion of my peruke and myspeech at first hand. Here you only adopt a mode when Paris begins to tireof it. 

"Farewell, then, dearest lady, but let it be no tragical or eternalparting, since your fine house in the Rue de Touraine will doubtless behonoured with your presence some day. You have only to open a salon therein order to be the top of the mode. Some really patrician milieu is neededto replace the antique court of the dear old Marquise, and to extinguishthe Scudéry, whose Saturdays grow more vulgar every week. Yes, you willcome to Paris, bringing that human lily, Mrs. Angela, in your train; and Ipromise to make you the fashion before your house has been open a month. The wits and Court favourites will go where I bid them. And though yourdearest friend, Madame de Longueville, has retired from the world inwhich she was more queenly than the Queen, you will find Mademoiselle deMontpensier as faithful as ever to mundane pleasures, and, after havingrefused kings and princes, slavishly devoted to a colonel of dragoons whodoes not care a straw for her. 

"Louise de Bourbon, a woman who can head a revolt and fire a cannon, wouldthink no sacrifice too great for a cold-hearted schemer like Lauzun--yetyou who swore you loved me, when the coach was waiting that would havecarried me to paradise, and made us one for all this life, could suffer afoolish girl to separate us in the very moment of triumphant union. Youwere mine, Hyacinth; heart and mind were consenting, when your convent-bredsister surprised us, and all my hopes of bliss expired in a sermon. And nowI can but say, with that witty rhymester, whom everybody in London quotes--

 'Love in your heart as idly burns, As fire in antique Roman urns. '

"Good-bye, which means 'God be with you. ' I know not if the fear of Him wasin your mind when you sacrificed your lover to that icy abstraction womencall virtue. The Romans had but one virtue, which meant the courage thatdares; and to me the highest type of woman would be one whose bold spiritdared and defied the world for love's sake. These are the women historyremembers, and whom the men who live after them worship. Cleopatra, Mary Stuart, Diana of Poictiers, Marguerite de Valois, la Chevreuse, laMontbazon! Think you that these became famous by keeping their lovers at adistance?

"'Go, lovely rose!'

"How often I have sung those lines, and you have listened, and nothinghas come of it; except time wasted, smiles, sighs, and tears, that everpromised, and ever denied. Beauty, too choice to be kind, adieu!

"DE MALFORT. "

When she had read these last words, she crushed the letter in her palm, clenching her fingers over it till the nails wounded the delicate flesh;and then she opened her hand, and employed herself in smoothing out thecrumpled paper, as if her life depended on making the letter readableagain. But her pains could not undo what her passion had done; and findingthis, she tossed the ragged paper into the flames, and began to walk aboutthe room in a distracted fashion, giving a little hysterical cry every nowand then, and clasping her hands upon her forehead. 

Anger, humiliation, wounded love, wounded vanity, disappointment, disillusion, were all in that cry, and in the passionate beating of herheart, her stifled breath, her clenched hands. 

"He was laughing when he wrote that letter--I am sure he was laughing. There was not one serious moment, not one pang at leaving me! He has beenlaughing at me ever since he came to London. I have been his fool, hisamusement. Other women have had his love, the guilty love that he praises!He has come to me straight from their wicked houses, their feasting, andriot, and drunkenness--has come and pretended to love poetry, and Scudéry'sromances, and music, and innocent conversation--come to rest himself afterdissolute pleasures, bringing me the leavings of that hellish company! AndI have reviled such women, and he has pretended an equal horror of them;and he was their slave all the time, and went from me to them, and made ajest of me for their amusement I know his biting raillery. And he was atthe play-house day after day, where I could not go, sitting side byside with his Jezebels, laughing at filthy comedies, and at me that wasforbidden to appear there. He had pleasures of which I knew nothing; andwhen I fancied our inmost souls moved in harmony, his thoughts were full ofwanton women and their wanton jests, and he smiled at my childishness, andfooled me as children are fooled. "

The thought was distraction. She plucked out handfuls of her pale goldhair, the pretty blonde hair which had been almost as famous in Paris asBeaufort's or Madame de Longueville's yellow locks. The thought of DeMalfort's ridicule cut her like a whalebone whip. She had fancied herselfhis Beatrice, his Laura, his Stella--a being to be worshipped as reverentlyas the stars, to make her lover happy with smiles and kindly words, tostand for ever a little way off, like a goddess in her temple, yet nearenough to be adored. 

And fondly believing this to be her mission, having posed for thecharacter, and filled it to her own fancy, she found that she had onlybeen a dissolute man's dupe all the time; and no doubt had been thelaughing-stock of her acquaintance, who looked at the game. 

"And I was so proud of his devotion--I carried my slave everywhere with me. Oh, fool, fool, fool!"

And then--the poor little brains being disordered by passionateregrets--wickedest ideas ran riot in the confusion of a mind not wideenough to hold life's large passions. She began to be sorry that she wasnot like those other women--to hate the modesty that had lost her a lover. 

To be like Barbara Castlemaine! That was woman's only royalty. To rule withsovereign power over the hearts and senses of men. A King for her lover, constant in inconstancy, always going back to her from every transientfancy--her property, her chattel; and the foremost wits and dandies of theage for her servants, her Court of adorers, whom she ruled with frownsor smiles, as her humour prompted. To be daring, profuse, reckless, tyrannical; to suffer no control of heaven or men--yes, that was, indeed, to be a Queen! And compared with such empire, the poor authority of thePrécieuse, dictating the choice of adjectives, condemning pronouns, theorising upon feelings and passions of which in practice she knowsnothing, was a thing for scornfullest laughter. 

CHAPTER XX. 

PHILASTER. 

January was nearly over, the memorial service for the martyred King wasdrawing near, and royalty and fashion had deserted Whitehall for HamptonCourt; yet the Farehams lingered at their riverside mansion. His lordshiphad business in London, while Sir Denzil Warner, who came to Fareham Housedaily, was also detained in the city by some special attraction, which madehawk and hound, and even his worthy mother's company, indifferent to him. 

Lady Fareham had an air of caring for neither town nor country, but on thewhole preferred town. 

"London has become a positive desert--and the smoke from the smoulderingruins poisons the garden and terrace whenever there is an east wind, " shecomplained. "But Oxfordshire would be a worse desert--and I believe Ishould die of the spleen in a week, if I trusted myself in that greatrambling Abbey. I can just suffer life in London; so I suppose I had beststay till his lordship has finished his business, about which he is sosecret and mysterious. "

Denzil was more devoted, more solicitous to please than ever; and had abetter chance of pleasing now that most of her ladyship's fine visitorshad left town. He read aloud to Hyacinth and her sister as they worked--orpretended to work--at their embroidery frames. He played the organ, andsang duets with Angela. He walked with her on the terrace, in the cold, bleak afternoon, and told her the news of the town--not the scandals andtrivialities which alone interested Lady Fareham, but the graver factsconnected with the state and the public welfare--the prospects of war orpeace, the outlook towards France and Spain, Holland and Sweden, AndrewMarvel's last speech, or the last grant to the King, who might be reliedon to oppose no popular measure when his lieges were about to provide ahandsome subsidy or an increase of his revenue. 

"We are winning our liberties from him, " Denzil said. 

"For the mess of pottage we give, the money he squanders on libertinepleasures, England is buying freedom. Yet why, in the name of common sense, maintain this phantom King, this Court which shocks and outrages everydecent Englishman's sense of right, and maintains an ever-widening hotbedof corruption, so that habits and extravagances once unknown beyond thatfocus of all vice, are now spreading as fast as London; and wherever thereare bricks and mortar there are profligacy and irreligion? Can you wonderthat all the best and wisest in this city regret Cromwell's iron rule, therule of the strongest, and deplore that so bold a stroke for liberty shouldhave ended in such foolish subservience to a King of whom we knew nothingwhen we begged him to come and reign over us?"

"But if you win liberty while he is King, if wise laws are established--"

"Yes; but we might have been noble as well as free. There is something sopetty in our resumed bondage. Figure to yourself a thoroughbred horse thathad kicked off the traces, and stood free upon the open plain with archedneck and lifted nostrils, sniffing the morning air! and behold he creepsback to his harness, and makes himself again a slave! We had done withthe Stuarts, at the cost of a tragedy, and in ten years we call them backagain, and put on the old shackles; and for common sense, religion, andfreedom, we have the orgies of Whitehall, and the extravagance of LadyCastlemaine. It will not last, Angela; it cannot last. I was with hislordship in Artillery Row last night, and we talked with the blind sage whowould sacrifice the remnant of his darkened days in the cause of liberty. "

"Sir Denzil, I hope you are not plotting mischief--you and my brother, "Angela said anxiously. "You are so often together; and his lordship hassuch a preoccupied air. "

"No, no, there is no conspiring; but there is plenty of discontent. Itwould need but little to fire the train. Can any man in his senses be happywhen he sees his country, which ten years ago was at the pinnacle ofpower and renown, sinking to the appanage of a foreign sovereign; Englandthreatened with a return to Rome; honest men forbidden to preach thegospel; and innocent seekers after truth hounded off to gaol, to rotamong malefactors, because they have dared to worship God after their ownfashion?"

"Where was your liberty of conscience under the Protectorate, when theLiturgy was forbidden as if it were an unholy thing, when the Anglicanpriests were turned out of their pulpits, and the Anglican servicetolerated in only one church in all this vast London?" Angela askedindignantly. 

"That was a revolt of deep thinkers against a service which has all themechanical artifice of Romanism without its strong appeal to the heart andthe senses--dry, empty, rigid--a repetition of vain phrases. If I am everto bow my neck beneath the Church's yoke, let me swallow the warm-bloodederrors of Papacy rather than the heartless formalism of EnglishEpiscopacy. "

"But what can you or Fareham--or a few good men like you--do to changeestablished things? Remember Venner's plot, and how many lives were wastedon that foolish, futile attempt. You can only hazard your lives, die on thescaffold. Or would you like to see civil war again; the nation divided intoopposite camps; Englishmen fighting with Englishmen? Can you forget thatdreadful last year of the Rebellion? I was only a little child; but it isbranded deep on my memory. Can you forget the murder of the King? He wasmurdered; let Mr. Milton defend the deed as he can with his riches of bigwords. I have wept over the royal martyr's own account of his sufferings. "

"Over Dr. Gauden's account, that is to say. 'Eikon Basilike' was no morewritten by Charles than by Cromwell. It was a doctored composition--achurchman's spurious history, trumped up by Charles's friends andpartisans, possibly with the approval of the King himself. It is a finepiece of special pleading in a bad cause. "

"You make me hate you when you talk so slightingly of that so ill-usedKing. You will make me hate you more if you lead Fareham into danger byunderhand work against the present King. "

"Lies Fareham's safety so very near your heart?"

"It lies in my heart, " she answered, looking at him, and defying him withstraight, clear gaze. "Is he not my sister's husband, and to me as abrother? Do you expect me to be careless about his fate? I know you areleading him into danger. Some mischief must come of these visits to Mr. Milton, a Republican outlaw, who has escaped the penalty of his treasonouspamphlets only because he is blind and old and poor. I doubt there isdanger in all such conferences. Fareham is at heart a Republican. It wouldneed little persuasion to make him a traitor to the King. "

"You have it in your power to make me so much your slave, that I wouldsacrifice every patriotic aspiration at your bidding, Angela, " Denzilanswered gravely. 

"I know not if this be the time to speak, or if, after waiting more than ayear, I may not even now be premature. Dearest girl, you know that I loveyou--that I haunt this house only because you live here; that I am inLondon only because my star shines there; that above all public interestsyou rule my life. I have exercised a prodigious patience, only because Ihave a prodigious resolution. Is it not time for me to reap my reward?"

"Oh, Denzil, you fill me with sorrow! Have I not said everything todiscourage you?"

"And have I not refused to be discouraged? Angela, I am resolved todiscover the reason of your coldness. Was there ever a young and lovelywoman who shut love out of her heart? History has no record of such anone. I am of an appropriate age, of good birth and good means, notunder-educated, not brutish, or of repulsive face and figure. If your heartis free I ought to be able to win it. If you will not favour my suit, itmust be because there is some one else, some one who came before me, or whohas crossed my path, and to whom your heart has been secretly given. "

She had turned from red to pale as he spoke. She stood before him in thewinter light, with her colour changing, her hands tightly clasped, her eyescast down, and tears trembling on the long dark lashes. 

"You have no right to question me. It is enough for you to have my honestanswer. I esteem you, but I do not love you; and it distresses me when youtalk of love. "

"There is some one else, then! I knew it. There is some one else. For meyou are marble. You are fire for him. He is in your heart. You have saidit"

"How dare you----" she began. 

"Why should I shrink from warning you of your danger? It is Fareham youlove. I have seen you tremble at his touch--start at the sound of hisfootstep--that step you know so well. His footstep? Why, the very air hebreathes carries to you the consciousness of his approach. Oh, I havewatched you both, Angela; and I know, I know. Jealous pangs have racked me, day after day; yet I have hung on. I have been very patient. 'She knows notthe sinful impulses of her own heart, ' I said, 'knows not in her purity hownear she goes to a fall. Here, in her sister's house, passionately loved byher sister's husband! She calls him 'brother, ' whose eyes cannot look ather without telling their story of wicked love. She walks on the edge ofa precipice--self-deceived. Were I to abandon her she might fall. Myaffection is her only safeguard; and by winning her to myself I shallsnatch her from the pit of hell. '"

It was the truth he was telling her. Yes; even when Fareham was harshest, she had been dimly conscious that love was at the root of his unkindness. The coldness that had held them apart since that midnight meeting had beenice over fire. It was jealousy that had made him so angry. No word of love, directly spoken, had ever offended her ear; but there had been many aspeech of double meaning that had set her wondering and thinking. 

And, oh! the guilt of it, when an honourable man like Denzil set her sinbefore her, in plain language. She stood aghast at her own wickedness. Thatwhich had been a sin of thought only, a secret sorrow, wrestled with inmany an hour of heartfelt prayer, with all the labour of a soul that soughtheavenly aid against earthly temptation, was conjured into hideous realityby Denzil's plain speech. To love her sister's husband, to suffer hisguilty love, to know gladness only in his company, to be exquisitely happywere he but in the same room with her--to sink to profoundest melancholywhen he was absent. Oh, the sin of it! In what degree did her guilt differfrom that of the women of the Court, who had each her open secret in somebase intrigue that all the world knew and laughed at? She had been keptaloof from that libertine crew; but was she any better than they? WasFareham, who openly scorned the royal debauchee, was he any better than theKing?

She remembered how he had talked of Lord Sandwich, making excuses for aperverted love. She had heard him speak of other offenders in the samestrain. He had been ever ready to recognise fatality where a good Catholicwould have perceived only sin. 

"Angela, believe me, you are drifting helmless in perilous waters, " Denzilurged, while she stood beside him in mute distress. "Let me be your strongrock. Only give me the promise of your hand. I can be patient still. I willgive time for love to grow. Grant me but the right to guard you from thedanger of an unholy passion that is always near you in this house. "

"You pretend to be his lordship's friend, and you speak slander of him. "

"I am his friend. I could find it in my heart to pity him for loving you. Indeed, it has been in friendship that I have tried to interest him in agreat national question--to wean him from his darling sin. But were you mywife he should never cross our threshold. The day that made us one shouldmake you and Fareham strangers. It is for you to choose, Angela, betweentwo men who love you--one near your own age, free, God-fearing; the othernearly old enough to be your father, bound by the tie which your Churchdeems indissoluble, whose love is insult and pollution, and can but end inshame and despair. It is for you to choose between honest and dishonestlove. "

"There is a nobler choice open to me, " she said, more calmly than she hadyet spoken, and with a pale dignity in her countenance that awed him. Athrill of admiration and fear ran along his nerves as he looked at her. Sheseemed transfigured. "There is a higher and better love, " she said. "Thisis not the first time that I have considered a sure way out of allmy difficulties. I can go back to the convent where, in my dear AuntAnastasia, I saw so splendid an example of a holy life hidden from theworld. "

"Life buried in a living grave!" cried Denzil, horror-stricken at the ideaof such a sacrifice. "Free-will and reason obscured in a cloud of incense!All the great uses of a noble life brought down to petty observances andchildish mummeries, prayers and genuflections before waxen relics anddressed-up madonnas. Oh, my dearest girl, next worst only to the dominionof sin is the slavery of a false religion. I would have thee free asair--free and enlightened--released from the trammels of Rome, happy inthyself and useful to thy fellow-creatures. "

"You see, Sir Denzil, even if we loved each other, we could never thinkalike, " Angela said, with a gentle sadness. "Our minds would always dwellfar apart. Things that are dear and sacred to me are hateful to you. "

"If you love me I could win you to my way of thinking, " he said. 

"You mean that if I loved you I should love you better than I love God?"

"Not so, dear. But you would open your mind to the truth. St. Paulsanctified union between Christian and pagan, and deemed the unbelievingwife sanctified by the believing husband. There can be no sin, therefore, despite my poor mother's violent opinions, in the union of those whoworship the same God, and whose creed differs only in particulars. 'Howknowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?' Indeed, love, Idoubt not my power to wean you from the errors of your early education. "

"Cannot you see how wide apart we are? Every word you say widens the gulfbetwixt us. Indeed, Sir Denzil, you had best remain my friend. You can benothing else. "

She turned from him almost impatiently. Young, handsome, of a frank andgenerous nature, he yet lacked the gifts that charm women; or at least thisone woman was cold to him. It might be that in his own nature there was acoldness, a something wanting, the fire we miss in that great poet of theage, whose verse could rise to themes transcendent, but never burnt withthe white heat of human passion. 

Papillon came flying along the terrace, her skirts and waving tressesspread wide in the wind, a welcome intruder. 

"What are you and Sir Denzil doing in the cold? I have news for my dear, dearest auntie. My lord is in a good humour, and _Philaster_ is to be actedby the Duke's servants, and her ladyship's footmen are keeping places forus in the boxes. I have only seen three plays in my life, and they were allsad ones. I wish _Philaster_ was a comedy. I should like to see _Love in aTub_. That must be full of drollery. But his honour likes only grave plays. Be brisk, auntie! The coach will be at the door directly. Come and put onyour hood. His lordship says we need no masks. I should have loved to weara mask. Are you coming to the play, Sir Denzil?"

"I know not if I am bidden, or if there be a place for me. "

"Why, you can stand with the fops in the pit, and you can buy us some Chinaoranges. I heard Lady Sarah tell my mother that the new little actress withthe pretty feet was once an orange-girl, who lived with Lord Buckhurst. Why did he have an orange-girl to live with him? He must be vastly fond oforanges. I should love to sell oranges in the pit, if I could be an actressafterwards. I would rather be an actress than a duchess. Mademoiselletaught me Chiméne's tirades in Corneille's _Cid_. I learn quicker than anypupil she ever had. Monsieur de Malfort once said I was a born actress, "pursued Papillon, as they walked to the house. 

_Philaster!_ That story of unhappy love--so pure, patient, melancholy, disinterested. How often Angela had hung over the page, in the solitude ofher own chamber! And to hear the lines spoken to-day, when a tempest ofemotion had been raised in her breast, with Fareham by her side; to meethis glances at this or that moment of the play, when the devoted girl wasrevealing the secret of her passionate heart. Yet never was love freer fromtaint of sin, and the end of the play was in no wise tragic. That pureaffection was encouraged and sanctified by the happy bride. Bellario wasnot to be banished, but sheltered. 

Alas! yes; but this was love unreturned. There was no answering warmth onPhilaster's part, no fire of passion to scathe and destroy; only a gentlegratitude for the girl's devotion--a brother's, not a lover's regard. 

She found Fareham and her sister in the hall, ready to step into the coach. 

"I saw the name of your favourite play on the posts as I walked home, " hesaid; "and as Hyacinth is always teasing me for denying her the play-house, I thought this was a good opportunity for pleasing you both. "

"You would have pleased me more if you had offered me the chance of seeinga new comedy, " his wife retorted, pettishly. 

"Ah, dearest, let us not resume an old quarrel. The play-wrights ofElizabeth's age were poets and gentlemen. The men who write for us areblackguards and empty-headed fops. We have novelty, which is all most of uswant, a hundred new plays in a year, of which scarce one will be rememberedafter the year is out. "

"Who wants to remember? The highest merit in a play is that it should be areflection of to-day; and who minds if it be stale to-morrow? To hold themirror up to nature, doesn't your Shakespeare say? And what more transientthan the image in a glass? A comedy should be like one's hat or one's gown, the top of the mode to-day, and cast off and forgotten, in a week. "

"That is what our fine gentlemen think; who are satisfied if their wit getsthree days' acceptance, and some substantial compliment from the patron towhom they dedicate their trash. "

His lordship's liveries and four grey horses made a stir in Lincoln's InnFields, and startled the crowd at the doors of the New Theatre; and withinthe house Lady Fareham and her sister divided the attention of the pitwith their royal highnesses the Duke and Duchess, who no longer amusedor scandalised the audience by those honeymoon coquetries which haddistinguished their earlier appearances in public. Duchess Anne was growingstout, and fast losing her beauty, and Duke James was imitating hisbrother's infidelities, after his own stealthy fashion; so it may be thatClarendon's daughter was no more happy than her sister-in-law the Queen, nor than her father the Chancellor, over whom the shadows of royaldisfavour were darkening. 

Lady Fareham lolled languidly back in her box, and let all the audience seeher indifference to Fletcher's poetic dialogue. Angela sat motionless, herhands clasped in her lap, entranced by that romantic story, and the actingwhich gave life and reality to that poetic fable, as well it might when theincomparable Betterton played Philaster. Fareham stood beside his wife, looking down at the stage, and sometimes, as Angela looked up, their eyesmet in one swift flash of responsive thought; met and glanced away, as ifeach knew the peril of such meetings--

 "If it be love To forget all respect of his own friends In thinking on your face. "

Was it by chance that Fareham sighed as those lines were spoken? Andagain--

 "If, when he goes to rest (which will not be), 'Twixt every prayer he says he names you once. "

And again, was it chance that brought that swift, half-angry, questioninglook upon her from those severe eyes in the midst of Philaster's tirade?--

 "How heaven is in your eyes, but in your hearts More hell than hell has; how your tongues, like scorpions, Both heal and poison; how your thoughts are woven With thousand changes in one subtle web, And worn so by you. How that foolish man That reads the story of a woman's face, And dies believing it is lost for ever. "

It was Angela whose eyes unconsciously sought his when that passageoccurred which had written itself upon her heart long ago at Chilton whenshe first read the play--

 "Alas, my lord, my life is not a thing Worthy your noble thoughts; 'tis not a life, 'Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away. "

What was her poor life worth--so lonely even in her sister's house--sodesolate when his eyes looked not upon her in kindness? After having livedfor two brief summers and winters in his cherished company, having learntto know what a proud, honourable man was like, his disdain of vice, hisindifference to Court favour, his aspirations for liberty; after havingknown him, and loved him with silent and secret love, what better could shedo than bury herself within convent walls, and spend the rest of her daysin praying for those she loved? Alas, he had such need that some faithfulsoul should soar heavenward in supplication for him who had himself so weaka hold upon the skies! Alas, to think of him as unbelieving, putting histrust in the opinions of infidels like Hobbes and Spinoza, rather thanleaning on that Rock of Ages the Church of St. Peter. 

If she could not live for him--if it were a sin even to dwell under thesame roof with him--she could at least die for him--die to the world ofpleasure and folly, of beauty and splendour, die to friendship and love;sink all individuality under the monastic rule; cease to be, except asa part in a great organisation, an atom acting and acted upon by higherpowers; surrendering every desire and every hope that distinguished herfrom the multitude of women vowed to a holy life. 

 "Never, sir, will I Marry; it is a thing within my vow. "

The voice of the actress sounded silver-clear as Bellario spoke her lastspeech, finishing her story of a love which can submit to take the lowerplace, and asks but little of fate. 

 "It is a thing within my vow. "

The line repeated itself in Angela's mind as Denzil met them at the door, and handed her into the coach. 

Should she prove of weaker stuff than the sad Eufrasia, and accept ahusband she did not love? This humdrum modern age allowed of no romance. She could not stain her face with walnut juice, and disguise herself asa footboy, and live unknown in his service, to wait upon him when he wasweary, to nurse him when he was sick. Such a life she would have deemedexquisitely happy; but the hard everyday world had no room for suchdreams. In this unromantic age Dion's daughter would be recognised withintwenty-four hours of her putting on male attire. The golden days of poetrywere dead. Una would find no lion to fawn at her feet. She would be mobbedin the Strand. 

"Oh, that it could have been!" thought Angela, as the coach jolted andrumbled through the narrow ways, and shaved awkward corners with itsponderous wheels, and got its horses entangled with other noble teams, tothe provocation of much ill-language from postillions, and flunkeys, andlinkmen, for it was dark when they came out of the theatre, and a thickmist was rising from the river, and flambeaux were flaring up and down thedim narrow thoroughfares. 

"They light the streets better in Paris, " complained Hyacinth. "In the Ruede Touraine we had a lamp to every house. "

"I like to see the links moving up and down, " said Papillon; "'tis ever somuch prettier than lanterns that stand still--like that one at the corner. "

She pointed to a small round lamp that made a bubble of light in an abyssof gloom. 

"Here the lamps stink more than they light, " said Hyacinth. "How the coachrocks--those blockheads will end by upsetting it. I should have been twiceas well in my chair. "

Angela sat in her place, lost in thought, and hardly conscious of thejolting coach, or of Papillon's prattle, who would not be satisfied tillshe had dragged her aunt into the conversation. 

"Did you not love the play, and would you not love to be a princess likeArethusa, and to wear such a necklace? Mother's diamonds are not half asbig. "

"Pshaw, child, 'twas absolute glass--arrant trumpery. "

"But her gown was not trumpery. It was Lady Castlemaine's last birthdaygown. I heard a lady telling her friend about it in the seat next mine. Lady Castlemaine gave it to the actress; and it cost three hundredpounds--and Lady Castlemaine is all that there is of the most extravagant, the lady said, and old Rowley has to pay her debts--(who is old Rowley, andwhy does he pay people's debts?)--though she is the most unscrupulous--Iforget the word--in London. "

"You see, madam, what a good school the play-house is for your child, " saidFareham grimly. 

"I never asked you to take our child there. "

"Nay, Hyacinth; but a mother should enter no scene unfit for her daughter'sinnocence. "

"Oh, my lord, your opinions are of the Protectorate. You would be better inNew England--tilling your fields reclaimed from the waste. "

"Yes, I might be better there, reclaimed from the waste--of London life. Strange that your talk should hit upon New England. I was thinking of thatNew World not an hour ago at the play--thinking what a happy innocent lifea man might lead there, were he but young and free, with one he loved. "

"Innocent, yes; happy, no; unless he were a savage or a peasant, " Hyacinthexclaimed disdainfully. "We that have known the grace and beauty of lifecannot go back to the habits of our ancestors, to eat without forks, andcover our floors with rushes instead of Persian carpets. "

"The beauty and grace of life--houses that are whited sepulchres, banquetswhere there is no love. "

The coach stopped before the tall Italian doorway, and Fareham handed outhis wife and sister in silence; but there was one of the party to whom itwas unnatural to be mute. 

Papillon sprang off the coach step into her father's arms. 

"Sweetheart, why are you so sad?" she asked. "You look more unhappy thanPhilaster when he thought his lady loved him not. "

She would not be put off, but hung about him all the length of thecorridor, to the door of his room, where he parted from her with a kiss onher forehead. 

"How your lips burn!" she cried. "I hope you are not sickening for theplague. I dreamt last night that the contagion had come back; and that ournew glass coach was going about with a bell collecting the dead. "

"Thou hadst eaten too much supper, sweet. Such dreams are warnings againstexcess of pies and jellies. Go, love; I have business. "

"You have always business now. You used to let me stay with you--even whenyou was busy, " Henriette remonstrated, dejectedly, as the sonorous oak doorclosed against her. 

Fareham flung himself into his chair in front of the large table, withits heaped-up books and litter of papers. Straight before him there layMilton's pamphlet--a publication of ten years ago; but he had been readingit only that morning--"The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. "

There were sentences which seemed to him to stand out upon the page, almostas if written in fire; and to these he recurred again and again, broodingover and weighing every word. ". .. . Neither can this law be of force toengage a blameless creature to his own perpetual sorrow, mistaken for hisexpected solace, without suffering charity to step in and do a confessedgood work of parting those whom nothing holds together but this of God'sjoining, falsely supposed against the express end of his own ordinance. .. . 'It is not good, ' said He, 'that man should be alone; I will make him ahelpmeet for him. ' From which words, so plain, less cannot be concluded, nor is by any learned interpreter, than that in God's intention a meet andhappy conversation is the chiefest and noblest end of marriage. .. . Again, where the mind is unsatisfied, the solitariness of man, which God hadnamely and principally ordered to prevent by marriage, hath no remedy, butlies in a worse condition than the loneliest single life; for in singlelife the absence and remoteness of a helper might inure him to expect hisown comforts out of himself, or to seek with hope; but here the continualsight of his deluded thoughts, without cure, must needs be to him, ifespecially his complexion incline him to melancholy, a daily trouble andpain of loss, in some degree like that which reprobates feel. "

He closed the book, and started up to pace the long, lofty room, full ofshadow, betwixt the light of the fire and that one pair of candles on hisreading desk. 

"Reprobate! Yes. Am not I a reprobate, and the worst, plotting againstinnocence? New England, " he repeated to himself. "How much the namepromises. A new world, a new life, and old fetters struck off. God, if itcould be done! It would hurt no one--no one--except perhaps those children, who might suffer a brief sorrow--and it would make two lives happy thatmust be blighted else. Two lives! Am I so sure of her? Yes, if eyes speaktrue. Sure as of my own fond passion. The contagion, quotha! I havesuffered that, sweet, and know its icy sweats and parching heats; but'tis not so fierce a fever as that devilish disease, the longing for yourcompany. "

CHAPTER XXI. 

GOOD-BYE, LONDON. 

Sitting in her own room before supper, a letter was brought to Angela--along letter, closely written, in a neat, firm hand she knew very well. 

It was from Denzil Warner; a letter full of earnest thought and warmfeeling, in which he pursued the subject of their morning's discourse. 

"We were interrupted before I had time to open my heart to you, dearest, "he wrote; "and at a moment when we had touched on the most delicatepoint in our friendship--the difference in our religious education andobservance. Oh, my beloved, let not difference in particulars divide twohearts that worship the same God, or make a barrier between two minds thatthink alike upon essentials. The Christ who died for you is not less mySaviour because I love not to obtrude the dressed-up image of His earthlymother between His Godhead and my prayers. In the regeneration of baptism, in the sanctity of marriage, in the resurrection of the body, and thelife of the world to come, in the reality of sin and the necessity forrepentance, I believe as truly as any Papist living. Let our lives be butonce united, who knows how the future may shape and modify our minds andour faith? I may be brought to your way of thinking, or you to mine. I willpledge myself never to be guilty of disrespect to your religion, or tounkindly urge you to any change in your observances. I am not one of thosewho have exchanged one tyranny for another, and who, released from thedominion of Rome, have become the slave of the Covenant. I have been taughtby one who, himself deeply religious, would have all men free to worshipGod by the light of their own conscience; and to my wife, that dearer halfof my soul, I would allow perfect freedom. I suffer from the lack of poeticphrases with which to embellish the plain reality of my love; but be sure, Angela, that you may travel far through the world, and receive many aflowery compliment to your beauty, yet meet none who will love you asfaithfully as I have loved you for this year last past, and as I doubt Ishall love you--happy or unfortunate in my wooing--for all the rest of mylife. Think, dearest, whether it were not wise on your part to accept thechaste and respectful homage of a suitor who is free to love and cherishyou, and thus to shield yourself from the sinful pursuit of one who offendsHeaven and dishonours you whenever he looks at you with the eyes of alover. I would not write harshly of a man whose very sin I pity, and whomI believe not wholly vile; but for him, as for me, that were a happy daywhich should make you my wife, and thus end the madness of unholy hopes. Iwould again urge that Lady Fareham desires our union with all a sister'sconcern for you, and more than a friend's tenderness to me. 

"I beseech your pardon and indulgence for my rough words of this morning. God forbid that I should impute one unworthy thought to her whose virtues Ihonour above all earthly merit. If your heart inclines towards one whom itwere misery for you to love, I know that it must be with an affection pureand ethereal as the love of the disguised girl in Fletcher's play. But, ah, dearest angel, you know not the peril in which you walk. Your innocent mindcannot conceive the audacious height to which unholy love may climb in aman's fiery nature. You cannot fathom the black depths of such a characteras Fareham--a man as capable of greatness in evil as of distinction ingood. Forget not whose fierce blood runs in those veins. Can you doubt hisaudacity in wrong-doing, when you remember that he comes of the same stockwhich produced that renegade and tyrant, Thomas Wentworth--a man who wouldhave waded deep in the blood of a nation to reach his desired goal, all thehistory of whose life was expressed by him in one word--'thorough'?

"Do you consider what that word means to a man over whose heart sin hastaken the upper hand? Thorough! How resolute in evil, how undaunted andwithout limit in baseness, is he who takes that word for his motto! Oh, mylove, there are dragons and lions about thy innocent footsteps--the dragonsof lust, the lions of presumptuous love. Flee from thy worst enemy, dearest, to the shelter of a heart which adores thee; lean upon a breastwhose pulses beat for thee with a truth that time cannot change. 

"Thine till death, "WARNER. "

Angela tore up the letter in anger. How dared he write thus of LordFareham? To impute sinful passions, guilty desires--to enter into anotherman's mind, and read the secret cipher of his thoughts and wishes withan assumed key, which might be false? His letter was a bundle of falseassumptions. What right had he to insist that her brother-in-law cared forher with more than the affection authorised by affinity? He had no right. She hated him for his insolent letter. She scorned the protection of hislove. She had her refuge and her shelter in a holier love than his. Thedoors of the old home would open to her at a word. 

She sat on a low stool in front of the hearth, while the pile of shiptimber on the andirons burnt itself out and turned from red to grey. Shesat looking into the dying fire and recalling the pictures of the past;the dull grey convent rooms and formal convent garden; the petty rules andrestrictions; the so-frequent functions--low mass and high, benedictions, vespers--the recurrent sound of the chapel bell. The few dull books, permitted in the hour of so-called recreation; the sombre grey gown, which was the only relief from perpetual black; the limitations ofthat colourless life. She had been happy with the Ursulines under herkinswoman's gentle sway. But could she be happy with the present Superior, whose domineering temper she knew? She had been happy in her ignorance ofthe outer world; but could she be happy again in that grey seclusion--shewho had sat at the banquet of life, who had seen the beauty and the varietyof her native land? To be an exile for the rest of her days, in thehopeless gloom of a Flemish convent, among the heavy faces of Flemish nuns!

In the intensity of introspective thought she had forgotten one who hadforbidden that gloomy seclusion, and to whom it would be as natural forher to look for protection and refuge as to convent or husband. From herthoughts to-night the image of her wandering father had been absent. Hisappearances in her life had been so rare and so brief, his influence on herdestiny so slight, that she was forgetful of him now in this crisis of herfate. 

 * * * * *

It was within a week of that evening that the sisters were startled by thearrival of their father, unannounced, in the dusk of the winter afternoon. He had come by slow stages from Spain, riding the greater part of thejourney--like Howell, fifty years earlier--attended only by one faithfulsoldier-servant, and enduring no small suffering, and running no slightrisk, upon the road. 

"The wolves had our provender on more than one occasion, " he told them. "The wonder is they never had us or our hackneys. I left Madrid in July, not long after the death of my poor friend Fanshawe. Indeed, it was hisfriendship and his good lady's unvarying courtesy that took me to thecapital. We had last met at Hampton Court, with the King, shortly beforehis Majesty's so ill-advised flight; and we were bosom-friends then. Andso, he being dead of a fever early in the summer, I had no more to do butto travel slowly homeward, to end my days in my own chimney-corner, and toclaim thy promise, Angela, that thou wouldst keep my house, and comfort mydeclining years. "

"Dear father!" Angela murmured, hanging over him as he sat in thehigh-backed velvet chair by the fire, while her ladyship's footmen seta table near him, with wine and provisions for an impromptu meal, LadyFareham directing them, and coming between-whiles to embrace her father ina flutter of spirits, the firelight shining on her flame-coloured velvetgown and primrose taffety petticoat, her pretty golden curls and sparklingSévigné, her ruby necklace and earrings, and her bright restless eyes. 

While the elder sister was all movement and agitation, the younger stoodcalm and still beside her father's chair, her hands clasped in his, herthoughtful eyes looking down at him as he talked, stopping now and then inhis story of adventures to eat and drink. 

He looked much older than when he surprised her in the Convent garden. Hishair and beard, then iron grey, were now silver white. He wore his ownhair, which was abundant, and a beard cut after the fashion she knew in theportraits of Henri Quatre. His clothes also were of that style, which livednow only in the paintings of Vandyke and his school. 

"How the girl looks at me!" Sir John said, surprising his daughter'searnest gaze. "Does she take me for a ghost?"

"Indeed, sir, she may well fancy you have come back from the other worldwhile you wear that antique suit, " said Hyacinth. "I hope your firstbusiness to-morrow will be to replenish your wardrobe by the assistanceof Lord Rochester's tailor. He is a German, and has the best cut for ajustau-corps in all the West End. Fareham is shabby enough to make a wifeashamed of him; but his clothes are only too plain for his condition. YourSpanish cloak and steeple hat are fitter for a travelling quack doctor thanfor a gentleman of quality, and your doublet and vest might have come outof the ark. "

"If I change them, it will be but to humour your vanity, sweetheart, "answered her father. "I bought the suit in Paris three years ago, andI swore I would cast them back upon the snip's hands if he gave me anynew-fangled finery. But a riding-suit that has crossed the Pyrenees andstood a winter's wear at Montpelier--where I have been living sinceOctober--can scarce do credit to a fine lady's saloon; and thou art finest, I'll wager, Hyacinth, where all are fine. "

"You would not say that if you had seen Lady Castlemaine's rooms. I wouldwager that her gold and silver tapestry cost more than the contents of myhouse. "

"Thou shouldst not envy sin in high places, Hyacinth. "

"Envy! I envy a----"

"Nay, love, no bad names! 'Tis a sorry pass England has come to when themost conspicuous personage at her Court is the King's mistress. I was withQueen Henrietta at Paris, who received me mighty kindly, and bewailed withme over the contrast betwixt her never-to-be-forgotten husband and hissons. They have nothing of their father, she told me, neither in person norin mind. 'I know not whence their folly comes to them!' she cried. It wouldhave been uncivil to remind her that her own father, hero as he was, hadset no saintly example to royal husbands; and that it is possible ourprinces take more of their character from their grandfather Henry than fromthe martyr Charles. Poor lady, I am told she left London deep in debt, after squandering her noble income of these latter years, and that she hassunk in the esteem of the French court by her alliance with Jermyn. "

"I can but wonder that she, above all women, should ever cease to be awidow. "

"She comes of a light-minded race and nation, Angela; and it is easy to herto forget; or she would not easily forget that so-adoring husband whosefortunes she ruined. His most fatal errors came from his subservience toher. When I saw her in her new splendour at Somerset House, all smiles andgaiety, with youth and beauty revived in the sunshine of restored fortune, I could but remember all he was, in dignity and manly affection, proud andpure as King Arthur in the old romance, and all she cost him by womanishtyrannies and prejudices, and difficult commands laid upon him at ajuncture of so exceeding difficulty. "

The sisters listened in respectful silence. The old cavalier cut a freshslice of chine, sighed, and continued his sermon. 

"I doubt that while we, the lookers on, remember, they, the actors, forget;for could the son of such a noble victim wallow in a profligate court, surrender himself to the devilish necromancies of vicious women and vilermen, if he remembered his father's character, and his father's death? No;memory must be a blank, and we, who suffered with our royal master, arefools to prate of ingratitude or neglect, since the son who can forget sucha father may well forget his father's servants and friends. But we will nottalk of public matters in the first hour of our greeting. Nor need I prateof the King, since I have not come back to England to clap a periwig overmy grey hairs, and play waiter upon Court favour, and wear out the backof my coat against the tapestry at Whitehall, standing in the rear of thecrowd, to have my toes trampled upon by the sharp heels of Court ladies, and an elbow in my stomach more often than not. I am come, like Wolsey, girls, to lay my old bones among you. Art thou ready, Angela? Hast thouhad enough of London, and play-houses, and parks; and wilt thou share thyfather's solitude in Buckinghamshire?"

"With all my heart, sir. "

"What! never a sigh for London pleasures? Thou hast the great lady's airand carriage in that brave blue taffety. The nun I knew three years ago hasvanished. Can you so lightly renounce the splendour of this house, and yoursister's company, to make a prosing old father happy?"

"Indeed, sir, I am ready to go with you. "

"How she says that--with what a countenance of woeful resignation! But Iwill not make the Manor Moat too severe a prison, dearest. You shall visitLondon, and your sister, when you will. There shall be a coach and a teamof stout roadsters to pull it when they are not wanted for the plough. Andthe Vale of Aylesbury is but a long day's journey from London, while 'tisno more than a morning's ride to Chilton. "

"I could not bear for her to be long away from me, " said Hyacinth. "She isthe only companion I have in the world. "

"Except your husband. "

"Husbands such as mine are poor company. Fareham has a moody brow, and amind stuffed with public matters. He dines with Clarendon one day, and withAlbemarle another; or he goes to Deptford to grumble with Mr. Evelyn; or hecreeps away to some obscure quarter of the town to hob-nob with Milton, and with Marvel, the member for Hull. I doubt they are all of one mind inabusing his Majesty, and conspiring against him. If I lose my sister Ishall have no one. "

"What, no one; when you have Henriette, who even three years ago hadshrewdness enough to keep an old grandfather amused with her impertinentprattle?"

"Grandfathers are easily amused by children they see as seldom as you haveseen Papillon. To have her about you all day, with her everlasting chatter, and questions, and remarks, and opinions (a brat of twelve with opinions), would soon give you the vapours. "

"I am not so subject to vapours as you, child. Let me look at you, now thecandles are lighted. "

The footmen had lighted clusters of wax candles on either side the tallchimney-piece. 

Sir John drew his elder daughter to the light, and scrutinised her facewith a father's privilege of uncompromising survey. 

"You paint thick enough, i' conscience' name, though not quite so thick asthe Spanish señoras. They are browner than you, and need a heavier handwith white and red. But you are haggard under all your red. You are not thewoman I left in '65. "

"I am near two years older than the woman you left; and as for paint, thereis not a woman over twenty in London who uses as little red and white as Ido. "

"What has become of Fareham to-night?" Sir John asked presently, whenHyacinth had picked up her favourite spaniel to nurse and fondle, whileAngela had resumed her occupation at an embroidery frame, and a reposefulair as of a long-established domesticity had fallen upon the scene. 

"He is at Chilton. When he is not plotting he rushes off to Oxfordshirefor the hunting and shooting. He loves buglehorns and yelping curs, and huntsmen's cracked voices, far before the company of ladies or theconversation of wits. "

"A man was never meant to sit in a velvet chair and talk fine. It is allone for a French Abbé and a few old women in men's clothing to sit roundthe room and chop logic with a learned spinster like Mademoiselle Scudéry;but men must live _sub Jove_, unless they are statesmen or clerks. Theymust have horses and hounds, gun and spaniel, hawk or rod. I am gladFareham loves sport. And as for that talk of conspiring, let me not hear itfrom thee, Hyacinth. 'Tis a perilous discourse to but hint at treason;and your husband is a loyal gentleman who loves, and"--with a wryface--"reveres--his King. "

"Oh, I was only jesting. But, indeed, a man who so disparages the thingsother people love must needs be a rebel at heart. Did you hear of Monsieurde Malfort while you were at Paris?"

The inquiry was made with that over-acted carelessness which betrays hiddenpain; but the soldier's senses had been blunted by the rough-and-tumble ofan adventurer's life, and he was not on the alert for shades of feeling. 

Angela accepted her father's return, with the new duties it imposed uponher, as if it had been a decree of Heaven. She put aside all considerationof that refuge which would have meant so complete a renunciation andfarewell. On her knees that night, in the midst of fervent prayers, hertears streamed fast at the thought that, secure in the shelter of herfather's love, in the peaceful solitude of her native valley, she couldlook to a far-off future when she and Fareham might meet with out fear ofsin, when no cloud of passion should darken his brotherly affection forher; when his heart, now estranged from holy things, would have returned tothe faith of his ancestors, reconciled to God and the Church. She could butthink of him now as a fallen angel--a wanderer who had strayed far from theonly light and guide of human life, and was thus a mark for the tempter. What lesser power than Satan's could have so turned good to evil; thefriendship of a brother to the base passion which had made so wide a gulfbetween them; and which must keep them strangers till he was cured of hissin? Only to diabolical possession could she ascribe the change that hadcome over him since those happy days when she had watched the slow dawnof health upon his sunken cheeks, when he and she had travelled togetherthrough the rich autumn woods, along the pleasant English roads, and when, in the leisure of the slow journey, he had poured out his thoughts to her, the story of his life, his opinions, expatiating in fraternal confidenceupon the things he loved and the things he hated. And at Chilton, shelooked back and remembered his goodness to her, the pains he had taken inchoosing horses for her to ride, their long mornings on the river withHenriette, their hawking parties, and in all his tender brotherly care ofher. The change in him had come about by almost imperceptible degrees:but it had been chiefly marked by a fitful temper that had cut her to thequick; now kind; now barely civil; courting her company to-day; to-morrowavoiding her, as if there were contagion in her presence. Then, afterthe meeting at Millbank, there had come a coldness so icy, a sarcasm socutting, that for a long time she had thought he hated as much as hedespised her. She had withered in his contempt. His unkindness hadovershadowed every hour of her life, and the longing to cry out to him"Indeed, sir, your thoughts wrong me. I am not the wretch you think, "had been almost too much for her fortitude. She had felt that she mustexculpate herself, even though in so doing she should betray her sister. But honour, and affection for Hyacinth, had prevailed; and she had bent hershoulders to the burden of undeserved shame. She had sat silent and abashedin his presence, like a guilty creature. 

Sir John Kirkland spent a week at Fareham House, employed in choosing ateam of horses, suitable alike for the road and the plough, lookingout, among the coachmakers, for a second-hand travelling carriage, andeventually buying a coach of Lady Fanshawe's, which had been brought fromMadrid with the rest of her very extensive goods and chattels. 

One need scarce remark that it was not one of the late Ambassador's statecarriages, his ruby velvet coach, with fringes that cost three hundredpounds, or his brocade carriage, but a coach that had been built for theeveryday use of his suite. 

Sir John also bought a little plain silver, in place of that finecollection of silver and parcel-gilt which had been so willingly sacrificedto royal necessities; and though he breathed no sigh over past losses, somebitter thoughts may have come across his cheerfulness as he heard of thesplendour and superabundance of Lady Castlemaine's plate and jewels, or ofthe ring worth six hundred pounds lately presented to a pretty actress. 

In a week he was ready for Buckinghamshire; and Angela had her trunkspacked, and had bid good-bye to her London friends, amidst the chatter ofLady Fareham's visiting-day, and the clear, bell-like clash of delicatechina tea-cups--miniature bowls of egg-shell porcelain, without handles, and to be held daintily between the tips of high-bred fingers. 

There was a chorus of courteous bewailing at the notion of Mrs. Kirkland'sdeparture. 

Sir Ralph Masaroon pretended to be in despair. 

"Is it not bad enough to have had the coldest winter my youth can remember?But you must needs take the sun from our spring. Why, the maids of honourwill count for handsome when you are gone. What's that Butler says?--

 'The twinkling stars begin to muster, And glitter with their borrowed lustre. '

But what's to become of me without the sun? I shall have no one toside-glass in the Ring. "

"Indeed, Sir Ralph, I did not know that you ever side-glassed me!"

"What, you have suffered my devotion to pass unperceived? When I havebroken half a dozen coach windows in your service, rattling a glass downwith a vehemence which would have startled a Venus in marble to turn andrecognise an adorer! Round and round the Ring I have driven for hours, onthe chance of a look. Nay, marble is not so coy as froward beauty! And atthe Queen's chapel have I not knelt at the Mass morning after morning, atthe risk of being thought a Papist, for the sake of seeing you at prayers;and have envied the Romish dog who handed you the aspersoir as you wentout? And you to be unconscious all the time!"

"Nay, 'tis so much happier for me, Sir Ralph, since you have given me areserve of gratified vanity that will last me a year in the country, whereI shall see nothing but ploughmen and bird-boys. "

"Look out for the scarecrows in Sir John's fields, for the odds are youwill see me some day disguised as one. "

"Why disguised?" asked his friend Mr. Penington, who had lately produced acomedy that had been acted three afternoons at the Duke's Theatre, and oneevening at Court, which may be taken as a prosperous run for a new play. 

Lady Sarah Tewkesbury held forth on the pleasures of a country life, andlamented that family connections and the necessity of standing well withthe Court constrained her to spend the greater part of her existence intown. 

"I am like Milton, " she said. "I adore a rural life. To hear the cock--

 'From his watchtower in the skies, When the horse and hound do rise. '

Oh, I love buttercups and daisies above all the Paris finery in theExchange; and to steep one's complexion in May-dew, and to sup on asyllabub or a dish of frumenty--so cheap, too, while it costs a fortune butto scrape along in London. "

"The country is well enough for a month at hay-making, to romp with a bevyof London beauties in the meadows near Tunbridge Wells, or to dance toa couple of fiddles on the Common by moonlight, " said Mr. Penington;whereupon all agreed that Tunbridge Wells, Epsom, Doncaster, and Newmarketwere the only country possible to people of intellect. 

"I would never go further than Epsom, if I had my will, " said Sir Ralph;"for I see no pleasure in Newmarket for a man who keeps no running-horses, and has no more interest in the upshot of a race than he might have ina maggot match on his own dining-table, did he stake high enough on theresult. "

"But my sister is not to be buried in Buckinghamshire all the year round, "explained Hyacinth. "I shall fetch her here half a dozen times in a season;and her shortest visits must be long enough to take the country freshnessout of her complexion, and save her from becoming a milkmaid. "

"Gud, to see her freckled!" cried Penington. "I could as soon imagineHelen with a hump. That London pallor is the choicest charm in a girlof quality--a refined sickliness that appeals to the heart of a man offeeling, an 'if-you-don't-lend-me-your-arm-I-shall-swoon' sort of air. Yourcountry hoyden, with her roses-and-cream complexion, and open-air manners, is more shocking than Medusa to a man of taste. "

The talk drifted to other topics at the mention of Buckingham, who had butlately been let out of the Tower, where he and Lord Dorchester had beencommitted for scuffling and quarrelling at the Canary Conference. 

"Has your ladyship seen the Duke and Lord Dorchester since they came out ofthe house of bondage?" asked Lady Sarah. "I think Buckingham was never sogay and handsome, and takes his imprisonment as the best joke that everwas, and is as great at Court as ever. "

"His Majesty is but too indulgent, " said Masaroon, "and encourages the Duketo be insolent and careless of ceremony. He had the impertinence to showhimself at chapel before he had waited on his Majesty. "

"Who was very angry and forbade him the Court, " said Penington. "ButBuckingham sent the King one of his foolish, jesting letters, capped witha rhyme or two; and if you can make Charles Stuart laugh you may pick hispocket----"

"Or seduce his mistress----"

"Oh, he will forgive much to wit and gaiety. He learnt the knack of takinglife easily, while he led that queer, shifting life in exile. He was acosmopolitan and a soldier of fortune before he was a King _de facto;_ andstill wears the loose garments of those easy, beggarly days, when he hadneither money nor care. Be sure he regrets that roving life--Madrid, Paris, the Hague--and will never love a son as well as little Monmouth, the childof his youth. "

"What would he not give to make that base-born brat Prince of Wales?Strange that while Lord Ross is trying to make his offspring illegitimateby Act of Parliament, his master's anxieties should all tend the otherway. "

"Don't talk to me of Parliament!" cried Lady Sarah; "the tyranny of theRump was nothing to them. Look at the tax upon French wines, which willmake it almost impossible for a lady of small means to entertain herfriends. And an Act for burying us all in woollen, for the benefit of theEnglish trade in wool. "

"But, indeed, Lady Sarah, it is we of the old faith who have most need tocomplain, " said Lady Fareham, "since these wretches make us pay a doublepoll-tax; and all our foreign friends are being driven away for the samereason--just because the foolish and the ignorant must needs put down thefire to the Catholics. "

"Indeed, your ladyship, the Papists have had an unlucky knack at lightingfires, as Smithfield and Oxford can testify, " said Penington; "and perhaps, having no more opportunity of roasting martyrs, it may please some ofyour creed to burn Protestant houses, with the chance of cooking a fewProtestants inside 'em. "

 * * * * *

Angela had drawn away from the little knot of fine ladies and finergentlemen, and was sitting in the bay window of an ante-room, withHenriette and the boy, who were sorely dejected at the prospect of losingher. The best consolation she could offer was to promise that they shouldbe invited to the Manor Moat as soon as she and her father had settledthemselves comfortably there--if their mother could spare them. 

Henriette laughed outright at this final clause. 

"Spare us!" she cried. "Does she ever want us? I don't think she knows whenwe are in the room, unless we tread upon her gown, when she screams out'Little viper!' and hits us with her fan. "

"The lightest touch, Papillon; not so hard as you strike your favouritebaby. "

"Oh, she doesn't hurt me; but the disrespect of it! Her only daughter, andnearly as high as she is!"

"You are an ungrateful puss to complain, when her ladyship is so kind as tolet you be here to see all her fine company. "

"I am sick of her company, almost always the same, and always talking aboutthe same things. The King, and the Duke, and the General, and the navy;or Lady Castlemaine's jewels, or the last new head from Paris, or herladyship's Flanders lace. It is all as dull as ditch-water now Monsieur deMalfort is gone. He was always pleasant, and he let me play on his guitar, though he swore it excruciated him. And he taught me the new Versaillescoranto. There's no pleasure for any one since he fell ill and leftEngland. "

"You shall come to the Manor. It will be a change, even though you hate thecountry and love London. "

"I have left off loving London. I have had too much of it. If his lordshiplet us go to the play-house often it would be different. Oh, how Iloved Philaster--and that exquisite page! Do you think I could act thatcharacter, auntie, if his lordship's tailor made me such a dress?"

"I think thou hast impudence for anything, dearest. "

"I would rather act that page than Pauline in _Polyeucte_, thoughMademoiselle swears I speak her tirades nearly as well as an actress sheonce saw at the Marais, who was too old and fat for the character. How Ishould love to be an actress, and to play tragedy and comedy, andmake people cry and laugh! Indeed, I would rather be anything than alady--unless I could be exactly like Lady Castlemaine. "

"Ah, Heaven forbid!"

"But why not? I heard Sir Ralph tell mother that, let her behave as badlyas she may, she will always be atop of the tree, and that the young sparksat the Chapel Royal hardly look at their prayer-books for gazing at her, and that the King----"

"Ah, sweetheart, I want to hear no more of her!"

"Why, don't you like her? I thought you did not know her. She never comeshere. "

"Are there any staghounds in the Vale of Aylesbury?" asked the boy, who hadbeen looking out of the window, watching the boats go by, unheeding hissister's babble. 

"I know not, love; but there shall be dogs enough for you to play with, I'll warrant, and a pony for you to ride. Grandfather shall get them forhis dearest. "

Sir John was fond of Henriette, whom he looked upon as a marvel ofprecocious brightness; but the boy was his favourite, whom he loved with anold man's half-melancholy affection for the creature which is to live andact a part in the world when he, the greybeard, shall be dust. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

AT THE MANOR MOAT. 

Solid, grave, and sober, grey with a quarter of a century's neglect, theManor House, in the valley below Brill, differed in every detail from thehistorical Chilton Abbey. It was a moated manor house, the typical house ofthe typical English squire; an E-shaped house, with a capacious roof thatlodged all the household servants, and clustered chimney-stacks thataccommodated a great company of swallows. It had been built in the reignof Henry the Seventh, and was coeval with its distinguished neighbour, thehouse of the Verneys, at Middle Claydon, and it had never served any otherpurpose than to shelter Englishmen of good repute in the land. Souvenirsof Bosworth field--a pair of huge jack-boots, a two-handed sword, and abattered helmet--hung over the chimney-piece in the low-ceiled hall; butthe end of the civil war was but a memory when the Manor House was built. After Bosworth a slumberous peace had fallen on the land, and in thestillness of this secluded valley, sheltered from every bleak wind bysurrounding hills and woods, the gardens of the Manor Moat had grown intoa settled beauty that made the chief attraction of a country seat whichboasted so little of architectural dignity, or of expensive fantasy inmoulded brick and carved stone. Plain, sombre, with brick walls and heavystone mullions to low-browed windows, the Manor House stood in the midstof gardens such as the modern millionaire may long for, but which only thegrey old gardener Time can create. 

There was more than a mile of yew hedge, eight feet high, and threefeet broad, walling in flower garden and physic garden, the latter theparticular care of the house-mothers of previous generations, the former aparadise of those old flowers which bloom and breathe sweet odours in thepages of Shakespeare, and jewel the verse of Milton. The fritillary hereopened its dusky spotted petals to drink the dews of May; and here, againsta wall of darkest green, daffodils bloomed unruffled by March winds. 

Verily a garden of gardens; but when Angela came there in the chillFebruary there were no flowers to welcome her, only the long, straightwalks beside those walls of yew, and the dark shining waters of the moatand the fish-pond, reflecting the winter sun; and over all the scene aquiet as of the grave. 

A little colony of old servants had been left in the house, which hadescaped confiscation, albeit the property of a notorious Malignant, perhapschiefly on account of its insignificance, the bulk of the estate havingbeen sold by Sir John in '44, when the king's condition was waxingdesperate, and money was worth twice its value to those who clung to hope, and were ready to sacrifice their last jacobus in the royal cause. The poorlittle property--shrunk to a home-farm of ninety acres, a humble homestead, and the Manor House--may have been thought hardly worth selling; or SirJohn's rights may have been respected out of regard for his son-in-law, who, on the maternal side, had kindred in high places under theCommonwealth, a fact of which Hyacinth occasionally reminded her husband, telling him that he was by hereditary instinct a rebel and a king-slayer. 

The farm had been taken to by Sir John's steward, a man who in politics wasof the same easy temper as the Vicar of Bray in religion, and was a staunchCromwellian so long as Oliver or Richard sat at Whitehall, or would havetossed up his cap and cheered for Monk, as Captain-General of GreatBritain, had he been called upon to till his fields and rear his stockunder a military despotism. It mattered little to any man living at ease ina fat Buckinghamshire valley what King or Commonwealth ruled in London, solong as there was a ready market at Aylesbury or Thame for all the farmcould produce, and civil war planted neither drake nor culverin on BrillHill. 

The old servants had vegetated as best they might in the old house, theirwages of the scantiest; but to live and die within familiar walls wasbetter than to fare through a world which had no need of them. The youngermembers of the household had scattered, and found new homes; but thegrey-haired cook was still in her kitchen; the old butler still wept overhis pantry, where a dozen or so of spoons, and one battered tankard ofHeriot's make, were all that remained of that store of gold and silverwhich had been his pride forty years ago, when Charles was bringing homehis fair French bride, and old Thames at London was alight with fire-worksand torches, and alive with music and singing, as the city welcomed itsyoung Queen, and when Reuben Holden was a lad in the pantry, learning topolish a salver or a goblet, and sorely hectored by his uncle the butler. 

Reuben, and Marjory, the old cook, famous in her day as any _cordon-bleu_, were the sole representatives of the once respectable household; but acouple of stout wenches had been hired from the cluster of labourers'hovels that called itself a village; and these had been made to drudge asthey had never drudged before in the few days of warning which preparedReuben for his master's return. 

Fires had been lighted in rooms where mould and mildew had long prevailed;wainscots had been scrubbed and polished till the whole house reekedof bees-wax and turpentine, to a degree that almost overpowered thosepervading odours of damp and dry rot, which can curiously exist together. The old furniture had been made as bright as faded fabrics and worm-eatenwood could be made by labour; and the leaping light of blazing logs, reflected on the black oak panelling, gave a transient air of cheerfulnessto the spacious dining-parlour where Sir John and his daughter took theirfirst meal in the old home. And if to Angela's eye, accustomed to theItalian loftiness of the noble mansions on the Thames, the broad oakcrossbeams seemed coming down upon her head, there was at least an air ofhomely snugness in the low darkly coloured room. 

On that first evening there had been much to interest and engage her. Shehad the old house to explore, and dim childish memories to recall. Here wasthe room where her mother died, the room in which she herself had firstseen the light--perhaps not until a month or so after her birth, sincethe seventeenth-century baby was not flung open-eyed into her birthdaysunshine, but was swaddled and muffled in a dismal apprenticeship to life. The chamber had been hung with "blacks" for a twelvemonth, Reuben told her, as he escorted her over the house, and unlocked the doors of disused rooms. 

The tall bedstead with its red and yellow stamped velvet curtains andcarved ebony posts looked like an Indian temple. One might expect tosee Buddha squatting on the embroidered counterpane--the work of half alifetime. When the curtains were drawn back, a huge moth flew out of thedarkness, and spun and wheeled round the room with an awful humming noise, and to the superstitious mind might have suggested a human soul embodied inthis phantasmal greyness, with power of sound in such excess of its bulk. 

"Sir John never used the room after her ladyship's death, " Reubenexplained, "though 'tis the best bed-chamber. He has always slept in theblue room, which is at the furthest end of the gallery from the room thathas been prepared for madam. We call that the garden room, and it is mightypretty in summer. "

In summer! How far it seemed to summer-time in Angela's thoughts! What along gulf of nothingness to be bridged over, what a dull level plain tocross, before June and the roses could come round again, bringing with themthe memory of last summer; and the days she had lived under the same roofwith Fareham, and the evenings when they had sat in the same room, orloitered on the terrace, pausing now and then beside an Italian vase ofgaudy flowers to look at this or that, or to watch the mob on the river;and those rare golden days, like that at Sayes Court, which she had spentin some excursion with Fareham and Henriette. 

"I hope madam likes the chamber we have prepared for her?" the old mansaid, as she stood dreaming. 

"Yes, my good friend, it is very comfortable. My woman complained of thesmoky chimney in her chamber; but no doubt we shall mend that by-and-by. "

"It would be strange if a gentlewoman's servant found not something togrumble about, " said Reuben; "they have ever less work to do than any oneelse in the house, and ever make more trouble than their mistresses. I'llsettle the hussy, with madam's leave. "

"Nay, pray, Mr. Reuben, no harshness. She is a willing, kind-hearted girl, and we shall find plenty of work for her in this big house where there areso few servants. "

"Oh, there's work enough for sure, if she'll do it, and is no fine citymadam that will scream at sight of a mouse, belike. "

"She is a girl I had out of Oxfordshire. "

"Oh, if she comes out of Oxfordshire, from his lordship's estate, I dareswear she is a good girl. I hate your London trash; and I think the greatfire would have been a blessing in disguise if it had swept away most ofsuch trumpery. "

"Oh, sir, if a Romanist were to say as much as that!" said Angela, laughing. 

"Oh, madam, I am not one of they fools that say because half London wasburnt the Papishes must have set it on fire. What good would the burning ofit do 'em, poor souls? And now they are to pay double taxes, as if it wasa sure thing their faggots kindled the blaze. I know how kind and sweet asoul a Papish may be, though she do worship idols; for I had the honour toserve your ladyship's mother from the hour she first entered this housetill the day I smuggled the French priest by the back stairs to carry herthe holy oils. Ah! she was a noble and lovely lady. Madam's eyes are of hercolour; and, indeed, madam favours her mother more than my Lady Farehamdoes. "

"Have you seen Lady Fareham of late years?"

"Ay, madam, she came here in her coach-and-six the summer before thepestilence, with her two beautiful children, and a party of ladies andgentlemen. They rode here from his Grace of Buckingham's new mansion bythe Thames--Clefden, I think they call it; and they do say his Grace do solavish and squander money in the building of it, that belike he will beruined and dead before his palace be finished. There were three coachesfull, with servants and what not. And they brought wine, and capons readydressed, and confectionery, and I helped to serve a collation for them inthe garden. And after they had feasted merrily, with a vast quantity ofsparkling French wine, they all rushed through the house like madcaps, laughing and chattering, regular French magpies, for there was more of 'emFrench than English, her ladyship leading them, till she comes to the doorof this room, and finds it locked, and she begins to thump upon the panelslike a spoilt child, and calls, 'Reuben, Reuben, what is your mystery? Surethis must be the ghost-chamber! Open, open, instantly. ' And I answered herquietly, ''Tis the chamber where that sweet angel, your ladyship's mother, lay in state, and it has never been opened to strangers since she died. 'And all in the midst of her mirth, the dear young lady burst out weeping, and cried, 'My sweet, sweet mother! I remember the last smile she gave meas if it was yesterday. ' And then she dropped on her knees and crossedherself, and whispered a prayer, with her face close against the door;and I knew that she was praying for her lady-mother, as the way of yourreligion is, madam, to pray for the dead; and sure, though it is a simplething, it can do no harm; and to my thinking, when all the foolishness istaken out of religion the warmth and the comfort seem to go too; for I knowI never used to feel a bit more comfortable after a two hours' sermon, whenI was an Anabaptist. "

"Are you not an Anabaptist now, Reuben?"

"Lord forbid, madam! I have been a member of the Church of England eversince his Majesty's restoration brought the Vicar to his own again, andgave us back Christmas Day, and the organ, and the singing-boys. "

Angela's life at the Manor was so colourless that the first blossoming of afamiliar flower was an event to note and to remember. Life within conventwalls would have been scarcely more tranquil or more monotonous. Sir Johnrode with his hounds three or four times a week, or was about the fieldssuperintending the farming operations, walking beside the ploughman as hedrove his furrow, or watching the scattering of the seed. Or he was inthe narrow woodlands which still belonged to him, and Angela, taking hersolitary walk at the close of day, heard his axe ringing through the wintryair. 

It was a peaceful, and should have been a pleasant, life, for father andfor daughter. Angela told herself that God had been very good to her inproviding this safe haven from tempestuous seas, this quiet little world, where the pulses of passion beat not; where existence was like a sleep, agradual drifting away of days and weeks, marked only by the changing noteof birds, the deepening umber on the birch, the purpling of beech buds, andthe starry celandine shining out of grassy banks that had so lately beenobliterated under the drifted snow. 

"I ought to be happy, " she said to herself of a morning, when she rose fromher knees, and stood looking across the garden to the grassy hills beyond, while the beads of her rosary slipped through her languid fingers--"I oughtto be happy. "

And then she turned from the sunny window with a sigh, and went down thedark, echoing staircase to the breakfast parlour, where her own littlesilver chocolate-pot looked ridiculously small beside Sir John's quarttankard, and where the crisp, golden rolls, baked in the French fashionby the maid from Chilton, who had been taught by Lord Fareham's _chef_, contrasted with the chine of beef and huge farmhouse loaf that accompaniedthe knight's old October. 

After all his Continental wanderings Sir John had come back to substantialEnglish fare with an unabated relish; and Angela had to sit down, day afterday, to a huge joint and an overloaded dish of poultry, and to reassure herfather when he expressed uneasiness because she ate so little. 

"Women do not want much food, sir. Martha's rolls, and our honey, and theconserves old Marjory makes so well, are better for me than the meat whichsuits your heartier appetite. "

"Faith, child, if I played no stouter a part at table than you do, I shouldsoon be fit to play living skeleton at Aylesbury Fair. And I dubitate as toyour diet-loaves and confectionery suiting you better than a slice of chineor sirloin, for you have a pale cheek and a pensive eye that smite me tothe heart. Indeed, I begin to question if I was kind to take you from allthe pleasures of the town to be mewed up here with a rusty old soldier. "

"Indeed, sir, I could be happier nowhere than here. I have had enough ofLondon pleasures; and I was meditating upon returning to the convent, whenyou came to put an end to all my perplexities; and, sir, I think God sentyou to me when I most needed a father's love. "

She went to him and knelt by his chair, hiding her tearful eyes against thecushioned arm. But, though he could not see her face, he heard the break inher voice, and he bent down and lifted her drooping head on his breast, andkissed the soft brown hair, and embraced her very tenderly. 

"Sweetheart, thou hast all a father's love, and it is happiness to me tohave thee here; but old as I am, and with so little cunning to read amaiden's heart, I can read clear enough to know thou art not happy. Whisper, dearest. Is it a sweetheart who sighs for thy favours far off, andwill not beard this old lion in his den? My gentle Angela would make no illchoice. Fear not to trust me, my heart. I will love whom you love, favourwhom you favour. I am no tyrant, that my sweet daughter should grow palewith keeping secrets from me. "

"Dear father, you are all goodness. No, there is no one--no one! I am happywith you. I have no one in the world but you, and, in a so much lesserdegree of love, my sister and her children--"

"And Fareham. He should be to you as a brother. He is of a blackmelancholic humour, and not a man whom women love; but he has a heart ofgold, and must regard you with grateful affection for your goodness to himwhen he was sick. Hyacinth is never weary of expatiating upon your devotionin that perilous time. "

"She is foolish to talk of services I would have given as willingly to asick beggar, " Angela answered, impatiently. 

Her face was still hidden against her father's breast; but she lifted herhead presently, and the pale calmness of her countenance reassured him. 

"Well, it is uncommon strange, " he said, "if one so fair has no sweetheartamong all the sparks of Whitehall. "

"Lord Fareham hates Whitehall. We have only attended there at greatfestivals, when my sister's absence would have been a slight upon herMajesty and the Duchess. "

"But my star, though seldom shining there, should have drawn somesatellites to her orbit. You see, dearest, I can catch the note of Courtflattery. Nay, I will press no questions. My girl shall choose her ownpartner; provided the man is honest and a loyal servant of the King. Herold father shall set no stumbling-block in the high-road to her happiness. What right has one who is almost a pauper to stipulate for a wealthyson-in-law?"

CHAPTER XXIII. 

PATIENT, NOT PASSIONATE. 

The quiet days went on, and the old Cavalier settled down into a tranquilhappiness, which comforted his daughter with the feeling of dutyprosperously fulfilled. To make this dear old man happy, to be hiscompanion and friend, to share in his rides and rambles, and of an eveningto play the games he loved on the old shovel-board in the hall, or anold-fashioned game at cards, or backgammon beside the fire in the panelledparlour, reconciled her to the melancholy of an existence from which hopehad vanished like a light extinguished. It seemed to her as if she haddropped back into the old life with her great-aunt. The Manor House wasjust a little gayer than the Flemish Convent--for the voices and footstepsof the few inhabitants had a freer sound, which made the few seem morepopulous than the many. And then there were the dogs. What a powerfulfactor in home life those four-footed friends were! Out-of-doors a stonebarn had been turned into a kennel for five couple of foxhounds; indoors acouple of setters, sent by a friend over sea from Waterford, had insinuatedthemselves into the parlour, where they established themselves as householdfavourites, to the damage of those higher hereditary qualities which fittedthem for distinction with the guns. Indeed, the old Knight was too fond ofhis fireside companions to care very much if he missed a bird now and thenbecause Cataline was over-fed or Caesar disobedient. They stood sentinel oneach side of his chair at dinner, like supporters to a coat-of-arms. Angelahad her own particular favourite in a King Charles's spaniel. It was thevery dog which had first greeted her in the silence of the plague-strickenhouse. She had chosen this one from the canine troop when her sisteroffered her the gift of a dog at parting, though Hyacinth had urged her totake something younger than this, which was over five years old. 

"He will die just when you love him best, " she said. 

"Nay; but such partings must come. I love this one because he was with mein fear and sadness. He used to cling to me, and look up and lick my face, as if he were telling me to hope, when my brother seemed marked for death. "

"Poor Fareham! Did you desire every dog in the house--and my spaniels areof the same breed as the King's, and worth fifty pound apiece--you havea right to take them. But, indeed, I would rather you chose a youngerdog--and with a shorter nose; but, of course, if you like this onebest----"

Angela held by her first choice, and Ganymede was the companion of all herhours, walked and lived with her, and slept on a satin cushion at the footof her spacious four-post bed, and fretted and whined if she left him shutin an empty room for half an hour; yet with all his refinements, and hisair of being as dainty a gentleman as any spark of quality, he had a grosspassion for the kitchen, and after nibbling sweet cakes delicately outof his mistress's taper fingers, he would waddle through a labyrinth ofpassages, and find his way to the hog-tub, there to wallow in slush andbroken victuals, till he all but drowned himself in a flood of pot-liquor. It was hard to reconcile so much beauty and grace, such eloquent eyes andsatin coat, with tastes and desires so vulgar; and Angela sighed over himwhen a scullion brought him to her, greasy and penitent, to crouch at herfeet, and deprecate her disgust with an abject tail. 

Oh, tranquil, duteous life, how fair it might have seemed, as springadvanced, and the garden smiled with the promise of summer, were it not forthat aching sense of loss, the some one missing, whose absence made allthings grey and cold!

Yes, she knew now, fully realising as she had never done before, how longand how utterly her life had been influenced by an affection which even tocontemplate was mortal sin. Yet to extinguish memory was not within herpower. She looked back and remembered how Fareham's protecting love hadenfolded her with its gentle warmth, in those happy days at Chilton; howall she knew of poetry and the drama, of ethics and philosophy, had beenlearnt from him. She recalled his evident delight in opening the richtreasures of a mind which he had never ceased to cultivate, even amidst thevicissitudes of a soldier's life, in making her familiar with the writershe loved, and teaching her to estimate, and to discuss them. And inall their talk together he had been for the most part careful to avoiddisparagement of the religion in which she believed--so that it was onlysome chance revelation of the infidel's narrow outlook that reminded her ofhis unbelief. 

Yes, his love had been round her like an atmosphere; and she had beenexquisitely happy while that unquestioning affection was hers. On her partthere had been neither doubt nor fear. It seemed the most natural thing inthe world that he should be fond of her and she of him. Affinity had madethem brother and sister; and then they had been together in sickness and inperil of death. It might be true, as he himself had affirmed, that herso happy arrival had saved his life; since just those hours between thedeparture of his attendants and the physician's evening visit may have beenthe crisis of his disease. 

Well, it was past--the exquisite bliss, the unconscious sin, theconfidence, the danger. All had vanished into the grave of irrecoverabledays. 

She had heard nothing from Denzil since she left London, nor had sheacknowledged his letter. Her silence had doubtless angered him, and allwas at an end between them, and this was what she wished. Hyacinth and herchildren were at Chilton, whence came letters of complaining against thedulness of the country, where his lordship hunted four times a week, andspent all the rest of his time in his library, appearing only "at ourstupid heavy meals; and that not always, since on his hunting days he isfar afield when I have to sit down to the intolerable two-o'clock dinner, and make a pretence of eating--as if anybody with more intellectuals thana sheep could dine; or as if appetite came by staring at green fields! Youremember how in London supper was the only meal I ever cared for. Thereis some grace in a repast that comes after conversation and music, or thetheatre, or a round of visits--a table dazzling with lights, and men andwomen ready to amuse, and be amused. But to sit down in broad daylight, when one has scarce swallowed one's morning chocolate, and face asweltering sirloin, or open a smoking veal pie! Indeed, dearest, our wholemethod of feeding smacks of a vulgar brutishness, more appropriate to acompany of Topinambous than to persons of quality. Why, oh, why must thesereeking hecatombs load our tables, when they might as easily be kept out ofsight upon a buffet? The spectacle of huge mountains of meat, the steam andodour of rank boiled and roast under one's very nostrils, change appetiteto nausea, and would induce a delicate person to rise in disgust and flyfrom the dining-room. Mais, je ne fais que divaguer; and almost forget whatit was I was so earnest to tell thee when I began my letter. 

"Sir Denzil Warner has been over here, his ostensible motive a civilinquiry after my health; but I could see that his actual purpose was tohear of you. I told him how happily your simple soul has accommodateditself to an almost conventual seclusion, and a very inferior style ofliving--whereupon he smiled his rapture, and praised you to the skies. 'Would that she could accommodate herself to my house as easily, ' he said;'she should have every indulgence that an adoring husband could yield her. 'And then he said much more, but as lovers always sing the same repetitivesong, and have no more strings to their lyre than the ancients had beforeMercury expanded it, I confess to not listening over carefully, and willleave you to imagine the eloquence of a manly and honourable love. Ah, sweetheart! you do wrong to reject him. Thou hast a quiet soothingprettiness of thine own, but art no blazing star of beauty, like theStewart, to bring a King to thy feet--he would have married her if poorCatherine had not disappointed him by her recovery--and to take a Duke as_pis aller_. Believe me, love, it were wise of you to become Lady Warner, with an unmortgaged estate, and a husband who, in these Republican times, may rise to distinction. He is your only earnest admirer; and a love sosteadfast, backed by a fortune so respectable, should not be discardedlightly. "

Over all these latter passages in her sister's letter Angela's eye ranwith a scornful carelessness. Her womanly pride revolted at such pettyschooling--that she should be bidden to accept this young man gratefully, because he was her only suitor. No one else had ever cared for her paleinsignificance. She looked at her clouded image in the oblong glass thathung on the panel above her secrétaire, and whose reflection made anyidea of her own looks rather speculative than precise. It showed her athoughtful face, too pale for beauty; yet she could but note the harmony oflines which recalled that Venetian type familiar to her eye in the Titiansand Tintorets at Fareham House. 

"I doubt I am good-looking enough for any one to be satisfied with theoutward semblance who valued the soul within, " she thought, as she turnedfrom the glass with a mournful sigh. 

It was not of Denzil she was thinking, but of that other who in slowcontemplative days in the library where he had taught her what booksshe ought to love, and where she might never more enter, must naturallysometimes remember her, and cast some backward thoughts to the hours theyhad spent together. 

Hyacinth's letter of matronly counsel was but a week old when SirJohn surprised his daughter one morning, as they sat at table, by theannouncement of a visitor to stay in the house. 

"You will order the west room to be got ready, Angela, and bid Marjory Cookserve us some of her savourest dishes while Sir Denzil stays here. "

"Sir Denzil!"

"Yes, ma mie, Sir Denzil! Ventregris, the girl stares as if I had said SirBevis of Southampton, or Sir Guy of Warwick! I knew this young gentleman'sfather before the troubles--an honest man, though he took the wrong side Hepaid for his perversity with his life; so we'll say requiescat. The youngman is a fine young man, whom I would fain have something nearer to me thanhe is. So at a hint from your sister I have asked him to bring his fishingtackle and whip our streams for a May trout or two. He may catch a finerfish than trout, perhaps, while he is a-fishing; if you will be his guidethrough the meadows. "

"Father, how could you----"

"Ah! thou art a sly one, fair mistress. Who was it told me there was noone? 'No one, dear father, and indeed, sir, I was thinking of the conventwhen you came to London, ' while here was as handsome a spark as one wouldmeet in a day's march, sighing and dying for you. "

"Father, I do protest to you----" she began, with a pale distressed lookthat vouched for her earnestness; but the Knight had his face in thetankard, and set it down only to pursue his own train of thought. 

"If it had not have been for that little bird at Chilton you might havehoodwinked me as blind as ever gerfalcon was hooded. Well, the young manwill be here before evening. I would not force your inclinations, but it isthe dearest desire of my heart to see you happily married before I blow outthe candle, and bid my last good night. And a man of honour, handsome andof handsomest fortune, is not to be slighted. "

Angela's spirit rose against this recurrence of her sister's sermon. 

"If Sir Denzil is coming to this house as my suitor, I will go to Louvainwithout an hour's delay that I can help, " she said resolutely. 

"Why, what a vixen! Nay, dearest, there is no need for that angry flush. The young man is too courteous to plague you with unwelcome civilities. I saw him in London at the tennis court, and was friendly to him for hisfather's memory, knowing nothing of his desire to be my son-in-law. He is afine player at that royal game, and a fine man. He comes here this eveningas my friend; and if you please to treat him disdainfully, I cannot helpit. But, indeed, I wonder as much as your sister why you should notreciprocate this gentleman's love. "

"When you were young, father, did you love the first comer; only becauseshe was handsome and civil?"

"No, child; I had seen many handsome women before I met your mother. Shecame over in '35 with the Marquise, who had been lady of honour to QueenMarie before the Princess Henriette married our King, and Queen Henriettewas fond of her, and invited her to come to London, and she divided herlife between the two countries till the troubles, when she was one of thefirst to scamper off, as you know. My wife was little more than a childwhen I saw her at Court, hiding behind her mother's large sleeves. I hadseen handsomer women; but she was the first whose face went straight tomy heart. And it has dwelt there ever since, " he concluded, with a suddenbreak in his voice. 

"Then you can comprehend, dear sir, that a man may be honourable, andcourteous, and handsome, and yet not win a woman's love. "

"Ah, it is not the man; it is love that should win, sweetheart. Love isworthy of love. When that is the true coin it should buy its reward. IndeedI have rarely seen it otherwise. Love begets love. Louise de la Vallière isnot the handsomest woman at the French Court. Her complexion has sufferedfrom small-pox, and she has a defective gait; but the King discovered a sofond and romantic attachment to his person, a love ashamed of loving, thevery poetry of affection; and that discovery made him her slave. The Courtbeauties--sultanas splendid as Vashti--look on in angry wonder. Louise isadored because she began by adoring. Mind, I do not praise or excuse her, for 'tis a mortal sin to love a married man, and steal him from his wife. Foolish child, how your cheek crimsons! I do wrong to shock your innocencewith my babble of a King's mistress. "

Denzil arrived at sunset, on horseback, with a mounted servant inattendance, carrying his saddle-bags and fishing tackle. It was but a shortday's ride from Oxford. Fareham's rides with the hounds must have broughthim sometimes within a few miles of the Manor Moat Hyacinth and herchildren might have ridden over in their coach; and indeed she had promisedher sister a visit in more than one of her letters. But there had beenalways something to postpone the expedition--company at home, or badweather, or a fit of the vapours--so that the sisters had been as muchasunder as if the elder had been in Yorkshire or Northumberland. 

Denzil brought news of the household at Chilton. Lady Fareham was ascharming as ever, and though she had complained very often of bad health, she had been so lively and active whenever the whim took her, riding withhawk and hound, visiting about the neighbourhood, driving into Oxford, thatDenzil was of opinion her ailments were of the spirits only, a kind ofrustic malady to which most fine ladies were subject, the nostalgia ofpaving-stones and oil lamps. Henriette--she now insisted upon discardingher nick-name--was less volatile than in London, and missed her auntsorely, and quarrelled with mademoiselle, who was painfully strict upon allpoints of speech and manners. George's days of unalloyed idleness were alsoended, for the Roman Catholic priest was now a resident in the house asthe little boy's tutor, besides teaching 'Henriette the rudiments, andinstructing her in her mother's religion. 

Denzil told them even of the guests he had met at the Abbey; but of themaster of the house his lips spoke not, till Sir John questioned him. 

"And Fareham? Has he that same air of not belonging to the family which Iremarked of him in London?"

"His lordship has ever an air of being aloof from everybody, " Denzilanswered gravely. "He is solitary even in his sports, and his indoor lifeis mostly buried in a book. "

"Ah, those books, they will be the ruin of nations! As books multiply, great actions will grow less. Life's golden hours will be wasted indreaming over the fancies of dead men; and the world will be over-full ofbrooding philosophers like Descartes, or pamphleteers like your friend Mr. Milton. "

"Nay, sir, the world is richer for such a man as John Milton, who hascomposed the grandest poem in our language--an epic on a scale and subjectas sublime as the Divine Comedy of Dante. "

"I never saw Mr. Dante's comedy acted, and confess myself ignorant of itsmerits. "

"Comedy, sir, with Dante, is but a name. The Italian poem is an epic, andnot a play. Mr. Milton's poem will be given to the world shortly, though, alas! he will reap little substantial reward for the intellectual labourof years. Poetry is not a marketable commodity in England, save when itflatters a royal patron, or takes the vulgarer form of a stage-play. Butthis poem of Mr. Milton's has been the solace of his darkened life. Youhave heard, perhaps, of his blindness?"

"Yes, he had to forego his office as Latin Secretary to that villain. To mymind the decay of sight was a judgment upon him for having written againsthis murdered King, even to the denial of his Majesty's own account of hissufferings. But I confess that even if the man had been a loyal subject, I have little admiration for that class; scribblers and pamphleteers, brooders over books, crouchers in the chimney-corner, who have nevertrailed a pike or slept under the open sky. And seeing this vast increaseof book-learning, and the arising of such men as Hobbes, to question ourreligion--and Milton to assail monarchy--I can but believe those whosay that this old England has taken the downward bent; that, as we aredwindling in stature, so we are decaying in courage and capacity foraction. "

Denzil listened respectfully to the old man's disquisitions over hismorning drink; while Reuben stood at the sideboard carving a ham or around of powdered beef; and while Angela sipped her chocolate out of theporcelain cup which Hyacinth had bought for her at the Middle Exchange, where curiosities from China and the last inventions from Paris were alwaysto be had before they were seen anywhere else. Nothing could be morereverential than the young man's bearing to his host, while his quietfriendliness set Angela at her ease, and made her think that he hadabandoned his suit, and henceforward aspired only to such a tranquilfriendship as they had enjoyed at Chilton before any word of love had beenspoken. 

Apart from the question of love and marriage, his presence was in no mannerdispleasing to her; indeed, the long days in that sequestered valley lostsomething of their grey monotony now that she had a companion in all herintellectual occupations. Fondly as she loved her father, she had not beenable to hide from herself the narrowness of his education and the blindprejudice which governed his ideas upon almost every subject, from politicsto natural history. Of the books which make the greater part of a solitarylife she could never talk to him; and it was here that she had so sorelymissed the counsellor and friend, who had taught her to love and tocomprehend the great poets of the past--Homer and Virgil, Dante andTasso, and the deep melancholy humour of Cervantes, and, most of all, theinexhaustible riches of the Elizabethans. 

Denzil was of a temper as thoughtful, but his studies had taken a differentdirection. He was not even by taste or apprehension a poet. Had he beencalled upon to criticise his tutor's compositions, he might, like Johnson, have objected to the metaphoric turns of Lycidas, and have missed themelody of lines as musical as the nightingale. In that great poem of whichhe had been privileged to transcribe many of the finest passages from thelips of the poet, he admired rather the heroic patience of the blindauthor than the splendour of the verse. He was more impressed by theschoolmaster's learning than by that God-given genius which lifted that oneEnglishman above every other of his age and country. No, he was eminentlyprosaic, had sucked prose and plain-thinking from his mother's breast; buthe was not the less an agreeable companion for a girl upon whose youth anunnatural solitude had begun to weigh heavily. 

All that one mind can impart to another of a widely different fibre, Denzilhad learnt from Milton in that most impressionable period of boyhood whichhe had spent in the small house in Holborn, whose back rooms looked outover the verdant spaces of Lincoln's Inn Fields, where Lord Newcastle'spalace had not yet begun to rise from its foundations, and where thesinging birds had not been scared away by the growth of the town. A theatrenow stood where the boy and a fellow-scholar had played trap and ball, and the stately houses of Queen Street hard by were alive with rank andfashion. 

In addition to the classical curriculum which Milton had taught with thesolemn earnestness of one in whom learning is a religion, Denzil hadacquired a store of miscellaneous knowledge from the great Republican;and most interesting among these casual instructions had been the closeacquaintance with nature gained in the course of many a rustic ramble inthe country lanes beyond Gray's Inn, or sauntering eastward along the banksof the limpid Lee, or in the undulating meadows beside Sir Hugh Middleton'sriver. Mixed with plain facts about plant or flower, animal or insect, Milton's memory was stored with the quaint absurdities of the Hermeticphilosophy, that curious mixture of deep-reaching theories and old women'ssuperstitions, the experience of the peasant transmuted by the imaginationof the adept. Sound and practical as the poet had ever shown himself--savewhere passion got the upper hand of common sense, as in his advocacyof divorce--he was yet not entirely free from a leaning to Baconiansuperstitions, and may, with Gesner, have believed that the pickerel weedcould engender pike, and that frogs could turn to slime in winter, andbecome frogs again in spring. Whatever rags of old-world fatuity may havelingered in that strong brain, he had been not the less a delightfulteacher, and had imparted an ardent love of nature to his little family ofpupils in that peripatetic school between hawthorn hedges or in the openfields by the Lee. 

And now, in quiet rambles with Angela, in the midst of a landscapetransfigured by that vernal beauty which begins with the waning of April, and is past and vanished before the end of May, Denzil loved to expound thewonders of the infinitesimal; the insect life that sparkled and hummed inthe balmy air, or flashed like living light among the dewy grasses; thelife of plant and flower, which seemed almost as personal and conscious aform of existence; since it was difficult to believe there was no sense ofstruggle or of joy in those rapid growths which shot out from a tangle ofdark undergrowth upward to the sunlight, no fondness in the wild vines thatclung so close to some patriarchal trunk, covering decay with thebeautiful exuberance of youth. Denzil taught her to realise the wonders ofcreation--most wonderful when most minute--for beyond the picturesqueand lovely in nature, he showed her those marvels of order, and law, andadaptation, which speak to the naturalist with a stronger language thanbeauty. 

There was a tranquil pleasure in these rustic walks, which beguiled herinto forgetfulness that this man had ever sought to be more to her than hewas now--a respectful, unobtrusive friend. Of London, and the tumultuouslife going on there, he had scarcely spoken, save to tell her that he meantto stand for Henley at the next Parliament; nor had he alluded to the pastat Chilton; nor ever of his own accord had he spoken Lord Fareham's name;indeed, that name was studiously avoided by them both; and if Denzil hadnever before suspected Angela of an unhappy preference for one whom shecould not love without sin, he might have had some cause for such suspicionin the eagerness with which she changed the drift of the conversationwhenever it approached that forbidden subject. 

From his Puritanical bringing up, the theory of self-surrender anddeprivation ever kept before him, Denzil had assuredly learnt to possesshis soul in patience; and throughout all that smiling month of May, whilehe whipped the capricious streams that wound about the valley, with Angelafor the willing companion of his saunterings from pool to pool, he neveronce alarmed her by any hint of a warmer feeling than friendship; indeed, he thought of himself sometimes as one who lived in an enchanted world, where to utter a certain fatal word would be to break the spell; andwhatever momentary impulse or passionate longing, engendered by a look, asmile, the light touch of a hand, the mere sense of proximity, might movehim to speak of his love, he had sufficient self-command to keep the fatalwords unspoken. He meant to wait till the last hour of his visit. Only whenseparation was imminent would he plead his cause again. Thus at the worsthe would have lost no happy hours of her company. And, in the mean time, since she was always kind, and seemed to grow daily more familiar and atease in his society, he dared hope that affection for him and forgetfulnessof that other were growing side by side in her mind. 

In this companionship Angela learnt many of the secrets and subtleties ofthe angler's craft, as acquired by her teacher's personal experience, orexpounded in that delightful book, then less than twenty years old, whichhas ever been the angler's gospel. Often after following the meanderingwater till a gentle weariness invited them to rest, Angela and Denzilseated themselves on a sheltered bank and read their Izaak Walton together, both out of the same volume, he pleased to point out his favourite passagesand to watch her smile as she read. 

Before May was ended, she knew old Izaak almost as well as Denzil, and hadlearnt to throw a fly, and to choose the likeliest spot and the happiesthour of the day for a good trout; had learnt to watch the clouds andcloud-shadows with an angler's keen interest; and had amused herself withthe manufacture of an artificial minnow, upon Walton's recipe, devotingcareful labour and all the resources of her embroidery basket--silks andsilver thread--to perfecting the delicate model, which, when completed, shepresented smilingly to Denzil, who was strangely moved by so childish atoy, and had some difficulty in suppressing his emotion as he held theglistening silken fish in his hands, and thought how her tapering fingershad caressed it, and how much of her very self seemed, as he watched her, to have been enwrought with the fabric. So poor, so trivial a thing; buther first gift! If she had tossed him a flower, plucked that moment, hewould have treasured it all his life; but this, which had cost her somuch careful work, was far more than any casual blossom. Something of themagnetism of her mind had passed into the silver thread drawn so daintilythrough her rosy fingers--something of the soft light in her eyes had mixedwith the blended colours of the silk. Foolish fancies these, but in thegravest man's love there is a vein of folly. 

Sometimes they rode with Sir John, and in this way explored theneighbourhood, which was rich in historical associations--some of theremote past, as when King John kept Christmas at Brill; but chiefly ofthose troubled times through which Sir John Kirkland had lived, an activeparticipator in that deadly drama. He showed them the site of the garrisonat Brill, and trod every foot of the earthworks to demonstrate how the hillhad been fortified. He had commanded in the defence against Hampden andhis greencoats--that regiment of foot raised in his pastoral shire, whosestandard bore on one side the watchword of the Parliament, "God with us, "and on the other Hampden's own device, "_Vestigia nulla retrorsum_. "

"'Twas a legend to frighten some of us, who had no Latin, " said Sir John;"but we put his bumpkin greencoats to the rout, and trampled that insolentflag in the mire. "

All was peaceful now in the hamlet on the hill. Women and children weresitting upon sunny doorsteps, with their pillows on their knees and theirbobbins moving quickly in dexterous fingers, busy at the lace-making whichhad been established in Buckinghamshire more than a century before byCatherine of Aragon, whose dowry was derived from the revenues of SteepleClaydon. The Curate had returned to the grey old church, and rural lifepursued its slumbrous course, scarce ruffled by rumours of maritime war, or plague, or fire. They rode to Thame--a stage on the journey to Oxford, Angela thought, as she noted the figures on a milestone, and at a flash hermemory recalled that scene in the gardens by the river, when Fareham hadspoken for the first time of his inner life, and she had seen the manbehind the mask. She thought of her sister, so fair, so sweet, charming inher capriciousness even, yet not the woman to fill that unquiet heart, or satisfy that sombre and earnest nature. It was not by many words thatFareham had revealed himself. Her knowledge of his character and feelingswent deeper than the knowledge that words can impart. It came from thatconstant unconscious study which a romantic girl devotes to the characterof the man who first awakens her interest. 

Angela was grave and silent throughout the drive to Thame and the returnhome, riding for the most part in the rear of the two men, leaving Denzilto devote all his attention to Sir John, who was somewhat loquacious thatafternoon, stimulated by the many memories of the troubled time which theroad awakened. Denzil listened respectfully, and went never astray in hisanswers, but he looked back very often to the solitary rider who kept atsome distance to avoid the dust. 

Sometimes in the early morning they all went with the otter hounds, theKnight on horseback, Denzil and Angela on foot, and spent two or threevery active hours before breakfast in rousing the otter from his holt, andfollowing every flash of his head upon the stream, with that briskness andactive enjoyment which seem a part of the clear morning atmosphere, theinspiring breath of dewy fields and flowers unfaded by the sun. All thatthere was of girlishness in Angela's spirits was awakened by those merrymorning scampers by the margin of the stream, which had often to be fordedby the runners, with but' little heed of wet feet or splashed petticoat. The Parson and his daughters from the village of St Nicholas joined in thesport, and were invited to the morning drink and substantial breakfastafterwards, where the young ladies were lost in admiration of Angela'ssilver chocolate-pot and porcelain cups, while their clerical father ownedto a distaste for all morning drinks except such as owed their flavour andstrength to malt and hops. 

"If you had lived among green fields and damp marshes as long as I have, miss, you would know what poor stuff your chocolate is to fortify a man'sbones against ague and rheumatism. I am told the Spaniards brought it fromMexico, where the natives eat nothing else, from which comes the coppercolour of their skins. "

 * * * * *

Denzi's visit lasted over a month, during which time he rode intoOxfordshire twice, to see Lady Warner, stopping a night each time, lestthat worthy person should fancy herself neglected. 

Sir John derived the utmost pleasure from the young man's company, who borehimself towards his host with a respectful courtesy that had gone out offashion after the murder of the King, and was rarely met with in an agewhen elderly men were generally spoken of as "old puts, " and consideredproper subjects for "bubbling. "

To Denzil the old campaigner opened his heart more freely than he had everdone to any one except a brother in arms; and although he was resolute inupholding the cause of Monarchy against Republicanism, he owned to thenatural disappointment which he had felt at the King's neglect of oldfriends, and reluctantly admitted that Charles, sauntering along Pall Mallwith ruin at his heels, and the wickedest men and women in England for hischosen companions, was not a monarch to maintain and strengthen the publicidea of the divinity that doth hedge a King. 

"Of all the lessons danger and adversity can teach he has learnt butone, " said Sir John, with a regretful sigh. "He has learnt the Horatianphilosophy--to snatch the pleasures of the day, and care nothing what mayhappen on the morrow. I do not wonder that predictions of a sudden end tothis globe of ours should have been bruited about of late; for if lustand profaneness could draw down fire from heaven, London would be in asperilous a case as Gomorrah. But I doubt such particular judgments belongedbut to the infancy of this world, when men believed in a Personal God, interested in all their concerns, watchful to bless or to punish. We havenow but the God of Spinoza--a God who is in all things and everywhere aboutus, of whom this Creation in which we move is but the garment--a UniversalEssence which should govern and inform all we are and all we do; but notthe Judge and Father of His people, to be reached by prayer and touched bypity. "

"Ah, sir, our life here and hereafter is encompassed with mystery. To thinkis to be lost on the trackless ocean of doubt. The Papists have the easiestcreed, for they believe that which they are taught, and take the mysteriesof the unseen world at second hand from their Priests. A year ago, had Ibeen happy enough to win your daughter, I should have tried my hardest towean her from Rome; but I have lived and thought since then, and I havecome to see that Calvinism is a religion of despair, and that the doctrineof Predestination involves contradictions as difficult to swallow as anyfable of the Roman Church. "

"It is well that you should be prepared to let her keep her religion; forI doubt she has a stubborn affection for the creed she learnt in herchildhood. Indeed, it was but the other day she talked of the cloister; andI fear she has all the disposition to that religious prison in which hergreat aunt lived contentedly for the space of a long lifetime. But it isfor you, Denzil, to cure her of that fancy, and to spare me the pain ofseeing my best-beloved child under the black veil. "

"Indeed, sir, if a love as earnest as man ever experienced--"

"Yes, Denzil, I know you love her; and I love you almost as if you were myvery son. In the years that went by after Hyacinth was born, before thebeginning of trouble, I used to long for a son, and I am afraid I didsometimes distress my dear wife by dwelling too persistently upondisappointed hopes. And then came chaos--England in arms, a rebelliouspeople, a King put upon his defence--and I had leisure to think of none butmy royal master. And in the thick of the strife my poor lamb was born tome--the bringer of my life's great sorrow--and there was no more thought ofsons. So, you see, friend, the place in my heart and home has waited emptyfor you. Win but yonder shy dove to consent, and we shall be of one familyand of one mind, and I as happy as any broken-down campaigner in Englandcan be--content to creep to the grave in obscurity, forgotten by the Princewhose father it is my dear memory to have served. "

"You loved your King, sir, I take it, with a personal affection. "

"Ah, Denzil, we all loved him. Even the common people--led as they wereby hectoring preachers of sedition, of no more truth or honesty than themountebanks that ply their knavish trade round Henry's statue on the PontNeuf--even they, the very rabble, had their hours of loyalty. I rode withhis Majesty from Royston to Hatfield, in '47, when the people filled themidsummer air with his name, from hearts melting with love and pity. Theystrewed the ways with boughs, and strewed the boughs with roses. So greathonour has been seldom shown to a royal captive. "

"I take it that the lower class are no politicians, and loved their Kingfor his private virtues. "

"Never was monarch worthier to be so esteemed. He was a man of deepaffections, and it was perhaps his most fatal quality where he lovedto love too much. I have no grudge against that beautiful and mostaccomplished woman he so worshipped, and who was ever gracious to me; but Icannot doubt that Henrietta Maria was his evil star. She had the fire anddaring of her father, but none of his care and affection for the people. The daughter of the most beloved of kings had the instincts of a tyrant, and was ever urging her too pliant husband to unpopular measures. Shewanted to set that little jewelled shoe of hers on the neck of rebellion, when she should have held out her soft white hand to make friends of herfoes. Her beauty and her grace might have done much, had she inherited withthe pride of the Medici something of their finesse and suavity. But heloved her, Denzil, forgave all her follies, her lavish spending andwasteful splendour. 'My wife is a bad housekeeper, ' I heard him say once, when she was hanging upon his chair as he sat at the end of the Counciltable. The palace accounts were on the table--three thousand pounds fora masque--extravagance only surpassed by Nicholas Fouquet twenty yearsafterwards, when he was squandering the public money. 'My wife is a badhousekeeper, ' his Majesty said gently, and then he drew down the littleFrench museau with a caressing hand, and kissed her in the presence ofthose greybeards. "

"His son is strangely unlike him in domestic matters. "

"His son has the manners of a Frenchman and the morals of a Turk. He is adespot to his wife and a slave to his mistress. There never was greatercruelty to a woman than his Majesty's treatment of Catherine while she wasstill but a stranger in the land, and when he forced his notorious paramourupon her as her lady of honour. Of honour, quotha! There was sorry store ofhonour in his conduct. He had need feel the sting of remorse t'other daywhen the poor lady was thought to be on her death-bed--so gentle, so affectionate, so broken to the long-suffering of consort-queens, apologising for having lived to trouble him. Ned Hyde has given me thewhole story of that poor lady's subjugation, for he was behind the scenes, and in their secrets. Poor soul! Blood rushed from her ears and nostrilswhen that shameless woman was brought to her, and she was carried swooningto her chamber. And then she was sullen, and the King threatened her, andsent away all her Portuguese, save one ancient waiting woman. I grantyou they were ugly devils, fit to set in a field to frighten crows;but Catherine loved them. Royal treatment for a Christian Queen from aChristian King! Could the Sophy do worse? And presently the poor ladyyielded (as most women will, for at heart they are slavish and love to bebeaten), and after holding herself aloof for a long time--a sad, silent, neglected figure where all the rest were loud and merry--she made friendswith the lady, and even seemed to fawn upon her. "

"And now I dare swear the two women mingle their tears when Charles isunfaithful to both; or Catherine weeps while Barbara curses. That would bemore in character. Fire and not water is her ladyship's element. "

"Ah, Denzil, 'tis a curious change; and to have lived to see Buckinghammurdered, and Stafford sacrificed, and the Rebellion, and the Commonwealth, and the Restoration, and the Plague, and the Fire, and to have skirmishedin the battles of Parliaments and Princes, t'other side the Channel, andseen the tail of the Thirty Years' War, towns ruined, villages laid waste, where Tilly passed in blood and fire, is to have lived through as wild avariety of fortunes as ever madman invented in a dream. "

 * * * * *

Denzil lingered at the Manor, urged again and again by his host to stayover the day fixed for departure, and so lengthening his visit with a mostwilling submission till late in June, when the silence of the nightingalesmade sleep more possible, and the sunset was so late and the sunrise soearly that there seemed to be no such thing as night. He had made up hismind to plead for a hearing in the hour of farewell; and it may have beenas much from apprehension of that fateful hour as even from the delight ofbeing in his mistress's company that he acceded with alacrity when Sir Johndesired him to stay. But an end must come at last to all hesitations, and afamiliar verse repeated itself in his brain with the persistent iterationof cathedral chimes--

 "He either fears his fate too much, Or his desert is small, Who fears to put it to the touch, And win or lose it all. "

Sir John pushed him towards his fate with affectionate urgency. 

"Never be dastardised by a girl's refusal, man, " said the Knight, warm withhis morning draught, on that last day, when the guest's horses had beenfed for a journey, and the saddle-bags packed. "Don't let a simpleton'scoldness cow your spirits. The wench likes you; else she would scarce haveendured your long sermons upon weeds and insects, or been smiling andcontented in your company all these weeks. Take heart of grace, man; andremember that though I am no tyrannical father to drag an unwilling brideto the altar, I have all a father's authority, and will not have my dearestwishes baulked by the capricious humours of a coquette. "

"Not for worlds, sir, would I owe to authority what love cannot freelygrant--"

"Don't chop logic, Denzil. You want my daughter; and by God you shall haveher! Win her with pretty speeches if you can. If she turn stubborn sheshall have plain English from me. I have promised not to force herinclination; but if I am driven to harsh measures 'twill be for her owngood I am severe. Ventregris! What can fortune give her better than ahandsome and virtuous husband?"

Angela was in the garden when Denzil went to take leave of her. She waswalking up and down beside a long border of June flowers, screened fromrough winds by those thick walls of yew which gave such a comfortablesheltered feeling to the Manor gardens, while in front of flowers and turfthere sparkled the waters of a long pond or stew, stocked with tench andcarp, some among them as ancient and as greedy as the scaly monsters ofFontainebleau. 

The sun was shining on the dark green water and the gaudy flower-bed, and Angela's favourite spaniel was running about the grass, barking hisloudest, chasing bird or butterfly with impotent fury, since he nevercaught anything. At sight of Denzil he tore across the greensward, hissilky ears flying, and barked at him as if the young man's appearance inthat garden were an insufferable impertinence; but, on being taken up inone strong hand, changed his opinion, and slobbered the face of the foe inan ecstasy of affection. 

"Soho, Ganymede, thou knowest I bear thee a good heart, plaything and merepretence of a dog as thou art, " said Denzil, depositing their little bundleof black-and-tan flossiness at Angela's feet. 

He might have carried and nursed his mistress's favourite with pleasureduring any casual sauntering and random talk; but a man could hardly ask tohave his fate decided for good or ill with a toy spaniel in his arms. 

"My horse is at the door, Angela, and I am come to bid you good-bye, " hesaid in a grave voice. 

The words were of the simplest; but there was something in his tone thattold her all was not said. She paled at the thought of an approachingconflict; for she knew her father was against her, and that there must behard fighting. 

They walked the length of flower border and lawn in silence; and then, whenthey were furthest from the house, and from the hazard of eyes looking outof windows, he stopped suddenly, and took her unresisting hand, which laycold in his. 

"Dearest, I have kept silence through all those blessed days in which youand I have been together; but I have not left off loving you or hoping foryou. Things have changed since I spoke to you in London last winter. I havea powerful advocate now whose pleading ought to prevail with you--a fatherwhose anxious affection urges what my passionate love so ardently desires. Indeed, dear heart, if you will be kind, you can make a father and loverhappy with one breath. You have but to say 'Yes' to the prayer you knowof----"

"Alas! Denzil, I cannot. I am your true and faithful friend. If you weresick and alone--as his lordship was--I would go to you and nurse you, asyour friend and sister. If you were poor and I were rich, I would divide myfortune with you. I shall always think of you with affection--always takepleasure in your society, if you will let me; but it must be as yoursister. You have no sister, Denzil--I no brother. Why cannot we be to eachother as brother and sister?"

"Only because from the hour when your beauty and sweetness began to growinto my mind I have been your lover, and nothing else--your adoring lover. I cannot change my fervent hope for the poor name of friend. I can neveragain dare be to you what I have been in this happy season last past, unless you will let me be more than I have been. "

"Alas!"

Only that one word, with a sorrowful shake of the graceful head, coveredwith feathery ringlets in the dainty fashion of that day, so becoming inyouth, so inappropriate to advancing years, when the rich profusion ofcurls came straight from Chedreux, or some of his imitators, and baldnesswas hidden by the spoils of the dead. 

"Alas!"

No need for more than that sad dissyllable. 

"Then I am no nearer winning this dear hand than I was at Fareham House?"he said heartbrokenly, for he had built high hopes upon her kindness andwilling companionship in that Arcadian valley. 

"I told you then that I should never marry. I have not changed my mind. Inever can change. I am to be Henriette's spinster aunt. "

"And Fareham's spinster sister?" said Denzil. "I understand. We are neitherof us cured of our malady. It is my disease to love you in spite of yourdisdain. It is your disease to love where you should not. Farewell!"

He was gone before she could reply. The livid anger of his face, thedeep resentment in his voice, haunted her memory, and made life almostintolerable. 

"My sin has found me out!" she said to herself, as she paced the gardenwith the rapid steps that indicate a distempered spirit. "What right has heto pry into the depths of my mind, and ferret out all that there is of evilin my nature? Well, he goes the surest way to make me hate him. If ever hecomes here again, I will run away and hide from all who know me. I wouldrather be a farm-servant, and rise at daybreak to work in the fields, thanendure his insolence. "

She had to bear worse pain before Denzil had ridden far upon his journey;for her father came to the garden to seek her, eager to know the result ofhis _protégé's_ wooing. 

"Well, sweetheart, " he began, taking her to his bosom and kissing her. "DoI salute the future Lady Warner?"

"No, sir; I am too well content with the name I inherit to desire anyother. "

"That is gracefully said, chérie; but I want to see my ewe lamb happilywedded. Has thy sweetheart stolen away without finding courage to ask thequestion that has been on the tip of his tongue for the last six weeks?"

"He has been both importunate and impertinent, sir, and he has had hisanswer. I hope I may never see him again. "

"What! you have refused him? You must be mad!"

"No, sir; sober and sane enough to know when I am happy. I told you beforethis gentleman came here that I did not mean to marry. Surely I am not sounloving a daughter that I must be driven to take a husband, because myfather will not have me. "

"Angela, it is for your own safety and welfare I would see you married. What have you to succeed to when I am gone? An impoverished estate, in acountry that has seen such rough changes within a score of years that onedare scarcely calculate upon a prolonged time of safety, even in thissequestered valley. God only knows when cannon-balls may tear up ourfields, and bullets whistle through the copses. This Monarchy, restoredwith such a clamorous approval, may endure no longer than the Commonwealth, which was thought to be lasting. His Majesty's trivial life and grossextravagance have disgusted and alarmed some who loved him dearly, and haveset the common people questioning whether the rough rule of the Protectorwere not better than the ascendency of shameless women and dissolute men. The pageantry of Whitehall may vanish like a parchment scroll in a furnace, and Charles, who has tasted the sours of exile, may be again a wanderer, dependent on the casual munificence of foreign states; and in such an evilhour, " continued the Knight, his mind straying from the contemplation ofhis daughter's future to the memory of his own wrongs, "Charles Stuartmay remember the old puts who fought and suffered for his father, and howscurvy a recompense they had for their services. "

He reverted to Denzil's offer after a brief silence, Angela walkingdutifully by his side, prepared to suffer any harshness upon his partwithout complaining. 

"I love the young man, and he would be to me as a son, " he said; "thecomrade and support of my old age. I am poor, as the world goes now; havebut just enough to live modestly in this retreat, where life costs butlittle. He is rich, and can give you a handsome seat near your sister'smansion; and a house in London if you desire one; less splendid, doubtless, than Fareham's palace on the Thames, but more befitting the habits andmanners of an English gentleman's wife. He can give you hounds and hawks, your riding-horses, and your coach-and-six. What more, in God's name, canany reasonable woman desire?"

"Only one thing, sir. To live my own life in peace, as my conscience and myreason bid me. I cannot love Denzil Warner, though of late I have grownto like and respect him as a friend and most intelligent companion. Yourpersistence is fast changing friendship into dislike; and the very name ofthe man would speedily become hateful to me. "

"Oh, I have done!" retorted Sir John. "I am no tyrant. You must take yourown way, mistress. I can but lament that Providence gave me only twodaughters, and one of them an arrant fool. "

He left her in a huff, and had it not been for an astonishing event, whichconvulsed town and country, and suspended private interests and privatequarrels in the excitement of public affairs, she would have heard muchmore of his discontent. 

The Dutch ships were at Chatham. English men-of-war were blazing at thevery mouth of the Thames, and there was panic lest the triumphant foeshould sail their fire-ships up the river to London, besiege the Tower, relight the fire whose ashes were scarce grown cold, pillage, slaughter, destroy--as Tilly had destroyed the wretched Provinces in the religiouswar. 

Here, in this sheltered haven, amidst green fields, under the lee of theBrill, the panic and consternation were as intense as if the village of St. Nicholas were the one spot the Dutch would make for after landing; and, indeed, there were rustics who went to the placid scene where the infantThame rises in its cradle of reed and lily, half expectant of seeingNetherlandish vessels stranded among the rushes. 

The Dutch fleet was at Chatham. Ships were being sunk across the Medway, tostop the invader. 

Sheerness was to be fortified. London was in arms; and Brill rememberedits repulse of Hampden's regiment with a proud consciousness of beinginvincible. 

The Dutch fleet saved Angela many a paternal lecture; for Sir John rodepost-haste towards London, and did not return until the end of the month. 

In London he found Hyacinth, much disturbed about her husband, who hadgone as volunteer with General Middleton, and was in command of a cavalryregiment at Chatham. 

"I never saw him in such spirits as when he left me, " Lady Fareham told herfather. "I believe he is ever happiest when he breathes gunpowder. "

 * * * * *

Sir John's leave-taking had been curt and moody, for Angela's offencerankled deep in his mind; and it was as much as he could do to command hisanger, even in bidding her good-bye. 

"Did I not tell you that we live in troubled times, and that no man canforesee the coming evil, or how great our woes and distractions may be?" heasked, with a gloomy triumph. "Whoever thought to hear De Ruyter's guns atSheerness, or to see the Royal Charles led captive? Absit omen! Who knowswhat destruction may come upon that other Royal Charles, for whose safetywe pray morning and night, and who lolls across a basset-table, perhaps, with his wantons around him, while we are on our knees supplicating theCreator for him? Who knows? We may have London in flames again, and aconflagration more fatal than the last, thou obstinate wench, before thouart a week older, and every able-bodied man called away from plough andpasture to serve the King, and desolation and famine where plenty nowsmiles at us. And is this a time in which to refuse a valiant and wealthyprotector, a lover as honest as ever God made; a pious, conformingChristian, of unsullied name; a young man after my own pattern; a finehorseman and a good farmer; one who loves a pack of hounds and a well-bredhorse, a flight of hawks and a match at bowls, better than to give chase toa she-rake in the Mall, or to drink himself stark mad at a tavern in CoventGarden with debauchees from Whitehall?"

Sir John prosed and grumbled to the last moment, but could not refuse tobend down from his saddle and kiss the fair, pale face that looked at himin piteous deprecation at the moment of parting. 

"Well, keep a brave heart, Mistress Wilful. Thou art safe here yet awhilefrom Dutch marauders. I go but to find out how much truth there is in thesepanic rumours. "

She begged him not to fatigue himself with too long stages, and went backto the silent house, thankful to be alone in her despondency. She felt asif the last page in her worldly life had been written. She had to turnher thoughts backward to that quiet retreat where there would at least bepeace. She had promised her father that she would not return to the Conventwhile he wanted her at home. But was that promise to hold good if he wereto embitter her life by urging her to a marriage that would only bring herunhappiness?

She had ample leisure for thought in one summer day of a solitude soabsolute that she began to shiver in the sultry stillness of afternoon, and scarce ventured to raise her eyes from her embroidery frame, lest someshadowy presence, some ghost out of the dead past, should hover near, watching her as she sat alone in scenes where that pale spirit had beenliving flesh. The thought of all who had lived and died in that house--menand women of her own race, whose qualities of mind and person she hadinherited--oppressed her in the long hours of silent reverie. Beforeher first day of loneliness had ended, her spirits had sunk to deepestmelancholy; and in that weaker condition of mind she had begun to askherself whether she had any right to oppose her father's wishes by denyingherself to a suitor whom she esteemed and respected, and whose filialaffection would bring new sunshine into that dear father's declining years. She had noted their manner to each other during Denzil's protracted visit, and had seen all the evidences of a warm regard on both sides. She had toocomplete a faith in Denzil's sterling worth to question the reality of anyfeeling which his words and manner indicated. He was above all things aman of truth and honesty. She was roaming about the gardens with her dogtowards noon in the second day of her solitude, when across the yew hedgesshe saw white clouds of dust rising from the high-road, and heardthe clatter of hoofs and roll of wheels--a noise as of a troop ofcavalry--whereat Ganymede barked himself almost into an apoplexy, andrushed across the grass like a mad thing. 

A great cracking of whips and sound of voices, horses galloping, horsestrotting, dust enough to whiten all the hedges and greensward! Angela stoodat gaze, wondering if the Dutch were coming to storm the old house, or thecounty militia coming to garrison it. 

The Manor Moat was the destination of that clamorous troop, whoever theywere. Wheels and horses stopped sharply at the great iron gate in front ofthe house, and the bell began to ring furiously, while other dogs, withvoices that resembled Ganymede's, answered his shrill bark with evenshriller yelpings. 

Angela ran towards the gate, and was near enough to see it opened toadmit three black-and-tan spaniels, and one slim personage in a longflame-coloured brocatelle gown and a large beaver hat, who approached withstately movements, a small, pert nose held high, and rosy upper lip curledin patrician disdain of common things, while a fan of peacock's plumage, that flashed sapphire and emerald in the fierce noonday sun, was wavedslowly before the dainty face, scattering the tremulous life of summer thatbuzzed and fluttered in the sultry air. 

In the rear of this brilliant figure appeared a middle-aged person ina grey silk gown and hood, and a negro page in the Fareham livery, awaiting-woman, and a tall lackey, so many being the necessary adjuncts tothe Honourable Henrietta Maria Revel's state when she went abroad. 

Angela ran to receive her niece with a cry of rapture, and the tall slip ofa girl in the flame-coloured frock was clasped to her aunt's heart with aruthless disregard of the beaver hat and cataract of ostrich plumage. 

"Prends garde d'abimer mon chapeau, p'tite tante, " cried Henriette, "'tisone of Lewin's Nell Gwyn hats, and cost twenty guineas, without the buckle, which I stole out of father's shoe t'other day. His lordship is so carelessabout his clothes that he wore the shoes two days and never knew there wasa buckle missing, and those lazy devils his servants never told him. Ibelieve they meant to rook him of t'other buckle. "

"Chatterer, chatterer, how happy I am to see thee! But is not your motherwith you?"

"Her ladyship is in London. Everybody of importance is scampering off toLondon; and no doubt will be rushing back to the country again if the Dutchtake the Tower; but I don't think they will while my father is able toraise a regiment. "

"And mademoiselle"--with a curtsy to the lady in grey--"has brought you allthis long way through the heat to see me?"

"I have brought mademoiselle, " Henrietta answered contemptuously, beforethe Frenchwoman had finished the moue and the shrug which with her alwayspreceded speech; "and a fine plague I had to make her come. "

"Madame will conceive that, in miladi's absence, it was a prodigiousinconvenience to order two coaches, and travel so far. His lordship's groomof the chambers is my witness that I protested against such an outrageousproceeding. "

"Two coaches!" exclaimed Angela. 

"A coach-and-six for me and my dogs and my gouvernante, and acoach-and-four for my people, " explained Henriette, who had modelled herequipage and suite upon a reminiscence of the train which attended LadyCastlemaine's visit to Chilton, as beheld from a nursery window. 

"Come, child, and rest, out of the sun; and you, mademoiselle, must needrefreshment after so long a drive. "

"Our progress through a perpetual cloud of dust and a succession of narrowlanes did indeed suggest the torments of purgatory; but the happinessof madame's gracious welcome is an all-sufficient compensation for ourfatigue, " mademoiselle replied, with a deep curtsey. 

"I was not tired in the least, " asserted Henriette. "We stopped at theCrown at Thame and had strawberries and milk. "

"_You_ had strawberries and milk, mon enfant. I have a digestion which willnot allow such liberties. "

"And our horses were baited, and our people had their morning drink, " saidHenriette, with her grown-up air. "One ought always to remember cattle andservants. May we put up our horses with you, auntie? We must leave you soonafter dinner, so as to be at Chilton by sunset, or mademoiselle willbe afraid of highwaymen, though I told Samuel and Peter to bring theirblunderbusses in case of an attack. Ma'amselle has no valuables, and at theworst I should but have to give them my diamond buckle, and my locket withhis lordship's portrait. "

Angela's cheeks flushed at that chance allusion to Fareham's picture. Itbrought back a vision of the Convent parlour, and she standing there withFareham's miniature in her hand, wonderingly contemplative of the dark, strong face. At that stage of her life she had seen so few men's faces;and this one had a power in it that startled her. Did she divine, by somesupernatural foreknowledge, that this face held the secret of her destiny?

She went to the house, with Henriette's lissom form hanging upon her, andthe grey governess tripping mincingly beside them, tottering a little uponher high heels. 

Old Reuben had crept out into the sunshine, with a rustic footman followinghim, and the cook was looking out at a window in the wing where kitchen andservants' hall occupied as important a position as the dining-parlour andsaloon on the opposite side. A hall with open roof, wide double staircase, and music gallery, filled the central space between the two projectingwings, and at the back there was a banqueting-chamber or ball-room, wherein more prosperous days, the family had been accustomed to dine on allstately occasions--a room now shabby and grey with disuse. 

While the footman showed the way to the stables, Angela drew Reuben asidefor a brief consultation as to ways and means for a dinner that must be thebest the house could provide, and which might be served at two o'clock, thelater hour giving time for extra preparation. A capon, larded after theFrench fashion, a pair of trouts, the finest the stream could furnish, or acarp stewed in clary wine, and as many sweet kickshaws as cook's ingenuitycould furnish at so brief a notice. Nor were waiting-woman, lackey, andpostillions to be neglected. Chine and sirloin, pudding and beer must beprovided for all. 

"There are six men besides the black boy, " sighed Reuben; they will devourus a week's provision of butcher's meat. "

"If you have done your housekeeping, tante, let me go to your favouritesummer-house with you, and tell you my secrets. I am perishing for a_tête-à-tête!_ Ma'amselle"--with a wave of the peacock fan--"can take asiesta, and forget the dust of the road, while we converse. "

Angela ushered mademoiselle to the pretty summer-parlour, looking out upona geometrical arrangement of flower-beds in the Dutch manner. Chocolateand other light refreshments were being prepared for the travellers; butHenrietta's impatience would wait for nothing. 

"I have not driven along these detestable roads to taste your chocolate, "she protested. "I have a world to say to you: en attendant, mademoiselle, you will consider everything at your disposal in the house of mygrandfather, jusqu'à deux heures. "

She sank almost to the ground in a Whitehall curtsy, rose swift as anarrow, tucked her arm through Angela's, and pulled her out of the room, paying no attention to the governess's voluble injunctions not to exposeher complexion to the sun, or to sit in a cold wind, or to spoil her gown. 

"What a shabby old place it is!" she said, looking critically round her asthey went through the gardens. "I'm afraid you must perish with _ennui_here, with so few servants and no company to speak of. Yes"--contemplatingher shrewdly, as they seated themselves in a stone temple at the end of thebowling-green--"you are looking moped and ill. This valley air does notagree with you. Well, you can have a much finer place whenever you choose. A better house and garden, ever so much nearer Chilton. And you willchoose, won't you, dearest?" nestling close to her, after throwing off thebig hat which made such loving contact impossible. 

"I don't understand you, Henriette. "

"If you call me Henriette I shall be sure you are angry with me. "

"No, love, not angry, but surprised. "

"You think I have no right to talk of your sweetheart, because I am onlythirteen--and have scarce left off playing with babies--I have hated themfor ages, only people persist in giving me the foolish puppets. I know moreof the world than you do, auntie, after being shut in a Convent the bestpart of your life. Why are you so obstinate, ma chérie, in refusing agentleman we all like?"

"Do you mean Sir Denzil?"

"Sans doute. Have you a crowd of servants?"

"No, child, only this one. But don't you see that other people's likinghas less to do with the question than mine? And if I do not like him wellenough to be his wife----"

"But you ought to like him. You know how long her ladyship's heart has beenset on the match; you must have seen what pains she took in London to haveSir Denzil always about you. And now, after a most exemplary patience, after being your faithful servant for over a year, he asks you to be hiswife, and you refuse, obstinately refuse. And you would rather mope herewith my poor old grandfather--in abject poverty--mother says 'abjectpoverty'--than be the honoured mistress of one of the finest seats inOxfordshire. "

"I would rather do what is right and honest, my dearest It is dishonest tomarry without love. "

"Then half mother's fine friends must be dishonest, for I dare swear thatvery few of them love their husbands. "

"Henriette, you talk of things you don't know. "

"Don't know! Why, there is no one in London knows more. I am alwayslistening, and I always remember. De Malfort used to say I had a plagueylong memory, when I told him of things he had said a year ago. "

"My dear, I love you fondly, but I cannot have you talk to me of what youdon't understand; and I am sorry Sir Denzil Warner had no more courtesythan to go and complain of me to my sister. "

"He did not come to Chilton to complain. Her ladyship met him on the wayfrom Oxford in her coach. He was riding, and she called to him to cometo the coach door. It was the day after he left you, and he was lookingmiserable; and she questioned him, and he owned that his suit had beenrejected, and he had no further hope. My mother came home in a rage. Butwhy was she angry with his lordship? Indeed, she rated him as if it werehis fault you refused Sir Denzil. "

Angela sat silent, and the hand Henriette was clasping grew cold as ice. 

"Did my father bid you refuse him, aunt?" asked the girl, scrutinising heraunt's countenance, with those dark grey eyes, so like Fareham's in theirfalcon brightness. 

"No, child. Why should he interfere? It is no business of his. "

"Then why was mother so angry? She walked up and down the room in atowering passion. 'This is your doing, ' she cried. 'If she were not youradoring slave, she would have jumped at so handsome a sweetheart. This isyour witchcraft. It is you she loves--you--you--you!' His lordship stooddumb, and pointed to me. 'Do you forget your child is present?' he said. 'Iforget everything except that everybody uses me shamefully, ' she cried. 'I was only made to be slighted and trampled upon. ' His lordship madeno answer, but walked to the door in that way he ever has when he isangered--pale, frowning, silent. I was standing in his way, and he grippedme by the arm, and dragged me out of the room. I dare venture there is abruise on my arm where he held me. I know his fingers hurt me with theirgrip; and I could hear my lady screaming and sobbing as he took me away. But he would not let me go back to her. He would only send her women. 'Yourmother has an interval of madness, ' he said; 'you are best out of herpresence. ' The news of the Dutch ships came the same evening, and my fatherrode off towards London, and my mother ordered her coach, and followed anhour after. They seemed both distracted; and only because you refused SirDenzil. "

"I cannot help her ladyship's foolishness, Papillon. She has no occasionfor any of this trouble. I am her dutiful, affectionate sister; but myheart is not hers to give or to refuse. "

"But was it indeed my father's fault? Is it because you adore him that yourefused Sir Denzil?"

"No--no--no. My affection for my brother--he has been to me as abrother--can make no difference in my regard for any one else. One cannotfall in love at another's ordering, or be happy with a husband of another'schoice. You will discover that for yourself, Papillon, perhaps, when youare a woman. "

"Oh, I mean to marry for wealth and station, as all the clever women do, "said Papillon, with an upward jerk of her delicate chin. "Mrs. Lewin alwayssays I ought to be a duchess. I should like to have married the Duke ofMonmouth, and then, who knows, I might have been a Queen. The King's othersons are too young for me, and they will never have Monmouth's chance. But, indeed, sweetheart, you ought to marry Sir Denzil, and come and live nearus at Chilton. You would make us all happy. "

"Ma tres chère, it is so easy to talk--but when thou thyself art awoman----"

"I shall never care for such trumpery as love. I mean to have a grandhouse--ever so much grander than Fareham House. Perhaps I may marry aFrenchman, and have a salon, and all the wits about me on my day. I wouldmake it gayer than Mademoiselle de Scudery's Saturdays, which my governessso loves to talk of. There should be less talk and more dancing. Butlisten, p'tite tante, " clasping her arms suddenly round Angela's neck, "Iwon't leave this spot till you have promised to change your mind aboutDenzil. I like him vastly; and I'm sure there's no reason why you shouldnot love him--unless you really are his lordship's adoring slave, "emphasising those last words, "and he has forbidden you. "

Angela sat dumb, her eyes fixed on vacancy. 

"Why, you are like the lady in those lines you made me learn, who 'sat likepatience on a monument, smiling at grief. ' Dearest, why so sad? Rememberthat fine house--and the dairy that was once a chapel. You could turn itinto a chapel again if you liked, and have your own chaplain. His Majestytakes no heed of what we Papists do--being a Papist himself at heart, theysay--though poor wretches are dragged off to gaol for worshipping in aconventicle. What is a conventicle? Will you not change your mind, dearest?Answer, answer, answer!"

The slender arms tightened their caress, the pretty little brown facepressed itself against Angela's pale, cold cheek. 

"For my sake, sweetheart, say thou wilt have him. I will go to see theeevery day. "

"I have been here for months and you have not come, though I begged you ina dozen letters. "

"I have been kept at my book and my dancing lessons. Mademoiselle told herladyship that I was a monster of ignorance. I have been treated shamefully. I could not have come to-day had my lady been at home; but I would notbrook a hireling's dictation. Voyons, p'tite tante, tu seras miladi Warner. Dis, dis, que je te fasse mourir de baisers. "

She was almost stifling her aunt with kisses in the intervals of her eagerspeech. 

"The last word has been spoken, Papillon. I have sent him away--and it wasnot the first time. I had refused him before. I cannot call him back. "

"But he shall come without calling. He is your adoring slave, " criedHenriette, leaping up from the stone bench, and clapping her hands inan ecstasy. "He will need no calling. Dearest, dearest, most exquisite, delectable auntie! I am so happy! And my mother will be content. And no oneshall ever say you are my father's slave. "

"Henriette, if you repeat that odious phrase I shall hate you!"

"Now you are angry. God, what a frown! I will repeat no word that angersyou. My Lady Warner--sweet Lady Warner. I vow 'tis a prettier name thanRevel or Fareham. "

"You are mad, Henriette! I have promised nothing. "

"Yes, you have, little aunt. You have promised to drop a curtsy, and say'Yes' when Sir Denzil rides this way. You sent him away in a huff. He willcome back smiling like yonder sunshine on the water. Oh, I am so happy! Mydoing, all my doing!"

"It is useless to argue with you. "

"Quite useless. Il n'y a pas de quoi. Nous sommes d'accord. I shall beyour chief bridesmaid. You must be married in her Majesty's chapel at St. James's. The Pope will give his dispensation--if you cannot persuade Denzilto change his religion. Were he my suitor I would twist him round myfingers, " with an airy gesture of the small brown hand. 

There is nothing more difficult than to convince a child that she pleads invain for any ardently desired object. Nothing that Angela could say wouldreconcile her niece to the idea of failure; so there was no help but to lether fancy her arguments conclusive, and to change the bent of her thoughtsif possible. 

It wanted nearly an hour of dinner-time, so Angela suggested an inspectionof the home farm, which was close by, trusting that Henriette's love ofanimals would afford an all-sufficient diversion; nor was she disappointed, for the little fine lady was quite as much at home in stable and cowshed asin a London drawing-room, and spent a happy hour in making friends withthe live stock, from the favourite Hereford cow, queen of the herd, to thesmallest bantam in the poultry-yard. 

To this rustic entertainment followed dinner, in the preparation of whichbanquet Marjory Cook had surpassed herself; and Papillon, being by thistime seriously hungry, sat and feasted to her heart's content, discussingthe marrow pudding and the stewed carp with the acumen and authority of aprofessed gourmet. 

"I like this old-fashioned rustic diet, " she said condescendingly. 

She reproached her governess with not doing justice to a syllabub; butshowed herself a fine lady by her complaint at the lack of ice for herwine. 

"My grandfather should make haste and build an icehouse before nextwinter, " she drawled. "One can scarce live through this weather withoutice, " fanning herself, with excessive languor. 

"I hope, dear, thou wilt not expire on the journey home. "

The coaches were at the gate before Papillon had finished dinner, andMademoiselle was in great haste to be gone, reminding her pupil that shehad travelled so far against her will and at the hazard of angering Madamela Baronne. 

"Madame la Baronne will be enraptured when she knows what I have done toplease her, " answered Papillon, and then, with a last parting embrace, hugging her aunt's fair neck more energetically than ever, she whispered, "I shall tell Denzil. You will make us all happy. "

A cloud of dust, a clatter of hoofs, Ma'amselle's screams as the carriagerocked while she was mounting the steps, and with much cracking of whipsand swearing at horses from the postillions who had taken their fill ofhome-brewed ale, hog's harslet, and cold chine, and, lo, the brilliantvision of the Honourable Henrietta Maria and her train vanished in the dustof the summer highway, and Angela went slowly back to the long green walkbeside the fish-pond, where she was in as silent a solitude, but for alingering nightingale or two, as if she had been in the palace of thesleeping beauty. If all things slumbered not, there was at least as markeda pause in life. The Dutch might be burning more ships, and the noise ofwar might be coming nearer London with every hour of the summer day. Herethere was a repose as of the after-life, when all hopes and dreams andloves and hates are done and ended, and the soul waits in darkness andsilence for the next unfolding of its wings. 

Those hateful words, "your adoring slave, " and all that speech ofHyacinth's which the child had repeated, haunted Angela with an agonisingiteration. She had not an instant's doubt as to the scene being faithfullyreported. She knew how preternaturally acute Henriette's intellect hadbecome in the rarified atmosphere of her mother's drawing-room, howaccurate her memory, how sharp her ears, and how observant her eyes. Whatever Henriette reported was likely to be to the very letter and spiritof the scene she had witnessed. And Hyacinth, her sister, had put thisshame upon her, had spoken of her in the cruelest phrase as loving one whomit was mortal sin to love. Hyacinth, so light, so airy a creature, whom heryounger sister had ever considered as a grown-up child, had yet been shrewdenough to fathom her mystery, and to discover that secret attachment whichhad made Denzil's suit hateful to her. "And if I do not consent to marryhim she will always think ill of me. She will think of me as a wretch whotried to steal her husband's love--a worse woman than Lady Castlemaine--forshe had the King's affection before he ever saw the Queen's poor plainface. His adoring slave!"

Evening shadows were around her. She had wandered into the woods, wasslowly threading the slender cattle tracks in the cool darkness; while thatpassionate song of the nightingales rose in a louder ecstasy as the quietof the night deepened, and the young moon hung high above the edge of awooded hill. 

"His adoring slave, " she repeated, with her hands clasped above heruncovered head. 

Hateful, humiliating words! Yet there was a keen rapture in repeating them. They were true words. His slave--his slave to wait upon him in sickness andpain; to lie and watch at his door like a faithful dog; to follow him tothe wars, and clean his armour, and hold his horse, and wait in his tentto receive him wounded, and heal his wounds where surgeons failed to cure, wanting that intensity of attention and understanding which love alone cangive; to be his Bellario, asking nothing of him, hoping for nothing, hardlyfor kind words or common courtesy, foregoing woman's claim upon man'schivalry, content to be nothing--only to be near him. 

If such a life could have been--the life that poets have imagined fordespairing love! It was less than a hundred years since handsome Mrs. Southwell followed Sir Robert Dudley to Italy, disguised as a page. Butthe age of romance was past. The modern world had only laughter for suchdreams. 

That revelation of Hyacinth's jealousy had brought matters to a crisis. Something must be done, Angela told herself, and quickly, to set herright with her sister, and in her own esteem. She had to choose between aloveless marriage and the Convent. By accepting one or the other she mustprove that she was not the slave of a dishonourable love. 

Marriage or the Convent? It had been easy, contemplating the step from adistance, to choose the Convent. But when she thought of it, to-night, amidthe exquisite beauty of these woods, with the moonlit valley lying at herfeet, the winding streams reflecting that silvery light, or veiled in apale haze--to-night, in the liberty and loveliness of the earth, the visionof Convent walls filled her with a shuddering horror. To be shut in thatFlemish garden for ever; her life enclosed within the straight lines ofthat long green alley leading to a dead wall, darkened over by flowerlessivy. How witheringly dull the old life showed, looking back at it afteryears of freedom and enjoyment, action and variety. No, no, no! She couldnot bury herself alive, could not forego the liberty to wander in a woodlike this, to gaze upon scenes as beautiful as yonder valley, to read thepoets she loved, to see, perhaps, some day those romantic scenes whichshe knew but as dreams--Florence, Vallombrosa--to follow the footsteps ofMilton, to see the Venice she had read of in Howell's Letters, to kneel atthe feet of the Holy Father, in the City of Cities. All these things wouldbe for ever forbidden to her if she chose the common escape from earthlysorrow. 

She thought of her whose example had furnished the theme of many adiscourse at the Convent, Mazarin's lovely niece, the Princess de Conti, who, in the bloom of early womanhood, was awakened from the dream of thislife to the reality of Heaven, and had renounced the pleasures of the mostbrilliant Court in the world for the severities of Port Royal. She thoughtof that sublime heretic Ferrar, whose later existence was one long prayer. Of how much baser a clay must she be fashioned when her too earthly heartclung so fondly to the loveliness of earth, and shrank with aversion fromthe prospect of a long life within those walls where her childhood had beenso peaceful and happy. 

"How changed, how changed and corrupted this heart has become!" shemurmured, in her dejection, "when that life which was once my most ardentdesire now seems to me worse than the grave. Anything--any life of duty inthe world, rather than that living death. "

She was in the garden next morning at six, after a sleepless night, andshe occupied herself till noon in going about among the cottagers carryingthose small comforts which she had been in the habit of taking them, andlistening patiently to those various distresses which they were very gladto relate to her. She taught the children, and read to the sick, andwas able in this round of duties to keep her thoughts from dwelling toopersistently upon her own trouble. After the one o'clock dinner, at whichshe offended old Reuben by eating hardly anything, she went for a woodlandramble with her dogs, and it was near sunset when she returned to thehouse, just in time to see two road-stained horses being led away from thehall door. 

Sir John had come home. She found him in the dining parlour, sitting gloomyand weary looking before the table where Reuben was arranging a hasty meal. 

"I have eaten nothing upon the road, yet I have but a poor stomach foryour bacon-ham, " he said, and then looked up at his daughter with a moodyglance, as she went towards him. 

"Dear sir, we must try to coax your appetite when you have rested a little. Let me unbuckle your spurs and pull off your boots, while Reuben fetchesyour easiest shoes. "

"Nay, child, that is man's work, not for such fingers as yours. The bootsare nowise irksome--'tis another kind of shoe that pinches, Angela. "

She knelt down to unbuckle the spur-straps, and while on her knees shesaid--

"You look sad, sir. I fear you found ill news at London. "

"I found such shame as never came before upon England, such confusion asonly traitors and profligates can know; men who have cheated and lied andwasted the public money, left our fortresses undefended, our ships unarmed, our sailors unpaid, half-fed, and mutinous; clamorous wives crying aloud inthe streets that their husbands should not fight and bleed for a King whostarved them. They have clapped the scoundrel who had charge of the Yard atChatham in the Tower--but will that mend matters? A scapegoat, belike, tosuffer for higher scoundrels. The mob is loudest against the Chancellor, who I doubt is not to blame for our unreadiness, having little power oflate over the King. Oh, there has been iniquity upon iniquity, and men knownot whom most to blame--the venal idle servants, or the master of all. "

"You mean that men blame his Majesty?"

"No, Angela. But when our ships were blazing at Chatham, and the Dutchtriumphing, the cry was 'Oh, for an hour of old Noll!' Charles has playedhis cards so that he has made the loyalest hearts in England wish theBrewer back again. They called him the Tiger of the Seas. We have no tigersnow, only asses and monkeys. Why, there was scarce a grain of sense left inLondon. The beat of the drums calling out the train-bands seemed to havestupefied the people. Everywhere madness and confusion. They have sunktheir richest argosies at Barking Creek to block the river; but the Dutchbreak chains, ride over sunken ships, laugh our petty defences to scorn. "

"Dear sir, this confusion cannot last. "

"It will last as long as the world's history lasts. Our humiliation willnever be forgotten. "

"But Englishmen will not look on idle. There must be brave men up in arms. "

"Oh, there are brave men enough--Fairfax, Ingoldsby, Bethell, Norton. ThePresbyterians come to the front in our troubles. Your brother-in-law iswith Lord Middleton. There is no lack of officers; and regiments are beingraised. But our merchant-ships, which should be quick to help us, hangback. Our Treasury is empty, and half the goldsmiths in London arebankrupt. And our ships that are burnt, and our ships that are taken, willnot be conjured back again. The _Royal Charles_ carried off with insultingtriumph! Oh, child, it is not the loss that galls; it is the dishonour!"

He took a draught of claret out of the tankard which Angela placed at hiselbow, and she carved the ham for him, and persuaded him to eat. 

"Is it the public misfortune that troubles you so sadly, sir?" she asked, presently, when her father flung himself back in his chair with a heavysigh. 

"Nay, Angela, I have my peck of trouble without reckoning the ruin of mycountry. But my back is broad. It can bear a burden as well as any. "

"Do you count a disobedient daughter among your cares, sir?"

"Disobedient is too harsh a word. I told you I would never force yourinclinations. But I have an obstinate daughter, who has disappointed me, and well-nigh broken my spirit. "

"Your spirit shall not rest broken if my obedience can mend it, sir, " shesaid gently, dropping on her knees beside his chair. 

"What! has that stony heart relented! Wilt thou marry him, sweetheart? Wiltgive me a son as well as a daughter, and the security that thou wilt besafe and happy when I'm gone?"

"No one can be sure of happiness, father; it comes strangely, and goes weknow not why. But if it will make your heart easier, sir, and Denzil bestill of the same mind----"

"His mind his rock, dearest. He swore to me that he could never change. Ah, love, you have made me happy! Let the fleet burn, the _Royal Charles_fly Dutch colours. Here, in this quiet valley, there shall be a peacefulhousehold and united hearts. Angela, I love that youth! Fareham, with allhis rank and wealth, has never been so dear to me. That black visagerepels love. But Denzil's countenance is open as the day. I can say 'NuncDimittis' with a light heart. I can trust Denzil Warner with my daughter'shappiness. "

CHAPTER XXIV. 

"QUITE OUT OF FASHION. "

Denzil received the good news by the hands of a mounted messenger in thefollowing forenoon. 

The Knight had written, "Ride--ride--ride!" in the Elizabethan style, onthe cover of his letter, which contained but two brief sentences--

"Womanlike, she has changed her mind. Come when thou wilt, dear son. "

And the son-in-law-to-be lost not an hour. He was at the Manor beforenight-fall. He was a member of the quiet household again, subservient tohis mistress in everything. 

"There are some words that must needs be spoken before we are agreed, "Angela said, when they found themselves alone for the first time, in thegarden, on the morning after his return, and when Denzil would fain havetaken her to his breast and ratified their betrothal with a kiss. "I thinkyou know as well as I do that it is my father's wish that has made mechange. "

"So long as you change not again, dear, I am of all men the happiest. Yes, I know 'tis Sir John's wooing that won you, not mine. And that I havestill to conquer your heart, though your hand is promised me. Yet I do notdespair of being loved in as full measure as I love. My faith is strong inthe power of an honest affection. "

"You may at least be sure of my honesty. I profess nothing but the desireto be your true and obedient wife----"

"Obedient! You shall be my empress. "

"No, no. I have no wish to rule. I desire only to make my father happy, andyou too, sir, if I can. "

"Ah, my soul, that is so easy for you. You have but to let me live in yourdear company. I doubt I would rather be miserable with you than happy withany other woman. Ill-use me if you will; play Zantippe, and I will be moresubmissive than Socrates. But you are all mildness--perfect Christian, perfect woman. You cannot miss being perfect as wife--and----"

Another word trembled on his lips; but he checked himself lest he shouldoffend, and the speech ended in a sob. 

"My Angela, my angel!"

He took her to his heart, and kissed the fair brow, cold under hispassionate kisses. That word "angel" turned her to ice. It conjured backthe sound of a voice that it was sin to remember. Fareham had called herso; not once, but many times, in their placid days of friendship, beforethe fiery breath of passion had withered all the flowers in her earthlyparadise--before the knowledge of evil had clouded the brightness of theworld. 

A gentle peace reigned at the Manor after Angela's betrothal. Sir John washappier than he had been since the days of his youth, before the comingof that cloud no bigger than a man's hand, when John Hampden's stubbornresistance of a thirty-shilling rate had brought Crown and People face toface upon the burning question of Ship-money, and kindled the fire that wasto devour England. From the hour he left his young wife to follow the Kingto Yorkshire Sir John's existence had known little of rest or of comfort, or even of glory. He had fought on the losing side, and had missed thefame of those who fell and took the rank of heroes by an untimely death. Hardship and danger, wounds and sickness, straitened means and scanty fare, had been his portion for three bitter years; and then had come a period ofpatient service, of schemes and intrigues foredoomed to failure; of goingto and fro, from Jersey to Paris, from Paris to Ireland, from Irelandto Cornwall, journeying hither and thither at the behest of a shifty, irresolute man, or a passionate, imprudent woman, as the case might be; nowfrom the King to the Queen, now from the Queen to this or that ally; futileerrands, unskilful combinations, failure on every hand, till the last fataljourney, on which he was an unwilling attendant, the flight from HamptonCourt to Titchfield, when the fated King broke faith with his enemies in anunfinished negotiation. 

Foreign adventure had followed English hardships, and the soldier hadbeen tossed on the stormy sea of European warfare. He had been graciouslyreceived at the French Court, but only to feel himself a stranger there, and to have his English clothes and English accent laughed at by Gramontand Bussy, and the accomplished St. Évremond, and the frivolous herd oftheir imitators; to see even the Queen, for whom he had spent hislast jacobus, smile behind her fan at his bévues, and whisper to hersister-in-law while he knelt to kiss the little white hand that had led aKing to ruin. Everywhere the stern Malignant had found himself outside thecircle of the elect. At the Hôtel de Rambouillet, in the splendid houses ofthe newly built Place Royale, in the salons of Duchesses, and the tavernsof courtly roysterers and drunken poets, at Cormier's, or at the PineApple, in the Rue de la Juiverie, where it was all the better for aChristian gentleman not to understand the talk of the wits that flashed anddrank there. Everywhere he had been a stranger and aloof. It was only undercanvas, in danger and privation, that he lost the sense of being onetoo many in the world. There John Kirkland found his level, shoulder toshoulder with Condé and Turenne. The stout Cavalier was second to nosoldier in Louis' splendid army; was of the stamp of an earlier race even, better inured to hardship than any save that heroic Prince, the Achillesof his day, who to the graces of a modern courtier joined the temper of anancient Greek. 

His daughter Hyacinth had given him the utmost affection which such anature could give; but it was the affection of a trained singing-bird, ora pug-nosed spaniel; and the father, though he admired her beauty, and waspleased with her caresses, was shrewd enough to perceive the lightnessof her disposition and the shallowness of her mind. He rejoiced in hermarriage with a man of Fareham's strong character. 

"I have married thee to a husband who will know how to rule a wife, " hetold her on the night of her wedding. "You have but to obey and to behappy; for he is rich enough to indulge all your fancies, and will notcomplain if you waste the gold that would pay a company of foot on thedecoration of your poor little person. "

"The tone in which you speak of my poor little person, sir, can but remindme how much I need the tailor and the milliner, " answered Hyacinth, dropping her favourite curtsy, which she was ever ready to practise at theslightest provocation. 

"Nay, petite chatte, you know I think you the loveliest creature at SaintGermain or the Louvre, far surpassing in beauty the Cardinal's niece, whohas managed to set young Louis' heart throbbing with a boyish passion. ButI doubt you bestow too much care on the cherishing of a gift so fleeting. "

"You have said the word, sir. 'Tis because it is so fleeting I must needstake care of my beauty. We poor women are like the butterflies and theroses. We have as brief a summer. You men, who value us only for ouroutward show, should pardon some vanity in creatures so ephemeral. "

"Ephemeral scarce applies to a sex which owns such an example as yourgrandmother, who has lived to reckon her servants among the grandsons ofher earliest lovers. "

"Not lived, sir! No woman lives after thirty. She can but exist, and dreamthat she is still admired. La Marquise has been dead for the last twentyyears, but she won't own it. Ah, sir, c'est un triste supplice to _havebeen_! I wonder how those poor ghosts can bear that earthly purgatory whichthey call old age? Look at Madame de Sablé, par exemple, once a beauty, nowonly a tradition. And Queen Anne! Old people say she was beautiful, andthat Buckingham risked being torn by wild horses--like Ravaillac--onlyto kiss her hand by stealth in a moonlit garden; and would have plungedEngland in war but for an excuse to come back to Paris. Who would go to warfor Anne's haggard countenance nowadays?"

Even in Lady Fareham's household the Cavalier soon began to fancy himselfan inhabitant too much; a dull, grey ghost from a tragical past. He couldnot keep himself from talking of the martyred King, and those bitter yearsthrough which he had followed his master's sinking fortunes. He toldstories of York and of Beverley; of the scarcity of cash which reduced hisMajesty's Court to but one table; of that bitter affront at Coventry; ofthe evil omens that had marked the raising of the Standard on the hill atNottingham, and filled superstitious minds with dark forebodings, remindingold men of that sad shower of rain that fell when Charles was proclaimed atWhitehall, on the day of his accession, and of the shock of earthquake onhis coronation day; of Edgehill and Lindsey's death; of the profligateconduct of the Cavalier regiments, and the steady, dogged force of theirpsalm-singing adversaries; of Queen Henrietta's courage, and beauty, andwilfulness, and her fatal influence upon an adoring husband. 

"She wanted to be all that Buckingham had been, " said Sir John, "forgettingthat Buckingham was the King's evil genius. "

That lively and eminently artificial society of the Rue de Touraine soonwearied of Sir John's reminiscences. King Charles's execution had recededinto the dim grey of history. He might as well have told them anecdotesof Cinq Mars, or of the great Henri, or of Moses or Abraham. Life wenton rapid wheels in patrician Paris. They had Condé to talk about, andMazarin's numerous nieces, and the opera, that new importation from Italy, which the Cardinal was bringing into fashion; while in the remote past ofhalf a dozen years back the Fronde was the only interesting subject, andeven that was worn threadbare; the adventures of the Duchess, the conductof the Prince in prison, the intrigues of Cardinal and Queen, Mademoiselle, yellow-haired Beaufort, duels of five against five--all--all these wereancient history as compared with young Louis and his passion for Marie deMancini, and the scheming of her wily uncle to marry all his nieces toreigning princes or embryo kings. 

And then the affectations and conceits of that elegant circle, the sonnetsand madrigals, the "bouts-rimés, " the practical jokes, the logic-choppingand straw-splitting of those ultra-fine intellects, the romances where thepersonages of the day masqueraded under Greek or Roman or Oriental aliases, books written in a flowery language which the Cavalier did not understand, and full of allusions that were dark to him; while not to know andappreciate those master-works placed him outside the pale. 

He rejoiced in escaping from that overcharged atmosphere to the tavern, tothe camp, anywhere. He followed the exiled Stuarts in their wanderings, paid his homage to the Princess of Orange, roamed from scene to scene, astranger and one too many wherever he went. 

Then came the hardest blow of all--the chilling disillusion that awaitedmany of Charles's faithful friends, who were not of such politicalimportance as to command their recompense. Neglect and forgetfulness wereSir John Kirkland's portion; and for him and for such as he that causticdefinition of the Act of Indemnity was a hard and cruel truth. It was anAct of Indemnity for the King's enemies and of oblivion for his friends. Sir John's spirits had hardly recovered from the bitterness of disappointedaffection when he came back to the old home, though his chagrin was sevenyears old. But now, in his delight at the alliance with Denzil Warner, heseemed to have renewed his lease of cheerfulness and bodily vigour. He rodeand walked about the lanes and woods with erect head and elastic limbs. Heplayed bowls with Denzil in the summer evenings. He went fishing with hisdaughter and her sweetheart. He revelled in the simple rustic life, andtold them stories of his boyhood, when James was King, and many a queerstory of that eccentric monarch and of the rising star, George Villiers. 

"Ah, what a history that was!" he exclaimed. "His mother trained him as ifwith a foreknowledge of that star-like ascendency. He was schooled to shineand dazzle, to excel all compeers in the graces men and women admire. Idoubt she never thought of the mind inside him, or cared whether he had aheart or a lump of marble behind his waist-band. He was taught neither tothink nor to pity--only to shine; to be quick with his tongue in half adozen languages, with his sword after half a dozen modes of fence. He couldkill his man in the French, or the Italian, or the Spanish manner. He wascosmopolitan in the knowledge of evil. He had every device that can make aman brilliant and dangerous. He mounted every rung of the ladder, leapingfrom step to step. He ascended, swift as a shooting star, from plaincountry gentleman to the level of princes. And he expired with anejaculation, astonished to find himself mortal, slain in a moment by thethrust of a ten-penny knife. I remember as if it were yesterday how menlooked and spoke when the news came to London, and how some said thismurder would be the saving of King Charles. I know of one man at least whowas glad. "

"Who was he, sir?" asked Denzil. 

"He who had the greatest mind among Englishmen--Thomas Wentworth. Buckingham had held him at a distance from the King, and his strongpassionate temper was seething with indignation at being kept aloof bythat silken sybarite--an impotent General, a fatal counsellor. After theFavourite's death there came a time of peace and plenty. The pestilence hadpassed, the war was over. Charles was happy with his Henriette and theirlovely children. Wentworth was in Ireland. The Parliament House stood stilland empty, doors shut, swallows building under the eaves. I look back, andthose placid years melt into each other like one long summer. And then, again, as 'twere yesterday, I hear Hampden's drums and fifes in thelanes, and see the rebels' flag with that hateful legend, 'Vestigia nullaretrorsum, ' and Buckinghamshire peasants are under arms, and the King andhis people have begun to hate and fear each other. "

"None foresaw that the war would last so long or end in murder, I doubt, sir, " said Angela. 

"Nay, child; we who were loyal thought to see that rabble withered by thebreath of kingly nostrils. A word should have brought them to the dust. "

"There might be so easy a victory, perhaps, sir, from a King who knew howto speak the right word at the right moment, how to comply graciously witha just demand, and how to be firm in a righteous denial, " replied Denzil;"but with Charles a stammering speech was but the outward expression of awavering mind. He was a man who never listened to an appeal, but alwaysyielded to a threat, were it only loud enough. "

The wedding was to be soon. Marriages were patched up quickly in thelight-hearted sixties. And here there was nothing to wait for. Sir John hadfound Denzil compliant on every minor question, and willing to make hishome at the Manor during his mother's lifetime. 

"The old lady would never stomach a Papist daughter-in-law, " said Sir John;and Denzil was fain to confess that Lady Warner would not easily reconcileherself with Angela's creed, though she could not fail of loving Angelaherself. 

"My daughter would have neither peace nor liberty under a Puritan's roof, "Sir John said; "and I should have neither son nor daughter, and should be aloser by my girl's marriage. You shall be as much master here, Denzil, asif this were your own house--which it will be when I have moved to my lastbillet. Give me a couple of stalls for my roadsters, and kennel room for mydogs, and I want no more. You and Angela may introduce as many new fashionsas you like; dine at two o'clock, and sip your unwholesome Indian drink ofan evening. The fine ladies in Paris were beginning to take tea when I waslast there, though by the faces they made over the stuff it might have beenpoison. I can smoke my pipe in the chimney-corner, and look on and admireat the new generation. I shall not feel myself one too many at yourfireside, as I used sometimes in the Rue de Touraine, when those struttingGallic cocks were quizzing me. "

 * * * * *

There were clouds of dust and a clatter of hoofs again in front of thefloriated iron gate; but this time it was not the Honourable Henriette whocame tripping along the gravel path on two-inch heels, but my Lady Fareham, who walked languidly, with the assistance of a gold-headed cane, and wholooked pale and thin in her apple-green satin gown and silver-braidedpetticoat. 

She, too, came attended by a second coach, which was filled by herladyship's French waiting-woman, Mrs. Lewin, and a pile of boxes andparcels. 

"I'll wager that in the rapture and romance of your sweethearting you havenot given a thought to petticoats and mantuas, " she said, after she hadembraced her sister, who was horrified at the sight of that paintedharridan from London. 

Angela blushed at those words, "rapture and romance, " knowing how littlethere had been of either in her thoughts, or in Denzil's sober courtship. Romance! Alas! there had been but one romance in her life, and that aguilty one, which she must ever remember with remorse. 

"Come now, confess you have not a gown ordered. "

"I have gowns enough and to spare. Oh, sister! have you come so far to talkof gowns? And that odious woman too! What brought her here?" Angela asked, with more temper than she was wont to show. 

"My sisterly kindness brought her. You are an ungrateful hussy for lookingvexed when I have come a score of miles through the dust to do you aservice. "

"Ah, dearest, I am grateful to you for coming. But, alas! you are lookingpale and thin. Heaven forbid that you have been indisposed, and we inignorance of your suffering. "

"No, I am well enough, though every one assures me I look ill; which is buta civil mode of telling me I am growing old and ugly. "

"Nay, Hyacinth, the former we must all become, with time; the latter youwill never be. "

"Your servant, Sir Denzil, has taught you to pay antique compliments. Well, now we will talk business. I had occasion to send for Lewin--my toilet wasin a horrid state of decay; and then it seemed to me, knowing your foolishindifference, that even your wedding gown would not be chosen unless Isaw to it. So here is Lewin with Lyons and Genoa silks of the very latestpatterns. She has but just come from Paris, and is full of Parisian modesand Court scandals. The King posted off to Versailles directly after hismother's death, and has not returned to the Louvre since. He amuseshimself by spending millions on building, and making passionate love toMademoiselle la Vallière, who encourages him by pretending an excessivemodesty, and exaggerates every favour by penitential tears. I doubt hisattachment to so melancholy a mistress will hardly last a lifetime. She isnot beautiful; she has a halting gait; and she is no more virtuous than anyother young woman who makes a show of resistance to enhance the merit ofher surrender. "

Hyacinth prattled all the way to the parlour, Mrs. Lewin and thewaiting-woman following, laden with parcels. 

"Queer, dear old hovel!" she exclaimed, sinking languidly upon a tabouret, and fanning herself exhaustedly, while the mantua-maker opened her boxes, and laid out her sample breadths of richly decorated brocade, or silver andgold enwrought satin. "How well I remember being whipped over my horn-bookin this very room! And there is the bowling green where I used to race withthe Italian greyhound my grandmother brought me from Paris. I look back, and it seems a dream of some other child running about in the sunshine. Itis so hard to believe that joyous little being--who knew not the meaning ofheart-ache--was I. "

"Why that sigh, sister? Surely none ever had less cause for heart-ache thanyou?"

"Have I not cause? Not when my glass tells me youth is gone, and beautyis waning? Not when there is no one in this wide world who cares a strawwhether I am handsome or hideous? I would as lief be dead as despised andneglected. "

"Sorella mia, questa donna ti ascolta, " murmured Angela; "come and look atthe old gardens, sister, while Mrs. Lewin spreads out her wares. And prayconsider, madam, " turning to the mantua-maker, "that those peacock purplesand gold embroideries have no temptations for me. I am marrying a countrygentleman, and am to lead a country life. My gowns must be such as willnot be spoilt by a walk in dusty lanes, or a visit to a farm-labourer'scottage. "

"Eh, gud, your ladyship, do not tell me that you would bury so much beautyamong sheep and cows, and odious ploughmen's wives and dairy-women. A monthor so of rustic life in summer between Epsom and Tunbridge Wells may bewell enough, to rest your beauty--without patches or a French head--out ofsight of your admirers. But to live in the country! Only a jealous husbandcould ever propose more than an annual six weeks of rustic seclusion to awife under sixty. Lord Chesterfield was considered as cruel for taking hisCountess to the rocks and ravines of Derbyshire as Sir John Denham forpoisoning his poor lady. "

"Chut! tu vas un peu trop loin, Lewin!" remonstrated Lady Fareham. 

"But, in truly, your ladyship, when I hear Mrs. Kirkland talk of a husbandwho would have her waste her beauty upon clod-polls and dairy-maids, andnever wear a mantua worth looking at----"

"I doubt my husband will be guided by his own likings rather than by Mrs. Lewin's tastes and opinions, " said Angela, with a stately curtsy, which wasdesigned to put the forward tradeswoman in her place, and which took thatpersonage's breath away. 

"There never was anything like the insolence of a handsome young womanbefore she has been educated by a lover, " she said to her ladyship'sFrenchwoman, with a vindictive smile and scornful shrug of bloatedshoulders, when the sisters had left the parlour. "But wait till her firstintrigue, and then it is 'My dearest Lewin, wilt thou make me everlastinglybeholden to thee by taking this letter--thou knowest to whom?' Or, in aflood of tears, 'Lewin, you are my only friend--and if you cannot find mesome good and serviceable woman who would give me a home where I can hidefrom the cruel eye of the world, I must take poison. ' No insolence then, mark you, Madame Hortense!"

"This demoiselle is none of your sort, " Hortense said. "You must not judgeEnglish ladies by your maids of honour. Celles là sont des drôlesses, sansfoi ni loi. "

"Well, if she thinks I am going to make up linsey woolsey, or Norwichdrugget, she will find her mistake. I never courted the custom of littlegentlemen's wives, with a hundred a year for pin-money. If I am to doanything for this stuck-up peacock, Lady Fareham must give me the order. Iam no servant of Madame Kirkland. "

 * * * * *

Alone in the garden, the sisters embraced again, Lady Fareham with afretful tearfulness, as of one whose over strung nerves were on the vergeof hysteria. 

"There is something that preys upon your spirits, dearest, " Angela saidinterrogatively. 

"Something! A hundred things. I am at cross purposes with life. But Ishould have been worse had you been obstinate and still refused thisgentleman. "

"Why should that affect you, Hyacinth?" asked her sister, with a suddencoldness. 

"Chi lo sa? One has fancies! But my dearest sister has been wise in goodtime, and you will be the happiest wife in England; for I believe yourPuritan is a saintly person, the very opposite of our Court sparks, who arethe most incorrigible villains. Ah, sweet, if you heard the stories Lewintells me--even of that young Rochester--scarce out of his teens. And theDuke--not a jot better than the King--and with so much less grace in hisiniquity. Well, you will be married at the Chapel Royal, and spend yourwedding night at Fareham House. We will have a great supper. His Majestywill come, of course. He owes us that much civility. "

"Hyacinth, if you would make me happy, let me be married in our dearmother's oratory, by your chaplain. Sure, dearest, you know I have nevertaken kindly to Court splendours. "

"Have you not? Why, you shone and sparkled like a star, that last night youwere ever at Whitehall, Henri sitting close beside you. 'Twas the nighthe took ill of a fever. Was it a fever? I have wondered sometimes whetherthere was not a mystery of attempted murder behind that long sickness. "

"Murder!"

"A deadly duel with a man who hated him. Is not that an attempt at murderon the part of him who deliberately provokes the quarrel? Well, it is past, and he is gone. For all the colour of the world I live in, there mightnever have been any such person as Henri de Malfort. "

Her airy laugh ended in a sob, which she tried to stifle, but could not. 

"Hyacinth, Hyacinth, why will you persist in being miserable when you haveso little cause for sadness?"

"Have I not cause? Am I not growing old, and robbed of the only friend whobrought gaiety into my life; who understood my thoughts and valued me? Atraitor, I know--like the rest of them. They are all traitors. But he wouldhave been true had I been kinder, and trusted him. "

"Hyacinth, you are mad! Would you have had him more your friend? He wastoo near as it was. Every thought you gave him was an offence against yourhusband. Would you have sunk as low as those shameless women the Kingadmires?"

"Sunk--low? Why, those women are on a pinnacle offame--courted--flattered--poetised--painted. They will be famous forcenturies after you and I are forgotten. There is no such thing as shamenowadays, except that it is shameful to have done nothing to be ashamed of. I have wasted my life, Angela. There was not a woman at the Louvre who hadmy complexion, nor one who could walk a coranto with more grace. Yet I haveconsented to be a nobody at two Courts. And now I am growing old, and mypoor painted face shocks me when I chance on my reflection by daylight; andthere is nothing left for me--nothing. "

"Your husband, sister!"

"Sister, do not mock me! You know how much Fareham is to me. We were chosenfor each other, and fancied we were in love for the first few years, whilehe was so often called away from me, that his coming back made a festival, and renewed affection. He came crimson from battles and sieges; and I wasproud of him, and called him my hero. But after the treaty of the Pyreneesour passion cooled, and he grew too much the school-master. And when herecovered of the contagion, he had recovered of any love-sickness he everhad for me!"

"Ah, sister, you say these things without thinking them. His lordship needsbut some sign of affection on your part to be as fond a husband as ever hewas. "

"You can answer for him, I'll warrant"

"And there are other claims upon your love--your children. "

"Henriette, who is nearly as tall as I am, and thinks herself handsomer andcleverer than ever I was. George, who is a lump of selfishness, and caresmore for his ponies and peregrines than for father and mother. I tell youthere is nothing left for me, except fine houses and carriages; and to showmy fading beauty dressed in the latest mode at twilight in the Ring, and tostartle people from the observation of my wrinkles by the boldness of mypatches. I was the first to wear a coach and horses across my forehead--inLondon, at least. They had these follies in Paris three years ago. "

"Indeed, dearest?"

"And thou wilt let me arrange thy wedding after my own fancy, wilt thounot, ma très chère?"

"You forget Denzil's hatred of finery. "

"But the wedding is the bride's festival. The bridegroom hardly counts. Nay, love, you need fear no immodest fooling when you bid good night to thecompany; nor shall there be any scuffling for garters at the door of yourchamber. There was none of that antique nonsense when Lady Sandwich marriedher daughter. All vulgar fashions of coarse old Oliver's day have gone tothe ragbag of worn-out English customs. We were so coarse a nation, till welearnt manners in exile. Let me have my own way, dearest. It will amuse me, and wean me from melancholic fancies. "

"Then, indeed, love, thou shalt have thy way in all particulars. "

After this Lady Fareham was in haste to return to the house in order tochoose the wedding gown; and here in the panelled parlour they found thetwo gentlemen, with the dust of the road and the warmth of the noonday sunupon them, newly returned from Aylesbury, where they had ridden in thefreshness of the early morning to choose a team of plough-horses atthe fair; and who were more disconcerted than gratified at finding thedinner-parlour usurped by Mrs. Lewin, Madame Hortense, and an array offinery that made the room look like a stall in the Exchange. 

It was on the stroke of one, yet there were no signs of dinner. Sir Johnand Sir Denzil were both sharp set after their ride, and were looking by nomeans kindly on Mrs. Lewin and her wares when Hyacinth and Angela appearedupon the scene. 

"Nothing could happen luckier, " said Lady Fareham, when she had salutedDenzil, and embraced her father with "Pish, sir! how you smell of cloverand new-mown grass! I vow you have smothered my mantua with dust. "

Father and sweetheart were called upon to assist in choosing the weddinggown--a somewhat empty compliment on the part of Lady Fareham, since shewould not hear of the simple canary brocade which Denzil selected, andwhich Mrs. Lewin protested was only good enough to make his ladya bed-gown; or of the pale grey atlas which her father consideredsuitable--since, indeed, she would have nothing but a white satin, powderedwith silver fleurs de luces, which she remarked, _en passant_, wouldhave become the Grande Mademoiselle, had she but obtained her cousin'spermission to cast herself away on Lauzun. 

"Dear sister, can you consider a fabric fit for a Bourbon Princess abecoming gown for me?" remonstrated Angela. 

"Yes, child; white and silver will better become thee than poor Louise, whohas no more complexion left than I have. She was in her heyday when sheheld the Bastille, and when she and Beaufort were two of the most popularpeople in Paris. She has made herself a laughing-stock since then. That issettled, Lewin"--with a nod to the milliner--"the silver fleurs de lucesfor the wedding mantua. And now be quick with your samples. "

All Angela's remonstrances were as vain to-day as they had been on theoccasion of her first acquaintance with Mrs. Lewin. The excitement ofdiscussing and selecting the finery she loved affected Lady Fareham'sspirits like a draught of saumur. She was generous by nature, extravagantby long habit. 

"Sure it would be a hard thing if I could not give you your weddingclothes, when you are marrying the man I chose for you, " she protested. "The cherry-coloured farradine, by all means, Lewin; 'tis the very shadefor my sister's fair skin. Indeed, Denzil"--nodding at him, as he stoodwatching them, with that hopelessly bewildered air of a man in a milliner'sshop--"I have been your best friend from the beginning, and, but for me, you might never have won your sweetheart to listen to you. Mazarine hoodsare as ancient as the pyramids, Lewin. Pr'ythee show us something newer. "

It was late in the evening when the two coaches left the Manor gate. Hyacinth had been in no haste to return to the Abbey. There was nobodythere who wanted her, she protested, and there would be a moon after nineo'clock, and she had servants enough to take care of her on the road; soMrs. Lewin and her ladyship's woman were entertained in the steward'sroom, where Reuben held forth upon the splendour that had prevailed in hismaster's house before the troubles--and where the mantua-maker ate anddrank all she could get, and dozed and yawned through the old man'sreminiscences. 

The afternoon was spent more pleasantly by the quality, who sat about inthe sunny garden, or sauntered by the fish pond and fed the carp--and tooka dish of the Indian drink which the sisters loved, in the pergola at theend of the grass walk. 

Hyacinth now affected a passion for the country, and quoted the late Mr. Cowley in praise of rusticity. 

"Oh, how delicious is this woodland valley, " she cried. 

 "'Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying, Hear the soft winds, above me plying, With all their wanton boughs dispute. '

Poor Cowley, he might well love the country, for he was shamefully treatedin town--a devoted servant to bankrupt royalty for all the best years ofhis life, and fobbed off with a compliment when the King came into power. Ah me, 'tis an ill world we live in, and London is the most hateful spot init, " she concluded, with a sigh. 

"And yet you will have me married nowhere else, sister?"

"Oh, for a wedding or a christening one must have a crowd of fine people. It would go about that Lady Fareham was quite out of fashion if I werecontent to see only ploughmen and dairy-maids, and a petty gentleman or twowith their ill-dressed wives, at my sister's marriage. London is the onlydecent place--after Paris--to live in; but the country is a peacefullerplace in which to die. "

A heart-breaking sigh emphasised the sentence, and Angela scrutinised hersister's face with increased concern. 

"Dear love, I fear you are hiding something from me; and that you areseriously indisposed, " she said earnestly. 

"If I am I do not know it. But when one is weary of living there is onlyone sensible thing left to do--if Providence will but be kind and help oneto do it. I am not for dagger or poison, or for a plunge in deep water. Butto fade away in a gentle disease--a quiet ebbing of the vital stream--isthe luckiest thing that can befall one who is tired of life. "

Alarmed at hearing her sister talk in this melancholy strain, and stillmore alarmed by the change in her looks, sunken cheeks, hectic flush, fever-bright eyes, Angela entreated Lady Fareham to stay at the Manor, andbe nursed and cared for. 

"Oh, I know your skill in nursing, and your power over a sick person, "Hyacinth interjected scornfully, and then in the next moment apologised forthe little spurt of retrospective jealousy. 

"Stay with us, love, and let us make you happier than you are at Chilton, "pleaded Angela; but Hyacinth, who had been protesting that nobody wantedher, now declared that she could not leave home, and recited a list ofduties, social and domestic. 

"I shall not have half an hour to spare until I go to London next week toprepare for the wedding, " she said. The date had been fixed while they satat dinner; Sir John and his elder daughter settling the day, while Denzilassented with radiant smiles, and Angela sat by in pale silence, submissiveto the will of others. They were to be married on a Thursday, July 19, andit was now the end of June--little more than a fortnight's interval inwhich to meditate upon the beginning of a new life. 

Mrs. Lewin promised the white and silver mantua, and as many of the newclothes as a supernatural address, industry, and obligingness, couldproduce within the time. Hyacinth grew more lively after supper, and partedfrom her father and sister in excellent spirits; but her haggard facehaunted Angela in troubled dreams all that night, and she thought of herwith anxiety during the next few days, and most of all upon one long sultryday, the 4th of July, which was the third day she had spent in unbrokensolitude since her father and Denzil had ridden away in the dim earlymorning, while the pastures were veiled in summer haze, on the first stageof a journey to London, hoping, with a long rest between noon and evening, to ride thirty-seven miles before night. 

They were to consult with a learned London lawyer, and to execute themarriage settlement, Sir John vastly anxious about this business, in hisignorance of law and distrust of lawyers. They were to stay in London onlylong enough to transact their business, and would then return post-haste tothe Manor; but as they were to ride their own horses all the way, and aslawyers are notoriously slow, Angela had been told not to expect them tillthe fourth evening after their departure. In her lonely rambles that longsummer day, with her spaniel Ganymede, and her father's favourite pointer, for her only companions, Angela's thoughts dwelt ever on the past. Of thefuture--even that so near future of her marriage--she thought hardly atall. That future had been disposed of by others. Her fate had been settledfor her; and she was told that by her submission she would make those sheloved happy. Her father would have the son he longed for, and would besure of her faithful devotion till the end of his days--or of hers, shoulduntimely death intervene. Hyacinth's foolish jealousy would be dispelled bythe act which gave her sister's honour into a husband's custody. And forhim, that presumptuous lover who had taken so little pains to hide hiswicked passion, if in any audacious hour he had dared to believe her guiltyof reciprocating his love, that insolent suspicion would be answered atonce and for ever by her marriage with Denzil--Denzil who was Fareham'sjunior by fifteen years, his superior in every advantage of person, asshe told herself with a bitter smile; for even while she thought of thatsuperiority--the statuesque regularity of feature, the clear colouring ofa complexion warmed with the glow of health, the deep blue of largewell-opened eyes, the light free carriage of one who had led an activecountry life--even while she thought of Denzil, another face and figureflashed upon her memory--rugged and dark, the forehead deeper lined thanyears justified, the proud eye made sombre by the shadow of the projectingbrow, the cheek sunken, the shoulders bent as if under the burden ofmelancholy thoughts. 

O God! this was the face she loved. The only face that had ever touched thesprings of joy and pain. It was nearly half a year since she had seen him. Their meetings in the future need be of the rarest. She knew that Denzilregarded him with a distrust which made friendship out of the question; andit would be her duty to keep as far aloof from that old time as possible. Family meetings there must be, considering the short distance betweenChilton and the Manor, feastings and junketings in company once or twice inthe summer, lest it should be thought Sir John and his lordship were illfriends. But Angela knew that in any such social gathering, sitting at theoverloaded board, amid the steam of rich viands, and the noise of manyvoices, she and Fareham would be as far apart as if the Indian Ocean rolledbetween them. 

Once, and very soon, they must meet face to face; and he would take herhand in greeting, and would kiss her on the lips as she stood before him inher wedding finery, that splendour of white and silver which would provokehim to scornful wonder at her trivial pleasure in sumptuous clothes. Thusonce they must meet. Her heart thrilled at the thought. He had so oftenshunned her, taking such obvious trouble to keep his distance; but he couldhardly absent himself from her wedding. The scandal would be too great. 

Well, she had accepted her fate, and this dull aching misery must be livedthrough somehow; and neither her father nor Denzil must ever have occasionto suspect her unhappiness. 

"Oh, gracious Mary, Mother of God, help and sustain me in my sorrow! Guardand deliver me from sinful thoughts. What are my fanciful griefs to thygreat sorrows, which thou didst endure with holy patience? Subdue and bendme to obedience and humility. Let me be an affectionate daughter, a dutifulwife, a friend and comforter to my poor neighbours. "

So, and with many such prayers she struggled against the dominion of evil, kneeling meekly in the leafy stillness of that deep beechwood, where nohuman eye beheld her devotions. So in the long solitude of the summer dayshe held commune with heaven, and fought against that ever-recurring memoryof past happiness, that looking back to the joys and emotions of thoseplacid hours at Chilton Abbey, before the faintest apprehension of evil hadshadowed her friendship with Fareham. Not to look back; not to rememberand regret. That was the struggle in which the intense abstraction ofthe believer, lifting the mind to heaven, alone could help her. Long andfervent were her prayers in that woodland sanctuary where she made herpious retreat; nor was her sister forgotten in those prayers, whichincluded much earnest supplication for the welfare here and hereafterof that lighter soul for whom she had ever felt a protecting and almostmaternal love. Years counted for very little in the relations between thesesisters. 

The day wore to its close--the most solemn day in Angela's life since thatwhich she had spent in the Reverend Mother's death-chamber, kneeling in thefaint yellow glow of the tall wax-candles, in a room from which daylightwas excluded. She remembered the detachment of her mind from all earthlyinterests as she knelt beside that death-bed, and how easily her thoughtshad mounted heavenward; while now her love clung to this sinful earth. Howhad she changed for the worse, how was she sunk from the holy aspirationsof that time!

CHAPTER XXV. 

HIGH STAKES. 

Angela had eaten her lonely supper, and was sitting at her embroidery framebetween nine and ten, while the sounds of bolts and bars in the hall andcorridors, and old Reuben's voice hectoring the maids, told her that theservants were closing the house before going to bed. Reuben would be comingto her presently, no doubt, to remind her of the lateness of the hour, wanting to carry her candle to her chamber, and as it were to see hersafely disposed of before he went to his garret. She meant, on thisoccasion, to resist his friendly tyranny, having so little inclination forsleep, and hoping to find peace of mind and distraction in this elaborateembroidery of gold thread and many-coloured silks, which was destined toadorn her father's person, on the facings of a new-fashioned doublet. 

Suddenly, as she bent over the candle to scrutinize the shading of hersilks, the hollow sound of hoofs broke upon the silence, and in a minuteafterwards a bell rang loudly. 

Who could it be at such an hour? Her father, no doubt; no one else. He hadhurried his business through, and returned a day earlier than he had hoped. Or could it be that he had fallen sick in London, and Denzil had come totell her ill news? Or was it a messenger from her sister? She had time tocontemplate several evil contingencies while she stood in the hall watchingReuben withdraw various bolts and bars. 

The door swung back at last, and she saw a man in high-riding boots andslouched hat standing on the threshold, while in the moonlight behind himshe could distinguish a mounted groom holding the bridle of a led horse, aswell as the horse from which the visitor had just dismounted. 

The face that looked at her from the doorway was the face which had hauntedher with cruel persistency through that long day, chaining her thoughts toearth. 

Fareham stood looking at her for a few moments, deadly pale, while shewas collecting her senses, trying to understand this most unlooked-forpresence. Why was he here? Ah, no doubt, a messenger of evil. 

"Oh, sir, my sister is ill!" she cried; "I read sorrow in yourface--seriously ill--dangerously? Speak, my lord, for pity's sake!"

"Yes, she is ill. "

"Not dead?"

"No, no. "

"But very ill? Oh, I feared, I feared when I saw her that there wassomething amiss. Has she sent you to fetch me?"

"Yes; you are wanted. "

"Reuben, I must set out this instant. Order the coach to be got ready. AndBetty must go with me. "

"You will need no coach, Angela. Nor is there time to spare for any suchcreeping conveyance. I have brought Zephyr. You remember how you loved him. He is swift, and gentle as the wind after which we named him; sure of foot, easy to ride. The roads are good after yesterday's rain, and the moon willlast us most of our way. We shall be at Chilton in two hours. Put on yourcoat and hat. Indeed, there is no time to be lost. "

"Do you mean that she may die before I can reach her?"

"I know not, " stamping his foot impatiently. "Fate holds the keys. But youhad best waste no time on questions. "

His manner was one of command, and he seemed to apprehend no possibilityof hesitation on her part. Reuben ran to his pantry, and came back with atankard of wine, which he offered to the visitor with tremulous respect, almost ready to kneel. 

"Our best Burgundy, my lord. Your lordship must be dry after your longride; and if your lordship would care to sup, there is good picking on lastMonday's chine, and a capon from madam's supper scarce touched with thecarving-knife. "

"Nothing, I thank you, friend. There is no time for gluttony. "

Reuben, pressing the tankard upon him, he drank some wine with an automaticair, and still stood with his eyes fixed on Angela's pallid countenance, waiting her decision. 

"Are you coming?" he asked. 

"Does she want me? Has she asked for me? Oh, for God's sake, my lord, tellme more! Is she dangerously ill? Have the doctors given her over?"

"No. But she is in a bad way. And you--you--you--are wanted. Will you come?Ay or no?"

"Yes. It is my duty to go to her. But when my father and Denzil come backto-morrow, Reuben must be able to tell them why I went; and the natureof my sister's illness. Were it not so serious that there is no time forhesitation, it would ill become me to leave this house in my father'sabsence. "

He gave his head a curious jerk at Denzil's name, as if he had been stung. 

"Yes, I will explain; I can make all clear to this gentleman here while youput on your cloak. Bring the black to the door, " he called to his man. 

"Will not your lordship bait your horses before you start?" Reuben askeddeferentially. 

"No time, fellow. There is no time. How often must I tell you so?" retortedFareham. 

Reuben's village breeding had given him an exaggerated respect foraristocracy. He had grown up in the midst of small country gentlemen, rural squires, among whom the man with three thousand a year in land was amagnate, and there had never been more than one nobleman resident within aday's ride of the Manor Moat. To Reuben, therefore, a peer was like a god;and he would have no more questioned Lord Fareham's will than a disciple ofHobbes would have imputed injustice to Kings. 

Angela returned in a few minutes, having changed her silken gown for a neatcloth riding-skirt and close-fitting hood. She carried nothing with her, being assured that her sister's wardrobe would be at her disposal, andhaving no mind to spend a minute more in preparation than was absolutelynecessary. Brief as her toilet was, she had time to consider Lord Fareham'scountenance and manner, the cold distance of his address, and to scornherself for having thought of him in her reveries that day as loving heralways and till death. It was far better so. The abyss that parted themcould not yawn too wide. She put a stern restraint upon herself, so thatthere should be nothing hysterical in her manner, lest her fears about hersister's health should be mistaken for agitation at his presence. She stoodbeside the horse, straight and firm, with her hand on the pommel, andsprang lightly into the saddle as Fareham's strong arm lifted her. Yetshe could but notice that his hand shook as he gave her the bridle, andarranged the cloth petticoat over her foot. 

Not a word was spoken on either side as they rode out at the gate andthrough the village of St. Nicholas, beautiful in the moonlight. Such lowcrumbling walls and deeply sloping roofs of cottages squatting in a tangleof garden and orchard; such curious outlines of old brick gables in thebetter class houses of miller, butcher, and general dealer; orchards andgardens and farm buildings, with every variety of thatch and eaves, huddledtogether in picturesque confusion; large spaces everywhere--pond, andvillage green, and common, and copse beyond; a peaceful, prosperoussettlement, which had passed unharmed through the ordeal of the civil war, safe in its rural seclusion. Not a word was spoken even when the villagewas left behind, and they were riding on a lonely road, in so brillianta moonlight that Angela could see every line in her companion's broodingface. 

Why was he so gloomy and so unkind, in an hour when his sympathy shouldnaturally have been given to her? Was he consumed with sorrow for hiswife's indisposition, and did anxiety make him silent; or was he angry withhimself for not being as deeply distressed as a husband ought to be ata wife's peril? She knew too well how he and Hyacinth had been growingfurther apart day by day, till the only link between husband and wifeseemed to be a decent courtesy and subservience to the world's opinion. 

She recalled that other occasion when they two had made a solitary journeytogether, and in as gloomy a silence--that night of the great fire, when hehad flung off his doublet and taken the sculls out of her hands, and rowedsteadily and fast, with his eyes downcast, leaving her to steer the boat asshe would, or trusting to the lateness of the hour for a clear course. Hehad seemed to hate her that night just as he seemed to hate her now, asthey rode mile after mile side by side, the groom following near, now at afast trot, now galloping along a stretch of waste grass that bordered thehighway, now breathing their horses in a walk. 

In one of those intervals he asked her if she were tired. 

"No, no. I have no power to feel anything but anxiety. If you would onlybe kinder and tell me more about my sister! I fear you consider her indanger. "

"Yes, she is in danger. There is no doubt of that. "

"O God! she looked so ill when I saw her last, and she talked so wildly. Ifeared she was in a bad way. How soon shall we be at Chilton, my lord?"

"My lord! Why do you 'my lord' me?"

"I can find no other name. We seem to be strangers to-night; but, indeed, names and ceremonies matter nothing when the mind is in trouble. How soonshall we reach the Abbey, Fareham?"

"In an hour, at latest, Angela. "

His voice trembled as he spoke her name, and all of force and passion thatcould be breathed into a single word was in his utterance. She flushed atthe sound, and looked at him with a sudden fear; but his countenance mighthave been wrought-iron, so cold and passionless and cruelly resolute lookedthat rough-hewn face in the moonlight. 

"I have a fresh horse waiting for you at Thame, " he said. "I will not haveyou wearied by riding a tired horse. We are within five minutes of the inn. Will you rest there for half an hour, and take some refreshment?"

"Rest, when my sister may be dying! Not a moment more than is needed tochange horses. "

"I have brought Queen Bess, another of your favourites. 'Twas she whotaught you to ride. She will know your voice, and your light hand upon herbridle. "

They found the Inn wrapped in slumber, like every house or cottage they hadpassed; but a lantern shone within an open door in the quadrangle roundwhich house and stables were built. One of the Fareham grooms was there, with an ostler to wait upon him, and three horses were brought out of theirstable, ready saddled, as the travellers rode under the archway into theyard. 

The mare was excited at finding herself on the road in the clear coolnight, with the moonlight in her eyes, and was gayer than Fareham liked tosee her under so precious a load; but Angela was no longer the novice bywhose side he had ridden nearly two years before. She handled Queen Bessfirmly, and soon settled her into a sharp trot, and kept her at it fornearly three miles. The hour Fareham had spoken of was not exceeded by manyminutes when Chilton Abbey came in sight, the grey stone walls pale in themoonlight. All things--the long park wall, the pillared gates, the openspaces of the park, the depth of shadow where the old oaks and beechesspread wide and dark, had a look of unreality which contrasted curiouslywith the scene as she had last beheld it in all its daylight verdure andhomeliness. 

She dropped lightly from her horse, so soon as they drew rein at an angleof the long irregular house, where there was a door, half hidden under ivy, by which Lord Fareham went in and out much oftener than by the principalentrance. It opened into a passage that led straight to the library, wherethere was a lamp burning to-night. Angela saw the light in the window asthey rode past. 

He opened the door, which had been left on the latch, and nodded adismissal to the groom, who went off to the stables, leading their horses. All was dark in the passage--dark and strangely silent; but this wing wasremote from the chief apartments and from the servants' offices. 

"Will you take me to my sister at once?" Angela asked, stopping on thethreshold of the library, when Fareham had opened the door. 

A lamp upon the tall mantelpiece feebly lighted the long low room, gloomywith the darkness of old oak wainscot and a heavily timbered ceiling. Therewere two flasks of wine upon a silver salver, and provisions for a supper, and a fire was burning on the hearth. 

"You had better warm yourself after your night ride, and eat and drinksomething before you see her. "

"No, no. What, after riding as fast as our horses could carry us! I must goto her this moment. Can you find me a candle?"--looking about her hurriedlyas she spoke. "But, indeed, it is no matter; I know my way to her room inthe dark, and there will be light enough from the great window. "

"Stop!" he cried, seizing her arm as she was leaving the room; "stop!"dragging her back and shutting the door violently. "Your sister is notthere. "

"Great God! what do you mean? You told me your wife was here--ill--dyingperhaps. "

"I told you a lie, sweetheart; but desperate men will do desperate things. "

"Where is my sister? Is she dead?"

"Not unless the Nemesis that waits on woman's folly has been swifter offoot than common. I have no wife, Angela; and you have no sister that youwill ever care to own. My Lady Fareham has crossed the narrow sea with herlover, Henri de Malfort--her paramour always--though I once thought himyours, and tried to kill him for your sake. "

"A runaway wife! Hyacinth! Great God!" She clasped her hands before herface in an agony of shame and despair, falling upon her knees in suddenself-abasement, her head drooping until her brow almost touched the ground. And then, after but a few minutes of this deep humiliation, she started toher feet with a cry of anger. "Liar! villain! despicable, devilish villain!This is a lie, like the other--a wicked lie! Your wife--your wife a wanton?My sister? My life upon it, she is in London--in your house, busy preparingfor my marriage. Unlock that door, my lord; let me go this instant--back tomy father. Oh, that I could be so mad as to leave his protection at yourbidding! Open the door, sir, I command you!"

She seemed to gain in height, and to be taller than he had thought her--hewho had so watched her, and whose memory held every line of that slender, graceful figure. She stood straight as an arrow, looking at him withset lips and flaming eyes, too angry to be afraid, trembling, but withindignation, not fear of him. 

"Nay, child, " he said gravely, "I have got you, and I mean to keep you. Butyou have trusted yourself to my hospitality, and you are safe in my houseas in a sanctuary. I may be a villain, but I am not a ruffian. If I havebrought you here by a trick, you are as much mistress of your life and fateunder this roof as you ever were in your father's house. "

"I have but one thing to say, sir. Let me out of this hateful house. "

"What then? Would you walk back to the Manor Moat, through thenight--alone?"

"I would crawl there on my hands and knees if I could not walk; anything toget away from you. Oh, the baseness of it! To vilify my sister--for yourown base purposes. Intolerable villain!"

"Mistress, we will soon put an end to that charge. Lies there have been, but that is none. 'Tis you are the slanderer there. "

He took a letter from the pocket of his doublet, and handed it to her. Thenhe took the lamp from the mantelshelf and held it while she read. 

Alas, it was her sister's hand. She knew those hurried characters too well. The letter was blotted with ink and smeared as with tears. Angela's tearsbegan to rain upon the page as she read:--

"I have tried to be a good woman and a true wife to you, tried hard forthese many years, knowing all the time that you had left off loving me, and but for the shame of it would have cared little, though I had as manylovers as a maid of honour. You made life harder for me in this year lastpast by your passion for my sister, which mystery of yours, silent andsecret as you were, these eyes must have been blind not to discover. 

"And while you were cold in manner and cruel of speech--slighting meever--there was one who loved and praised me, one whose value I knew nottill he left this country, and I found myself desolate without him. 

"He has come back. He, too, has found that I was the other half of hismind; and that he could taste no pleasure in life unshared by me. He hascome to claim one who ever loved him, and denied him only for virtue'ssake. Virtue! Poor fool that I was to count that a woman's noblest quality!Why, of all attributes, it is that the world least values. Virtue! when thestarched Due de Montausier fawns upon Louise de la Vallière, when BarbaraPalmer is de facto Queen of England. Virtue!

"Farewell! Forget me, Fareham, as I shall try to forget you. I shall bein Paris perhaps before you receive this letter. My house in the Rue deTouraine is ready for me. I shall dishonour you by no open scandal. The manI love will but rank as the friend I most value, and my other friends willask no questions so long as you are silent, and do not seek to disgrace me. Indeed, it were an ill thing to pursue me with your anger; the more so as Iam weak and ailing, and may not live long to enjoy my happiness. You havegiven me so little that you should in common justice spare me your hate. 

"I leave you your children, whom you have affected to love better than I;and who have shown so little consideration for me that I shall not missthem. "

 * * * * *

"What think you of that, Angela, for the letter of a she-cynic?"

"It is blotted with her tears. She wrote in sorrow, despairing of yourlove. "

"She managed to exist for a round dozen years without my love--or doubtingit--so long as she had her _cavalière servante_. It was only when hedeserted her that she found life a burden. And now she has crossed theRubicon. She belongs to her age--the age of Kings' mistresses and lightwomen. And she will be happy, I dare swear, as they are. It is not an ageof tears. And when the fair Louise ran away to her Convent the other day, in a passion of penitence, be sure she only went on purpose to be broughtback again. But now, sweet, say have I lied to you about the lady who wasonce my wife?" he asked, pointing to the letter in her hand. 

"And who is my sister to the end of time; my sister in Eternity: inPurgatory or in Paradise. I cannot cast her off, though you may. I will setout for Paris to-morrow, and bring her home, if I can, to the Manor. Sheneed trouble you no more. My husband and I can shelter and pity her. "

"Your husband!"

"He will be my husband a fortnight hence. "

"Never! Never, while I live to fling my body between you at the altar. His blood or mine should choke your marriage vows. Angela, Angela, bereasonable. I have brought you out of that trap. I have cut the net inwhich they had caught you. My love, you are free, and I am free, and youbelong to me. You never loved Denzil Warner, never would love him, wereyou to live with him a quarter of a century. He is ice, and you are fire. Dearest, you belong to me. He who made us both created us to be happytogether. There are strings in our hearts that harmonize as concords inmusic do. We are miserable apart, both of us. We waste, and fade, andtorture ourselves in absence; but only to breathe the same air, to sit, silent, in the same room, is to be happy. "

"Let me go!" she cried, looking at him with wild eyes, leaning against thelocked door, her hands clutching at the latch, seeming neither to hear norheed his impassioned address, though every word had sunk deep enough toremain in her memory for ever. "Let me go! You are a dishonourable villain!I came to London alone to your deserted house. I was not afraid of death orthe plague then. I am not afraid of you now. Open this door, and let me go, never to see your wicked face again!"

"Angela, canst thou so play fast and loose with happiness? Look at me, "kneeling at her feet, trying to take her hands from their hold on thelatch. "Our fate is in our power to-night. The day is near dawning, andat the stroke of five my coach will be at the door to take us to Bristol, where the ship lies that shall carry us to New England--to a new world, andliberty; and to the sweet simple life that will please my dear love betterthan all the garish pleasures of a licentious court. Ah, dearest, I knowthy mind and heart as well as I know my own. I know I can make thee happyin that fair new world, where we shall begin life again, free from all oldburdens; and where, if thou wilt, my motherless children can join us, andmake one loving household. My Henriette adores you; and it were Christiancharity to rescue her and her brother from Charles Stuart's England, and tobring them up to an honest life in a country where men are free to worshipGod as He moves them. Love, you cannot deny me. So sweet a life waits forus; and you have but to lay that dear hand in mine and give consent. "

"Oh, God!" she murmured. "I thought this man held me in honour and esteem. "

"Do I not honour you? Ah, love, what can a man do more than offer his lifeto her he loves----"

"And if he is another woman's husband?"

"That tie is broken. "

"I deny it. But if it were, you have been my sister's husband, and youcould be nothing to me but my brother. You have made sisterly affectionimpossible, and so, my lord, we must be strangers; and, as you are agentleman, I bid you open this door, and let me make my way to some morepeaceful shelter than your house. "

"Angela!"

He tried to draw her to his breast; but she held him off with outstretchedarm, and even in the tumult of his passion the knowledge of herhelplessness and his natural shame at his own treachery kept him in check. 

"Angela, call me villain if you will, but give me a fair hearing. Dearest, the joy or sorrow of two lives lies in your choice to-night. If you willtrust me, and go with me, I swear I will make you happy. If you arestubborn to refuse--well, sweetheart, you will but send a man to the devilwho is not wholly bad, and who, with you for his guardian angel, might findthe way to heaven. "

"And begin the journey by a sin these lips dare not name. Oh, Fareham, " shesaid, growing suddenly calm and grave, and with something of that tendermaternal manner with which she had soothed and controlled him while he hadbut half his wits, and when she feared he might be lying on his death-bed, "I would rather believe you a madman than a villain; and, indeed, all thatyou have done to-night is the work of a madman, who follows his own wildfancy without power to reason on what he does. Surely, sir, you know me toowell to believe that I would let love--were it the blindest, most absorbingpassion woman ever felt--lead me into sin so base as that you would urge. The vilest wanton at Whitehall would shrink from stealing a sister'shusband. "

"There would be no theft. Your sister flings me to you as a dog drops thebone he has picked dry. She had me when I was young, and a soldier--withsome reflected glory about me from the hero I followed--and rich and happy. She leaves me old and haggard, without aim or hope, save to win her Iworship. Shall I tell you when I began to love you, my angel?"

"No, no; I will listen to no more raving. Thank God, there is thedaylight!" as the cold wan dawn flickered across the room. "Will you let mebeat my hands against this door till they bleed?"

"Thou shalt not harm the loveliest hands on earth, " seizing them both inhis own. "Ah, sweet, I began to love thee before ever I rose from that bedof horror where I had been left to perish. I loved thee in my unreason, andmy love strengthened with each hour of returning sense. Our journey, I soweak, and sick, and helpless--was a ride through Paradise. I would have hadit last a year; would have suffered sickness and pain, aching limbs andparched lips, only to feel the light touch of this dear hand upon my brow'twixt sleep and waking; only to look up as I awoke, and see those sweeteyes looking down at me. Ah, dearest, my heart arose from among the dead, and came out of the tomb of all human affections to greet thee. Till I knewyou I knew not the meaning of love. And if you are stubborn, and will notcome with me to that new world, where we may be so happy, why, then I mustgo down to my grave a despairing wretch that never knew a woman's love. "

"My sister--your wife?"

"Never loved me. Her heart--that which she calls heart--was ever Malfort'sand not mine. She gave me to know as much by a hundred signs and tokenswhich read plain enough now, looking back, but which I scarce heeded at thetime. I believed her chaste, and she was civil, and I was satisfied. I tellyou, Angela, this heart never beat for woman till I knew you. Ah, love, benot stone! Make not our affinity an obstacle. The Roman Church will evergrant dispensation for a union of affinities where there is cause forindulgence. The Church would have had Philip married to his wife's sisterElizabeth. "

"The Church holds the bond of marriage indissoluble, " Angela answered. "Youare married to my sister; and while she lives you can have no other wife. "

Her brow was stern, her courage unfaltering; but physical force was failingher. She leant against the door for support, and she no longer struggledto withdraw her hands from that strong grasp which held them. She foughtagainst the faintness that was stealing over her senses; but her heavyeyelids were beginning to droop, and there was a sound like rushing waterin her ears. 

"Angela--Angela, " pleaded the tender voice, "do you forget that afternoonat the play, and how you wept over Bellario's fidelity--the fond girl-pagewho followed him she loved; risked name and virtue; counted not thecost, in that large simplicity of love which gives all it has to give, unquestioning? Remember Bellario. "

"Bellario had no thought that was not virtue's, " she answered faintly; andhe took that fainter tone for a yielding will. 

"She would not have left Philaster if he had been alone in the wilderness, miserable for want of her love. "

Her white lips moved dumbly, her eyelids sank, and her head fell backupon his shoulder, as he started up from his knees to support her sinkingfigure. She was in his arms, unconscious--the image of death. 

He kissed her on the brow. 

"My soul, I will owe nothing to thy helplessness, " he whispered. "Thy freewill shall decide whether I live or die. "

Another sound had mingled with the rushing waters as her senses lefther--the sound of knocking at a distant door. It grew louder and loudermomently, indicating a passionate impatience in those who knocked. Thesound came from the principal door, and there was a long corridor betweenthat door and Fareham's room. 

He stood listening, undecided; and then he laid the unconscious form gentlyon the thick Persian carpet--knowing that for recovery the fainting girlcould not lie too low. He cast one agitated glance at the white facelooking up at the ceiling, and then went quickly to the hall. 

As he came near, the knocking began again, with greater vehemence, and avoice, which he knew for Sir John's, called--

"Open the door, in the King's name, or we will break it open!"

There was a pause; those without evidently waiting for the result of thatlast and loudest summons. 

Fareham heard the hoofs of restless horses trampling the gravel drive, thejingle of bit and chain, and the click of steel scabbards. 

Sir John had not come alone. 

"So soon; so devilish soon!" muttered Fareham. And then, as the knockingwas renewed, he turned and left the hall without a word of answer to thoseoutside, and hastened back to the room where he had left Angela. His browwas fixed in a resolute frown, every nerve was braced. He had made up hismind what to do. He had the house to himself, and was thus master of thesituation, so long as he could keep his pursuers on the outside. The upperservants--half a dozen coach-loads--had been packed off to London, underconvoy of Manningtree and Mrs. Hubbock. The under servants--rank andfile--from housemaids to turnspits, slept in a huge barrack adjoining thestables, built in Elizabeth's reign to accommodate the lower grade of anobleman's household. These would not come into the house to light firesand sweep rooms till six o'clock at the earliest; and it was not yet four. Lord Fareham, therefore, had to fear no interruption from his own people. 

There was broad daylight in the house now; yet he looked about for acandle; found one on a side-table, in a tall silver candlestick, andstopped to light it, before he raised the lifeless figure from the floorand lifted it into the easiest position for carrying, the head lying on hisshoulder. Then, holding the slender waist firmly, circled by his left arm, he took the candlestick in his right hand, and went out of the room withhis burden, along a passage leading to a seldom-used staircase, which heascended, carrying that tall, slim form as if it had been a feather-weight, up flight after flight, to the muniment room in the roof. From that pointhis journey, and the management of that unconscious form, and to disposesafely of the lighted candle, became more difficult, and occupied aconsiderable time; during which interval the impatience of an enragedfather and a betrothed husband, outside the hall door, increased with everyminute of delay, and one of their mounted followers, of whom they hadseveral, was despatched to ride at a hand-gallop to the village ofChilton, and rouse the Constable, while another was sent to Oxford for aMagistrate's warrant to arrest Lord Fareham on the charge of abduction. Andmeanwhile the battering upon thick oaken panels with stout riding-whips, and heavy sword-hilts, and the calling upon those within, were repeatedwith unabated vehemence, while a couple of horsemen rode round the house toexamine other inlets, and do picket duty. 

The Constable and his underling were on the ground before that stubborncitadel answered the reiterated summons; but at last there came the soundof bolts withdrawn. An iron bar dropped from its socket with a clang thatechoed long and loud in the empty hall, the door opened, and Farehamappeared on the threshold, corpse-like in the cold raw daylight, facing hisbesiegers with a determined insolence. 

"Thou most infernal villain!" cried Sir John, rushing into the hall, followed closely by Denzil and one of the men, "what have you done with mydaughter?"

"Which daughter does your honour seek? If it be she whom you gave me for awife, she has broken the bond, and is across the sea with her paramour?"

"You lie--reprobate! Your wife had doubtless business relating to herFrench estate, which called her to Paris. My daughters are honest women, unless by your villainy, one, who should have been sacred, as your sisterby affinity, should bear a blighted name. Give me back my daughter, villain--the girl you lured from her home by the foulest deceit!"

"You cannot see the lady to-day, gentlemen; even though you threaten mewith your weapons, " pointing with a sardonic smile to their drawn swords, "and out-number me with your followers. The lady is gone. I am alone in thehouse to submit to any affront your superior force may put upon me. "

"Our superiority can at least search your house, " said Denzil. "Sir John, you had best take one way and I another. I doubt I know every room andpassage in the Abbey. "

"And your yeoman's manners offer a handsome return for the hospitalitywhich made you acquainted with my house, " said Fareham, with a contemptuouslaugh. 

He followed Denzil, leaving Sir John to grope alone. The house had beendeserted but for a few days, yet the corridors and rooms had the heavyatmosphere of places long shut from sunshine and summer breezes; whilethe chilling hour, the grey ghostly light, added something phantasmal andunnatural to the scene. 

Denzil entered room after room--below stairs and above--explored thepicture-gallery, the bed-chambers, the long low ball-room in the roof, built in Elizabeth's reign, when a wing had been added to the Abbey, and oflate used only for lumber. Fareham followed him close, stalking behind himin sullen silence, with an unalterable gloom upon his face which betrayedno sudden apprehensions, no triumph or defeat. He followed like doom, stoodquietly on one side as Denzil opened a door; waited on the thresholdwhile the searcher made his inspection, always with the same iron visage, offering no opposition to the entrance of this or that chamber; onlyfollowing and watching, silent, intent, sphinx-like; till at last, fairlyworn out by blank disappointment, Denzil turned upon him in a sudden fury. 

"What have you done with her?" he cried, desperately. "I will stake my lifeshe has not left this house, and by Him who made us you shall not leave itliving unless I find her. "

He glanced downward at the naked sword he had carried throughout hissearch. Fareham's was in the scabbard, and he answered that glance with aninsulting smile. 

"You think I have murdered her, perhaps, " he said. "Well, I would rathersee her dead than yours. So far I am in capacity a murderer. "

They met Sir John in Lady Fareham's drawing-room, when Denzil had gone overthe whole house, trusting nothing to the father's scrutiny. 

"He has stabbed her and dropped her murdered body down a well, " cried theKnight, half distraught. "He cannot have spirited her away otherwise. Lookat him, Denzil; look at that haggard wretch I have called my son. He hasthe assassin's aspect. "

Something--it might be the room in which they were standing--brought backto Angela's betrothed the memory of that Christmas night when aunt andniece had been missing, and when he, Denzil, had burst into this room, where Fareham was seated at chess; who, at the first mention of Angela'sname, started up, white with horror, to join in the search. It was he whofound her then; it was he who had hidden her now; and in the same remoteand secret spot. 

"Fool that I was not to remember sooner!" cried Denzil. "I know where tofind her. Follow me, Sir John. Andrew"--calling to the servant who waitedin the hall--"follow us close. "

He rushed along a passage, ran upstairs faster than old age, were it everso eager, could follow. But Fareham was nearly as fast--nearly, but notquite, able to overtake him; for he was older, heavier, and more broken bythe fever of that night's work than his colder-tempered rival. 

Denzil was some paces in advance when he reached the muniment room. Hefound the opening in the wainscot, and the steep stair built into thechimney. Half way to the bottom there was a gap--an integral part of theplan--and a drop of six feet; so that a stranger in hurried pursuit wouldbe likely to come to grief at this point, and make time for his quarry toescape by the door that opened on the garden. Memory, or wits sharpened byanxiety, enabled Denzil to avoid this trap; and he was at the door of thePriest's Hole before Fareham began the descent. 

Yes, she was there, kneeling in a corner, a candle burning dimly on a stoneshelf above her head. She was in the attitude of prayer, her head bent, herface hidden, when the door opened, and she looked up and saw her betrothedhusband. 

"Denzil! How did you find me here?"

"I should be a poor slave if I had not found you, remembering the past. Great God, how pale you are! Come, love, you are safe. Your father is here. Angela, thou that art so soon to be my wife--face to face--here--before weleave this accursed pit--tell me that you did not go with that villain, except for the sake of your sick sister--that you were the victim of aheartless lie--not a party to a trick invented to blind your father andme!"

"I doubt I have not all my senses yet, " she said, putting her hand to herhead. "I was told my sister wanted me, and I came. Where is Lord Fareham?"

The terror in her countenance as she asked that question froze Denzil. Ah, he had known it all along! That was the man she loved. Was she hisvictim--and a willing victim? He felt as if a great gulf had opened betweenhim and his betrothed, and that all his hopes had withered. 

Fareham was at his elbow in the next moment. "Well, you have found her, "he said; "but you shall not have her, save by force of arms. She is in mycustody, and I will keep her; or die for her if I am outnumbered!"

"Execrable wretch! would you attempt to detain her by violence? Come, madam, " said Denzil, turning coldly to Angela, "there is a door on thosestairs which will let you out into the air. 

"The door will not open at your bidding!" Fareham said fiercely. 

He snatched Angela up in his arms before the other could prevent him, andcarried her triumphantly to the first landing-place, which was considerablybelow that treacherous gap between stair and stair. He had the key of thegarden door in his pocket, unlocked it, and was in the open air with hisburden before Denzil could overtake him. 

He found himself caught in a trap. He had his coach-and-six and armedpostillions waiting close by, and thought he had but to leap into it withhis prey and spirit her off towards Bristol; but between the coach and thedoor one of Sir John's pickets was standing, who the moment the door openedwhistled his loudest, and brought Constable and man and another armedservant running helter-skelter round an angle of the house, and so crossingthe very path to the coach. 

"Fire upon him if he tries to pass you!" cried Denzil. 

"What! And shoot the lady you have professed to love!" exclaimed Fareham, drawing himself up, and standing firm as a rock, with Angela motionless inhis arms. 

He dropped her to her feet, but held her against his left shoulder with aniron hold, while he drew his sword and made a rush for the coach. Denzilsprang into his path, sword in hand, and their blades crossed with a shrillclash and rattle of steel. They fought like demons, Fareham holding Angelabehind him, sheltering her with his body, and swaying from side to side inhis sword-play with a demoniac swiftness and suppleness, his thick darkbrows knitted over eyes that flamed with a fiercer fire than flashed fromsteel meeting steel. A shriek of horror from Angela marked the climax, asDenzil fell with Fareham's sword between his ribs. There had been little ofdilettante science, or graceful play of wrist in this encounter. The menhad rushed at each other savagely, like beasts in a circus, and whateverof science had guided Fareham's more practised hand had been employedautomatically. The spirit of the combatants was wild and fierce as the ragethat moves rival stags fighting for a mate, with bent heads and trampinghoofs, and clash of locked antlers reverberating through the foreststillness. 

Fareham had no time to exult over his prostrate foe; Sir John and hisservants, Constable and underlings, surrounded him, and he was handcuffedand hauled off to the coach that was to have carried him to a sinner'sparadise, before any one had looked to Denzil's wound, or discoveredwhether that violent thrust below the right lung had been fatal. Angelasank swooning in her father's arms. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH. 

The summer and autumn had gone by--an eventful season, for with it hadvanished from the stage of politics one who had played so dignified andserious a part there. Southampton was dead, Clarendon disgraced and inexile. The Nestor and the Ulysses of the Stuart epic had melted from thescene. Down those stairs by which he had descended on his way to so many asplendid festival, himself a statelier figure than Kings or Princes, theChancellor had gone to banishment and oblivion. "The lady" had looked forthe last time, a laughing Jezebel, from a palace window, exultant at herenemy's fall; and along the river that had carried such tragic destinieseastward to be sealed in blood, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, had driftedquietly out of the history he had helped to make. The ballast of that graveintellect was flung overboard so that the ship of fools might drift thefaster. 

But in Westminster Hall, upon this windy November morning, nobody thoughtof Clarendon. The business of the day was interesting enough to obliterateall considerations of yesterday. The young barristers, who were learningtheir trade by listening to their betters, had been shivering on theirbenches in the Common Pleas since nine o'clock, in that chilly cornerwhere every blast from the north or north-east swept over the low woodenpartition that enclosed the court, or cut through the chinks in thepanelling. The students and juniors were in their usual places, sitting atthe feet of their favourite Common-law Judge; but the idlers who came foramusement, to saunter about the hall, haggle for books with the second-handdealers along the south wall, or flirt with the milliners who kept stallsfor bands and other legal finery on the opposite side, or to listen ontiptoe, with an ear above the panelled enclosure, to the quips and cranksor fierce rhetoric of a famous advocate--these to-day gravitated with oneaccord towards the south-west corner of the Hall, where, in the Court ofKing's Bench, Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, of Fareham, Hants, was to betried by a Buckinghamshire jury for abduction, with fraud, malice, andviolence, and for assault, with intent to murder. 

The rank of the offender being high, and the indictment known to involvetragic details of family history, there had been much talk of the causewhich was on the paper for to-day; and, as a natural consequence, besidesthe habitual loungers and saunterers, gossips, and book-buyers, there wasa considerable sprinkling of persons of quality, who perfumed the not tooagreeable atmosphere with pulvilio and Florentine iris powder, and therustle of whose silks and brocades was audible all over the Hall. Notoften did such gowns sweep the dust brought in by plebeian feet, nor suchVenetian point collars rub shoulders with the frowsy Norwich drugget wornby hireling perjurers or starveling clerks. The modish world had come downupon the great Norman Hall like a flock of pigeons, sleek, iridescent, all fuss and flutter; and among these unaccustomed visitors there wasprodigious impatience for the trial to begin, and a struggle for goodplaces that brought into full play the primitive brutality which underliesthe politeness of the civillest people. 

Lady Sarah Tewkesbury had risen betimes, and, in her anxiety to secure agood place, had come out in her last night's "head, " which somewhat damagededifice of ginger-coloured ringlets and Roman pearls was now visible abovethe wooden partition of the King's Bench to the eyes of the commonaltyin the hall below, her ladyship being accommodated with a seat among thelawyers. 

One of these was a young man in a shabby gown and rumpled wig, but witha fair complexion and tolerable features--a stranger to that court, andbetter known at Hicks's Hall, and among city litigators, with whom he hadalready a certain repute for keen wits and a plausible tongue--about theyoungest advocate at the English Bar, and by some people said to be nobarrister at all, but to have put on wig and gown two years ago at KingstonAssizes and called himself to the Bar, and stayed there by sheer audacity. This young gentleman, Jeffreys by name, having deserted the city andpossible briefs in order to hear the Fareham trial, was inclined to resentbeing ousted by an obsequious official to make room for Lady Sarah. 

"Faith, one would suppose I was her ladyship's footman and had been keepingher seat for her, " he grumbled, as he reluctantly rose at the Usher'swhispered request, and edged himself sulkily off to a corner where he foundjust standing-room. 

It was a very hard seat which Mr. Jeffreys had vacated, and her ladyship, after sitting there over two hours, nodding asleep a good part of the time, began to feel internal sinkings and flutterings which presaged what shecalled a "swound, " and necessitated recourse to a crystal flask of strongwaters which she had prudently brought in her muff. Other of Lady Fareham'sparticular friends were expected--Sir Ralph Masaroon, Lady Lucretia Topham, and more of the same kidney; and even the volatile Rochester had deigned toexpress an interest in the case. 

"The man was mistaken in his métier, " he had told Lady Sarah, when thescandal was discussed in her drawing-room. "The _rôle_ of seducer wasnot within his means. Any one could see he was in love with the palesister-in-law by the manner in which he scowled at her; but it is not everywoman who can be subjugated by gloom and sullenness, though some of 'emlike us tragical. My method has been to laugh away resistance, as my wifewill acknowledge, who was the cruellest she I ever tackled, and had baffledall her other servants. Indeed she must have been in Butler's eye when hewrote--

 'That old Pyg--what d'ye call him--malion That cut his mistress out of stone, Had not so hard a hearted one. '

Even Lady Rochester will admit I conquered without heroics, " upon which herladyship, late mistress Mallett, a beauty and a fortune, smiled assent withall the complacency of a six-months' bride. "To see a man tried for anattempted abduction is a sight worth a year's income, " pursued Rochester. "I would travel a hundred miles to behold that rare monster who has failedin his pursuit of one of your obliging sex!"

"Do you think us all so easily won?" asked Lady Sarah, piqued. 

"Dear lady, I can but judge by experience. If obdurate to others you havestill been kind to me. "

 * * * * *

Lady Sarah had nearly emptied her flask of Muscadine before Masaroonelbowed his way to a seat beside her, from which he audaciously dislodgeda coffee-house acquaintance, an elderly lawyer upon whom fortune had notsmiled, with a condescending civility that was more uncivil than absoluterudeness. 

"We'll share a bottle in Hell after the trial, mon ami, " he said; and onseeing Lady Sarah's look of horror, he hastened to explain that Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, were the cant names of three taverns which drove aroaring trade in strong drinks under the very roof of the Hall. 

"The King's Attorney-general is prosecuting, " answered Sir Ralph, replyingto a question from Lady Sarah, whose inquiries betrayed that denseignorance of legal technicalities common even to accomplished women. "Itis thought the lady's father would have been glad for the matter to bequashed, his fugitive daughter being restored to his custody--albeit with adamaged character--and her elder sister having run away from her husband. "

"I will not hear you slander my dearest friend, " protested Lady Sarah. "Lady Fareham left her husband, and with good cause, as his after-conductshowed. She did not run away from him. "

"Nay, she had doubtless the assistance of a carriage-and-six. She wouldscarce foot it from London to Dover. And now she is leading grand train inParis, and has taken almost as commanding a place as her friend Madame deLongueville, penitent and retired from service. "

"Hyacinth, under all her appearance of silliness, is a remarkably cleverwoman, " said Lady Sarah, sententiously; "but, pray, Sir Ralph, if MistressAngela's father has good reason for not prosecuting his daughter'slover--indeed I ever thought her an underhand hussy--why does not SirDenzil Warner--who I hear has been at death's door--pursue him for assaultand battery?"

"Nay, is so still, madam. I question if he be yet out of danger. Thegentleman is a kind of puritanical Quixote, and has persistently refused toswear an information against Fareham, whereby I doubt the case will fallthrough, or his lordship get off with a fine of a thousand or two. We haveno longer the blessing of a Star Chamber, to supply state needs out ofsinners' pockets, and mitigate general taxation; but his Majesty's Judgeshave a capacious stomach for fines, and his Majesty has no objection to seehis subjects' misdemeanours transmuted into coin. "

And now the business of the day began, the panelled enclosure being bythis time crowded almost to suffocation; and Lord Fareham was brought intocourt. 

He was plainly dressed in a dark grey suit, and looked ten years olderthan when Lady Sarah had last seen him on his wife's visiting day, anuninterested member of that modish assembly. His eyes were deeper sunkenunder the strongly marked brows. The threads of iron-grey in his thickblack hair were more conspicuous. He carried his head higher than he hadbeen accustomed to carry it, and the broad shoulders were no longer bent inthe Stafford stoop. The spectators could see that he had braced himself forthe ordeal, and would go through the day's work like a man of iron. 

Proclamation was made for silence, and for information, if any person couldgive any, concerning the misdemeanour and offence whereof the defendantstood impeached; and the defendant was bid to look to his challenges, andthe Jury, being gentlemen of the county of Bucks, were called, challenged, and sworn. 

The demand for silence was so far obeyed that there followed a hush withinthe enclosure of the court; but there was no cessation of the buzz ofvoices and the tramp of footsteps in the hall, which mingled sounds seemedlike the rise and fall of a human ocean, as heard within that panelledsanctuary. 

The lawyers took snuff, shuffled on their seats, nudged each other andwhispered now and then, during the reading of the indictment; but amongLady Fareham's friends, and the quality in general, there was a breathlesssilence and expectancy; and Lady Sarah would gladly have run her hat-pininto a snuffy old Serjeant close beside her, who must needs talk behind hishand to his pert junior. 

To her ladyship's unaccustomed ears that indictment, translated literallyfrom the Latin original, sounded terrible as an impeachment in thesubterranean halls of the Vehm Gericht, or in the most select and secretcouncil in the Venetian Doge's Palace. 

The indictment set forth "that the defendant, Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, on the 4th day of July, in the 18th year of our sovereign lord the Kingthat now is, at the parish of St. Nicholas in the Vale, in the county ofBucks, falsely, unlawfully, unjustly, and wickedly, by unlawful and impureways and means, contriving, practising, and intending the final ruin anddestruction of Mrs. Angela Kirkland, unmarried, and one of the daughtersof Sir John Kirkland, Knight--the said lady then and there being underthe custody, government, and education of the said Sir John Kirkland, herfather--he, the said Richard Revel, Baron Fareham, then and there falsely, unlawfully, devilishly, to fulfil, perfect, and bring to effect, his mostwicked, impious, and devilish intentions aforesaid--the said Richard Revel, Lord Fareham (then and long before, and yet, being the husband of Mrs. Hyacinth, another daughter of the said Sir John Kirkland, Knight, andsister of the said Mrs. Angela), against all laws as well divine as human, impiously, wickedly, impurely, and scandalously, did tempt, invite, andsolicit, and by false and lying pretences, oaths, and affirmations, unlawfully, unjustly, and without the leave, and against the will of theaforesaid Sir John Kirkland, Knight, in prosecution of his most wickedintent aforesaid, did carry off the aforesaid Mrs. Angela, she consentingin ignorance of his real purpose, about the hour of twelve in thenight-time of the said 4th day of July, in the year aforesaid, and at theaforesaid, parish of St. Nicholas in the Vale, in the county of Bucksaforesaid, out of the dwelling-house of the said Sir John Kirkland, Knight, did take and convey to his own house in the county of Oxford, and did thenand there detain her by fraud, and did there keep her hidden in a secretchamber known as the Priest's Hole in his own house aforesaid, at thehazard of her life, and did oppose her rescue by force of arms, and withhis sword, unlawfully, murderously, and devilishly, and in the prosecutionof his wicked purpose did stab and wound Sir Denzil Warner, Baronet, thelady's betrothed husband, from which murderous assault the said Sir DenzilWarner, Baronet, still lies in great sickness and danger of death, to thegreat displeasure of Almighty God, to the ruin and destruction of the saidMrs. Angela Kirkland, to the grief and sorrow of all her friends, andto the evil and most pernicious example of all others in the like caseoffending; and against the peace of our said sovereign lord the King, hiscrown and dignity. "

The defendant having pleaded "Not guilty, " the Jury were charged in theusual manner and with all solemnity. 

"If you find him 'guilty' you are to say so; if you find him 'not guilty'you are to say so, and no more, and hear your evidence. "

The Attorney-General confined himself to a brief out-line of the tragicstory, leaving all details to be developed by the witnesses, who wereallowed to give their evidence with colloquial freedom and expansiveness. 

The first witness was old Reuben, the steward from the Manor Moat, who hadnot yet emerged from that mental maze in which he had found himself uponbeholding the change that had come to pass in the great city, since thewell-remembered winter of the King's execution, and the long frost, whenhe, Reuben, was last in London. His evidence was confused and confusing;and he drew upon himself much good-natured ridicule from the junior whoopened the case. Out of various muddle-headed answers and contradictorystatements the facts of Lord Fareham's unexpected appearance at the ManorMoat, his account of his lady's illness, and his hurried departure, carrying the young madam with him on horseback, were elicited, and thestory of the ruse by which Mrs. Angela Kirkland had been beguiled from herhome was made clear to the comprehension of a superior but rustic jury, more skilled in discriminating the points of a horse, the qualities of anox, or the capacity of a hound, than in differentiating truth and falsehoodin a story of wrong-doing. 

Sir John Kirkland was the next witness, and the aspect of the man, thenoble grey head, fine features, and soldierly carriage, the old-fashionedhabit, the fashion of an age not long past, but almost forgotten, enlistedthe regard and compassion of Jury and audience. 

"Let me perish if it is not a ghost from the civil wars!" whispered SirRalph to Lady Sarah. "Mrs. Angela might well be romanesque and unlike therest of us, with such a father. "

A spasm of pain convulsed Fareham's face for a moment, as the old Cavalierstood up in the witness-box, towering above the Court in that elevatedposition, and, after being sworn, took one swift survey of the Bench andJury, and then fixed his angry gaze upon the defendant, and scarcelyshifted it in the whole course of his examination. 

"Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, " said the Attorney-General, "we shall tell youwhat happened at Chilton Abbey, to which place the defendant, under suchfraudulent and lying pretences as you have heard of from the last witness, conveyed the young lady. Sir John, I will ask you to acquaint the Juryas fully and straightforwardly as you can with the circumstances of yourpursuit, and the defendant's reception of you and your intended son-in-law, Sir Denzil Warner, whose deposition we have failed to obtain, but who couldrelate no facts which are not equally within your own knowledge. "

"My words shall be straight and plain, sir, to denounce that unchristianwretch whom, until this miserable business, I trusted as if he had been myson. I came to my house, accompanied by my daughter's plighted husband, within an hour after that villain conveyed her away; and on hearing my oldservant's story was quick to suspect treachery. Nor was Sir Denzil backwardin his fears, which were more instantaneous than mine; and we waited onlyfor the saddling of fresh horses, and rousing a couple of grooms fromtheir beds, fellows that I could trust for prudence and courage, before wemounted again, following in that wretch's track. We heard of him and hisvictim at the Inn where they changed horses, she going consentingly, believing she was being taken in this haste to attend a dying sister. "

"And on arriving at the defendant's house what was your reception?"

"He opposed our entrance, until he saw that we should batter down his doorif he shut us out longer. We were not admitted until after I had sent oneof my servants for the nearest Constable; and before we had gained anentrance into his house he had contrived to put away my daughter in awretched hiding-place, planned for the concealment of Romish Priests orother recusants and malefactors, and would have kept her there, I believe, till she had perished in that foul cavern, rather than restore her to herfather and natural guardian. "

"That is false, and you know it!" cried Fareham. "My life is of lessaccount to me than a hair of her head. I hid her from you, to save her fromyour tyranny, and the hateful marriage to which you would have compelledher. "

"Liar! Impudent, barbarous liar!" roared the old Knight, with his right armraised, and his body half out of the box, as if he would have assaultedthe defendant. "Sir John, " said the Judge, "I would be very loath to dealotherwise than becomes me with a person of your quality; but, indeed, thisis not so handsome, and we must desire you to be calm. "

"When I remember his infamy, and that vile assumption of my daughter'spassion for him, which he showed in every word and act of that miserablescene. "

He went on to relate the searching of the house, and Warner's happyinspiration, by which Angela's hiding-place was discovered, and she rescuedin a fainting condition. He described the defendant's audacious attemptto convey her to the coach which stood ready for her abduction, and hisviolence in opposing her rescue, and the fight which had well-nigh resultedin Warner's death. 

When Sir John's story was finished the defendant's advocate, who haddeclined to question the old butler, rose to cross-examine this moreimportant witness. 

"In your tracing of the defendant's journey between your house and Chiltonyou heard of no outcries of resistance upon your daughter's side?"

"No, sir. She went willingly, under a delusion. "

"And do you think now, sir, as a man of the world, and with some knowledgeof women, that your daughter was so easily hoodwinked; she having seen hersister, Lady Fareham, so shortly before, in good health and spirits?"

"Lady Fareham did not appear in good health when she was last at the Manor, and her sister was already uneasy about her. "

"But not so uneasy as to believe her dying, and that it was needful to rideto her helter-skelter in the night-time. Do you not think, sir, that theyoung lady, who was so quick to comply with his lordship's summons, andbustled up and was in the saddle ten minutes after he entered the house, and was willing to got without her own woman, or any preparation fortravel, had a strong inclination for the journey, and a great kindness forthe gentleman who solicited her company?"

"Has that barbarous wretch set you on to slander the lady whose ruin hesought, sir?" asked the Knight, pallid with the white heat of indignation. 

"Nay, Sir John, I am no slanderer; but I want the Jury to understand thesentiments and passions which are the springs of action here, and to bearin mind that the case they are hearing is a love story, and they can onlycome at the truth by remembering their own experience as lovers--"

The deep and angry tones of his client interrupted the silvery-tonguedCounsellor. 

"If you think to help me, sir, by traducing the lady, I repudiate youradvocacy. "

"My lord, you are not allowed to give evidence or to interrupt the Court. You have pleaded not guilty, and it is my duty to demonstrate yourinnocence. Come, Sir John, do you not know that his lordship's unhappypassion for his sister-in-law was shared by the subject of it; and that shefor a long time opposed all your efforts to bring about a proper alliancefor her, solely guided and influenced by this secret passion?"

"I know no such thing. "

"Do I understand, then, that from the time of your first proposals she waswilling to marry Sir Denzil Warner?"

"She was not willing. "

"I would have wagered as much. Did you fathom her reason for declining soproper an alliance?"

"I did not trouble myself about her reasons. I knew that time would wearthem away. "

"And I doubt you trusted to a father's authority?"

"No, sir. I promised my daughter that I would not force her inclinations. "

"But you used all methods of persuasion. How long was it before July the4th that Mrs. Angela consented to marry Sir Denzil?"

"I cannot be over precise upon that point. I have no record of the date. "

"But you have the faculty of memory, sir; and this is a point which afather would not easily forget. "

"It may have been a fortnight before. "

"And until that time the lady was unwilling?"

"Yes. "

"She refused positively to accept the match you urged upon her?"

"She refused. "

"And finally consented, I will wager, with marked reluctance?"

"No, sir, there was no reluctance. She came to me of her own accord, andsurprised me by her submission. "

"That will do, Sir John. You can stand down. I shall now proceed to call awitness who will convince the Jury of my client's innocence upon the firstand chief count in the indictment, abduction with fraud and violence. Ishall tell you by the lips of my witness, that if he took the lady awayfrom her home, she being of full age, she went freely consenting, and withknowledge of his purpose. "

"Lies--foul lies!" cried the old Cavalier, almost strangled with passion. 

He plucked at the knot of his cravat, trying to loosen it, feeling himselfthreatened with apoplexy. 

"Call Mistress Angela Kirkland, " said the Serjeant, in strong steady tonesthat contrasted with the indignant father's hoarse and gasping utterance. 

"S'life! the business becomes every moment more interesting, " whisperedLady Sarah. "Will he make that sly slut own her misconduct in open court?"

"If she blush at her slip from virtue, it will be a new sensation in aLondon law-court to see the colour of shame, " replied Sir Ralph, behind hisperfumed glove; "but I warrant she'll carry matters with a high hand, andfeel herself every inch a heroine. "

Angela came into the court attended by her waiting-woman, who remained nearthe entrance, amid the close-packed crowd of lawyers and onlookers, whileher mistress quietly followed the official who conducted her to thewitness-box. 

She was dressed in black, and her countenance under her neat black hoodlooked scarcely less white than her lawn neckerchief; but she stood erectand unfaltering in that conspicuous station, and met the eyes of herinterrogator with an untroubled gaze. When her lips had touched the dirtylittle book, greasy with the kisses of innumerable perjurers, the Serjeantbegan to question her in a tone of odious familiarity. 

"Now, my dear young lady, here is a gentleman's liberty, and perhaps hislife, hanging on the breath of those pretty lips; so I want you to answera few plain questions with as plain speech as you can command, rememberingthat you are to tell us the truth, and the whole truth, and nothing but thetruth. Come, now, dear miss, when you left your father's house on the nightof July 4, in this present year, in Lord Fareham's company, did you go withhim of your own free will, and with a knowledge of his purpose?"

"I knew that he loved me. "

A heart-breaking groan from Sir John Kirkland was hushed down by an usherof the court. 

"You knew that he loved you, and that he designed to carry you beyondseas?"

"Yes. "

"And you were willing to leave your father's custody and go with thedefendant as his paramour?"

There was a pause, and the white cheek crimsoned, and the heavy eyelidsfell over agonised eyes. 

"I went willingly--because I loved him;" and then with a sudden burst ofpassion, "I would have died for him, or lived for him. It mattered notwhich. "

"And she has lied for him--has sworn to a lie--and that to her owndishonour!" cried Sir John, beside himself; whereupon he was sternly biddento keep silence. 

There was no intention that this little Buckinghamshire gentleman shouldbe indulged, to the injury of a person of Lord Fareham's wealth andconsequence. The favour of the Bench obviously leant towards the defendant. 

Fareham's deep tones startled the audience. 

"In truth, your Honour, the young lady has belied herself in order to helpme, " he said. "I cannot accept acquittal at the cost of her good name. "

"Your lordship has pleaded not guilty. "

"And his lordship's chivalry would revoke that plea, " cried the Counsel;"this is most irregular. I must beg that the Bench do order the defendantto keep silence. The witness can stand down. "

Angela descended from the witness-box falteringly, and would perhaps havefallen but for her father's strong grasp, which clutched her arm as shereached the last step. 

He dragged her out of the close-packed court, and into the open Hall. 

"Wanton!" he hissed in her ear, "shameless wanton!"

She answered nothing; but stood where he held her, with wild eyes lookingout of a white, rigid countenance. She had done what she had come thereto do. Persuaded by Fareham's attorney, who had waited upon her at herlodgings when Sir John was out of the way, she had made her ill-consideredattempt to save the man she loved, ignorant of the extent of his danger, exaggerating the potential severity of his punishment, in the illimitablefear of a woman for the safety of the being she loves. And now she carednothing what became of her, cared little even for her father's anger ordistress. There was always the Convent, last refuge of sin or sorrow, whichmeant the annihilation of the individual, and where the world's praise orblame had no influence. 

Her woman fussed about her with a bottle of strong essence, and Sir Johndragged rather than led her along the Hall, to the great door where thecoach that had carried her from his London lodgings was in waiting. He sawher seated, with her woman beside her, supporting her, gave the coachmanhis orders, and then went hastily back to the Court of King's Bench. 

The Court was rising; the Jury, without leaving their seats, had pronouncedthe defendant guilty of a misdemeanour, not in conveying Sir JohnKirkland's daughter away from her home, to which act she had avowed herselfa consenting party; but in detaining her in his house with violence, andin opposition to her father and proper guardian. The Lord Chief Justiceexpressed his satisfaction at this verdict, and after expatiating withpious horror upon the evil consequences of an ungovernable passion, aguilty, soul-destroying love, a direct inspiration of Satan, sentenced thedefendant to pay a fine of ten thousand pounds, upon the payment of whichsum he would be set at liberty. 

The old Cavalier heard the brief sermon and the sentence, which seemed tohim of all punishments the most futile. He had hoped to see his son-in-lawsent to the Plantations for life; had been angry at the thought that hewould escape the gallows; and for sole penalty the seducer was sentenced toforfeit less than a year's income. How corrupt and venal was a benchthat made the law of the land a nullity when a great personage was thelaw-breaker!

He flung himself in the defendant's way as he left the court, and struckhim across the breast with the flat of his sword. 

"An unarmed man, Sir John! Is that your old-world chivalry?" Fareham asked, quietly. 

A crowd was round them and swords were drawn before the officer couldinterfere. There were friends of Fareham's in the court, and two of hisgentlemen; and Sir John, who was alone, might have been seriously hurtbefore the authorities could put down the tumult, had not his son-in-lawprotected him. 

"Sheath your swords, if you love me!" he exclaimed, flinging himself infront of Sir John. "I would not have the slightest violence offered to thisgentleman. "

"And I would kill you if I had the chance!" cried Sir John; "that is thedifference between us. I keep no measures with the man who ruined mydaughter. "

"Your daughter is as spotless a saint as the day she left her Convent, andyou are a blatant old fool to traduce her, " said Fareham, exasperated, asthe Usher led him away. 

His detention was no more than a formality; and as he had been previouslyallowed his liberty upon bail, he was now permitted to return to hisown house, where by an order upon his banker he paid the fine, and washenceforward a free man. 

The first use he made of his freedom was to rush to Sir John's lodgings, only to hear that the Cavalier, with his daughter and two servants, hadleft half an hour earlier in a coach-and-four for Buckinghamshire. Thepeople at the lodgings did not know which road they had taken, or at whatInn they were to lie on the way. 

"Well, there will be a better chance of seeing her at the Manor than inLondon, " Fareham thought; "he cannot keep so close a watch upon her thereas in the narrow space of town lodgings. "

CHAPTER XXVII. 

BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE. 

It was December, and the fields and pastures were white in the tardy dawnwith the frosty mists of early winter, and Sir John Kirkland was busymaking his preparations for leaving Buckinghamshire and England with hisdaughter. He had come from Spain at the beginning of the year, hoping tospend the remnant of his days in the home of his forefathers, and to layhis old bones in the family vault; but the place was poisoned to him forevermore, he told Angela. He could not stay where he and his had been heldin highest honour, to have his daughter pointed at by every grinning loutin hob-nailed shoes, and scorned by the neighbouring quality. He onlywaited till Denzil Warner should be pronounced out of danger and on thehigh-road to recovery, before he crossed the Channel. 

"There is no occasion you should leave Buckinghamshire, sir, " Angelaargued. "It is the dearest wish of my heart to return to the Convent atLouvain, and finish my life there, sheltered from the world's contempt. "

"What, having failed to get your fancy, you would dedicate yourself toGod?" he cried. "No, madam. I am still your father, though you havedisgraced me; and I require a daughter's duty from you. Oh, child, I soloved you, was so proud of you! It is a bitter physic you have given me todrink. "

She knelt at his feet, and kissed his sunburnt hands shrunken with age. 

"I will do whatever you desire, sir. I wish no higher privilege than towait upon you; but when you weary of me there is ever the Convent. "

"Leave that for your libertine sister. Be sure she will finish a loose lifeby a conspicuous piety. She will turn saint like Madame de Longueville. Sinners are the stuff of which modern saints are made. And women loveextremes--to pass from silk and luxury to four-o'clock matins, and theCarmelite's woollen habit. No, Angela, there must be no Convent for you, while I live. Your penance must be to suffer the company of a petulant, disappointed old man. "

"No penance, sir, but peace and contentment; so I am but forgiven. "

"Oh, you are forgiven. There is that about you with which one cannot longbe angry--a creature so gentle and submissive, a reed that bends under ablow. Let us not think of the past. You were a fool--but not a wanton. No, I will never believe that! A generous, headstrong fool, ready with thineown perjured lips to blacken thy character in order to save the villain whodid his best to ruin thee. But thou art pure, " looking down at her with asevere scrutiny. "There is no memory of guilt in those eyes. We will goaway together, and live peacefully together, and you shall still be thestaff of my failing steps, the light of my fading eyes, the comfort ofmy ebbing life. Were I but easy in my mind about those poor forsakengrandchildren, I could leave England cheerfully enough; but to know themmotherless--with such a father!"

"Indeed, sir, I believe, however greatly Lord Fareham may have erred, hewill not prove a neglectful father, " Angela said, her voice growing low andtremulous as she pronounced that fatal name. 

"You will vouch for him, no doubt. A licentious villain, but an admirablefather! No, child, Nature does not deal in such anomalies. The children arealone at Chilton with their English gouvernante, and the prim Frenchwoman, who takes infinite pains to perfect Henriette's unlikeness to a humanchild. They are alone, and their father is hanging about the Court. "

"At Court! Lord Fareham! Indeed, sir, I think you must be mistaken. "

"Indeed, madam, I have the fact on good authority. "

"Oh, sir, if you have reason to think those dear children neglected, is itnot your duty to protect and care for them? Their poor, mistaken mother hasabandoned them. "

"Yes, to play the great lady in Paris, where, when I went in quest ofher last July--while thou wert lying sick here--hoping to bring back apenitent, I was received with a triumphant insolence, finding her thecentre of a circle of flatterers, a Princess in little, with all the airsand graces and ceremonies and hauteur of the French Blood-royal. When Icharged her with being Malfort's mistress, and bade her pack her traps andcome home with me, she deafened me with her angry volubility. I to slanderher--I, her father, when there was no one in Paris, from the Place Royaleto the Louvre, more looked up to! But when I questioned my old friends theyanswered with enigmatical smiles, and assured me that they knew nothingagainst my daughter's character worse than all the world was saying aboutsome of the highest ladies in France--Madame, to wit; and with this coldcomfort I must needs be content, and leave her in her splendid infamy. "

"Father, be sure she will come back to us. She has been led intowrong-doing by the artfullest of villains. She will discover the emptinessof her life, and come back to seek the solace of her children's love. Letus care for them meanwhile. They have no other kindred. Think of our sweetHenriette--so rich, so beautiful, so over-intelligent--growing from childto woman in the care of servants, who may spoil and pervert her even bytheir very fondness. "

"It is a bad case, I grant; but I can stir no finger where that man isconcerned. I can hold no communication with that scoundrel. "

"But your lawyer could claim custody of the children for you, perhaps. "

"I think not, Angela, unless there was a criminal neglect of their bodies. The law takes no account of souls. "

Angela's greatest anxiety--now that Denzil's recovery was assured--was forthe welfare of these children whom she fondly loved, and for whom she wouldhave gladly played a mother's part. She wrote in secret to her sister, entreating her to return to England for her children's sake, and to devoteherself to them in retirement at Chilton, leaving the scandal of herelopement to be forgotten in the course of blameless years; so that by thetime Henriette was old enough to enter the world her mother would haverecovered the esteem of worthy people, as well as the respect of the mob. 

Lady Fareham's tardy answer was not encouraging. She had no design ofreturning to a house in which she had never been properly valued, andshe admired that her sister should talk of scandal, considering that thescandal of her own intrigue with her brother-in-law had set all Englandtalking, and had been openly mentioned in the London and Oxford Gazettes. Silence about other people's affairs would best become a young miss who hadmade herself so notorious. 

As for the children, Lady Fareham had no doubt that their father, who hadever lavished more affection upon them than he bestowed upon his wife, might be trusted with the care of them, however abominable his conductmight be in other matters. But in any case her ladyship would not exchangeParis for London, where she had been slighted and neglected at Court aswell as at home. 

The letter was a tissue of injustice and egotism; and Angela gave up allhope of influencing her sister for good; but not the hope of being usefulto her sister's children. 

Now, as the short winter days went by, and the preparations for departurewere making, she grew more and more urgent with her father to obtain thecustody of his grandchildren, and carry them to France with him, where theymight be reared and educated under his own eye. Montpelier was the place ofexile he had chosen, a place renowned alike for its admirable climate andeducational establishments; and where Sir John had spent the previouswinter, and had made friends. 

It was to Montpelier the great Chancellor had retired from the splendoursof a princely mansion but just completed--far exceeding his own originalintentions in splendour, as the palaces of new-made men are apt to do--andfrom a power and authority second only to that of kings. There thegrandfather of future queens was now residing in modest state, devoting theevening of his life to the composition of an authentic record of the laterebellion, and of those few years during which he had been at the head ofaffairs in England. Sir John Kirkland, who had never forgotten his owndisappointments in the beginning of his master's restored fortunes, had afellow-feeling for "Ned Hyde" in his fall. 

"As a statesman he was next in capacity to Wentworth, " said Sir John, "andyet a painted favourite and a rabble of shallow wits were strong enough toundermine him. "

The old Knight confessed that he had ridden out of his way on severaloccasions when he was visiting Warner's sick-bed, in the hope of meetingHenrietta and George on their ponies, and had more than once been so luckyas to see them. 

"The girl grows handsomer, and is as insolent as ever; but she has asorrowful look which assures me she misses her mother; though it was indeedof that wretch, her father, she talked most. She said he had told her hewas likely to go on a foreign embassy. If it is to France he goes, there isan end of Montpelier. The same country shall not hold him and my daughterwhile I live to protect you. "

Angela began to understand that it was his fear, or his hatred of Fareham, which was taking him out of his native country. No word had been said ofher betrothal since that fatal night. It seemed tacitly understood that allwas at an end between her and Denzil Warner. She herself had been prostratewith a low, nervous fever during a considerable part of that long period ofapprehension and distress in which Denzil lay almost at the point of death, nursed by his grief-stricken mother, to whom the very name of his so latelybetrothed wife was hateful. Verily the papistical bride had brought agreater trouble to that house than even Lady Warner's prejudiced mind hadanticipated. Kneeling by her son's bed, exhausted with the passion of longprayers for his recovery, the mother's thoughts went back to the day whenAngela crossed the threshold of that house for the first time, so fair, somodest, with a countenance so innocent in its pensive beauty. 

"And yet she was guilty at heart even then, " Lady Warner told herself, inthe long night-watches, after the trial at Westminster Hall, when Angela'spublic confession of an unlawful love had been reported to her by herfavourite Nonconformist Divine, who had been in court throughout the trial, with Lady Warner's lawyer, watching the proceedings in the interest of SitDenzil. Lady Warner received the news of the verdict and sentence withunspeakable indignation. 

"And my murdered son!" she gasped, "for I know not yet that God willhear my prayers and raise him up to me again. Is his blood to count fornothing--or his sufferings--his patient sufferings on that bed? A fine--apaltry fine--a trifle for a rich man. I would pay thrice as much, thoughit beggared me, to see him sent to the Plantations. O Judge and Avenger ofIsrael! Thou hast scourged us with pestilence, and punished us with fire;but Thou hast not convinced us of sin. The world is so sunk in wickednessthat murder scarce counts for crime. "

The day of terror was past. Denzil's convalescence was proceeding slowly, but without retrograde stages. His youth and temperate habits had helpedhis recovery from a wound which in the earlier stages looked fatal. He wasnow able to sit up in an armchair, and talk to his visitor, when Sir Johnrode twenty miles to see him; but only once did his lips shape the namethat had been so dear, and that occasion was at the end of a visit whichSir John announced as the last. 

"Our goods are packed and ready for shipping, " he said. "My daughter and Iwill begin our journey to Montpelier early next week. "

It was the first time Sir John had spoken of his daughter in thatsick-room. 

"If she should ever talk of me, in the time to come, " Denzil said--speakingvery slowly, in a low voice, as if the effort, mental and physical, werealmost beyond his strength, and holding the hand which Sir John had givenhim in saying good-bye--"tell her that I shall ever remember her witha compassionate affection--ever hold her the dearest and loveliest ofwomen--yes, even if I should marry, and see the children of some fair andchaste wife growing up around me. She will ever be the first. And tellher that I know she forswore herself in the court; and that she was theinnocent dupe of that villain--never his consenting companion. And tell herthat I pity her even for that so misplaced affection which tempted her toswear to a lie. I knew, sir, always, that she loved him and not me. Yes, from the first. Indeed, sir, it was but too easy to read that unconsciousbeginning of unholy love, which grew and strengthened like some fataldisease. I knew, but nursed the fond hope that I could win her heart--inspite of him. I fancied that right must prevail over wrong; but it doesnot, you see, sir, not always--not----" A faintness came over him;whereupon his mother, re-entering the room at this moment, ran to him andrestored him with the strong essence that stood handy among the medicinebottles on the table by his chair. 

"You have suffered him to talk too much, " she said, glancing angrily at SirJohn. "And I'll warrant he has been talking of your daughter--whose namemust be poison to him. God knows 'tis worse than poison to me!"

"Madam, I did not come to this house to hear my daughter abused----"

"It would have better become you, Sir John Kirkland, to keep away from thishouse. "

"Mother, silence! You distress me worse than my illness----"

"This, madam, is my farewell visit. You will not be plagued any more withme, " said Sir John, lifting his hat, and bowing low to Lady Warner. 

He was gone before she could reply. 

 * * * * *

The baggage was ready--clothes, books, guns, plate, and linen--allnecessaries for an exile that might last for years, had been packed for thesea voyage; but the trunks and bales had not yet been placed in the waggonthat was to convey them to the Tower Wharf, where they were to be shippedin one of the orange-boats that came at this season from Valencia, ladenwith that choice and costly fruit, and returned with a heterogeneous cargo. At Valencia the goods would be put on board a Mediterranean coastingvessel, and landed at Cette. 

Sir John began to waver about his destination after having heard fromHenriette of her father's possible embassy. Certainly if Fareham were to beemployed in foreign diplomacy, Paris seemed a likely post for a man who wasso well known there, and had spent so much of his life in France. And ifFareham were to be at Paris, Sir John considered Montpelier, remote as itwas from the capital, too near his enemy. 

"He has proved himself an indomitable villain, " thought the Knight. "And Icould not always keep as close a watch upon my daughter as I have donein the last six weeks. No. If Fareham be for France, I am for some othercountry. I might take her to Florence, and put the Apennines between herand that daring wretch. "

It may be, too, that Sir John had another reason for lingering, after allwas ready for the journey. He may have been much influenced by Angela'sconcern about his grandchildren, and may have hesitated at leaving themalone in England with only salaried guardians. 

"Their father concerns himself very little about them, you see, " he toldAngela, "since he can entertain the project of a foreign embassy, whilethose little wretches are pining in a lonely barrack in Oxfordshire. "

"Indeed, sir, he is a fond father. I would wager my life that he is deeplyconcerned about them. "

"Oh, he is an angel, on your showing! You would blacken your sister'scharacter to make him a saint. "

The next day was fine and sunny, a temperature as of April, after themorning frost had melted. There was a late rose or two still lingering inthe sheltered Buckinghamshire valley, though it wanted but a fortnight ofChristmas. Angela and her father were sitting in a parlour that faced theiron gates. Since their return from London Sir John had seemed uneasy whenhis daughter was out of his sight; and she, perceiving his watchfulness andtrouble, had been content to abandon her favourite walks in the lanes andwoods and to the "fair hill of Brill, " whence the view was so lovely andso vast, on one side reaching to the Welsh mountains, and on anothercommanding the nearer prospect of "the great fat common of Ottmoor, " asAubrey calls it, "which in some winters is like a sea of waters. " For herfather's comfort, noting the sad wistful eyes that watched her coming inand going out, she had resigned herself to spend long melancholyhours within doors, reading aloud till Sir John fell asleep, playingbackgammon--a game she detested worse even than shove-halfpenny, whichlatter primitive game they played sometimes on the shovel-board in thehall. Life could scarcely be sadder than Angela's life in those grey winterdays; and had it not been for an occasional ride across country with herfather, health and spirits must alike have succumbed to this monotony ofsadness. 

This morning, as on many mornings of late, the subject of the boy and girlat Chilton had been discussed with the Knight's tankard of home-brewed andhis daughter's chocolate. 

"Indeed, sir, it would be a cruel thing for us to abandon them. AtMontpelier we shall be a fortnight's journey from England; and if eitherof those dear creatures should fall ill, dangerously ill, perhaps, theirfather beyond the seas, and we, too, absent--oh, sir, figure to yourselfHenriette or George dying among strangers! A cold or a fever might carrythem off in a few days; and we should know nothing till all was over. "

Sir John groaned and paced the room, agitated by the funereal image. 

"Why, what a raven thou art, ever to croak dismal prophecies. The childrenare strong and well, and have careful custodians. I can have no dealingswith their father. Must I tell you that a hundred times, Angela? He is aconsummate villain: and were it not that I fear to make a bigger scandal, he or I should not have survived many hours after that iniquitoussentence. "

A happy solution of this difficulty, which distressed the Knight much morethan his stubbornness allowed him to admit, was close at hand that morning, while Angela bent over her embroidery frame, and her father spelt throughthe last _London Gazette_ that the post had brought him. 

The clatter of hoofs and roll of wheels announced a visit; and while theywere looking at the gate, full of wonder, since their visitors were of sosmall a number, a footman in the Fareham livery pulled the iron ring thathung by a chain from the stone pillar, and the bell rang loud and long inthe frosty air. The Fareham livery! Twice before the Fareham coaches andliveries had taken that quiet household by surprise; but to-day terrorrather than surprise was in Angela's mind as she stood in front of thewindow looking at the gate. 

Could Fareham be so rash as to face her father, so daring as to seek afarewell interview on the eve of departure? No, she told herself; suchfolly was impossible. The visitor could be but one person--Henriette. Evenassured of this in her own mind, she did not rush to welcome her niece, butstood as if turned to stone, waiting for the opening of the gate. 

Old Reuben, having seen the footman, went himself to admit the visitors, with his grandson and slave in attendance. 

"It must be her little ladyship, " he said, taking his young mistress's viewof the case. "Lord Fareham would never dare to show his deceiving facehere. "

A shrill voice greeted him from the coach window before he reached thegate. 

"You are the slowest old wretch I ever saw!" cried the voice. "Don't youknow that when visitors of importance come to a house they expect to be letin? I vow a convent gate would be opened quicker. "

"Indeed, your ladyship, when your legs are as old as mine----"

"Which I hope they never will be, " muttered Henriette, as she descendedwith a languid slowness from the coach, assisted on either side by afootman; while George, who could not wait for her airs and graces, lethimself out at the door on the off side just as Reuben succeeded in turningthe key. 

"So you are old Reuben!" he said, patting the butler on the shoulder withthe gold hilt of his riding-whip. "And you were here, like a vegetable, allthrough the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth?"

"Yes, your lordship, from the raising of Hampden's regiment. "

"Ah, you shall tell me all about it over a pipe and a bottle. You must bevastly good company. I am come to live here. "

"To live here, your honour?"

"Yes; sister and I are to live here while my father represents his Majestybeyond seas. I hope you have good stabling and plenty of room. My poniesand Mistress Henriette's Arab horse will be here to-morrow. I doubt I shallhave to build a place for my hawks; but I suppose Sir John will find me acottage for my Dutch falconer. "

"Lord, how the young master do talk!" exclaimed Reuben, with an admiringgrin. 

The boy was so rapid in his speech, had such vivacity and courage in hisface, such a spring in every movement, as if he had quicksilver in hisveins, Reuben thought; but it was only the quicksilver of youth, thatDivine ichor which lasts for so brief a season. 

"It made me feel twenty years younger only to hear him prattle, " Reubensaid afterwards. 

Sir John and his daughter had come to meet the children by this time, and there were fond embracings, in the midst of which Henriette withdrewherself from her grandfather's arms, and retired a couple of paces, inorder to drop him the Jennings curtsy, sinking almost to the ground, andthen rising from billows of silk, like Venus from the sea, and handinghim a letter, with a circular sweep of her arm, learnt in London from herParisian dancing mistress, an apprentice of St. André's, not from theshabby little French cut-caper from Oxford. 

"My father sends you this letter, sir. "

"Is your father at Chilton?"

"No, sir. He was with us the day before yesterday, to bid us good-byebefore he started upon his foreign embassy, " replied Henriette, strugglingwith her tears, lest she should seem a child, and not the woman of fashionshe aspired to be. "He left us early in the afternoon to ride back toLondon, and he takes barge this afternoon to Gravesend, to embark forArchangel, on his way to Moscow. I doubt you know he is to be his Majesty'sAmbassador at Muscovy?"

"I know nothing but what you told me t'other day, Henriette, " the Knightanswered, as they went to the house, where George began to run about on anexploration of corridors, and then escaped to the stables, while Henriettestood in front of the great wood fire, and warmed her hands in a statelymanner. 

Angela had found no words of welcome for her niece yet. She only huggedand kissed her, and now occupied herself unfastening the child's hood andcloak. "How your hands shake, auntie. You must be colder than I am; thoughthat leathern coach lets in the wind like a sieve. I suppose my people willknow where to dispose themselves?" she added, resuming her grand air. 

"Reuben will take care of them, dearest. "

"Why, your voice shakes like your hands; and oh, how white you are. But youare glad to see us, I hope?"

"Gladder than I can say, Henriette. "

"I am glad you don't call me Papillon. I have left off that ridiculousname, which I ought never to have permitted. "

"I doubt, mistress, you who know so much know what is in this letter, " saidSir John, staring at Fareham's superscription as if he had come suddenlyupon an adder. 

"Nay, sir, I only know that my father was shut in his library for a longtime writing, and was as white as my aunt is now when he brought it to me. 'You and George, and your gouvernante and servants, are to go to the ManorMoat the day after to-morrow, ' he said, 'and you are to give this letterinto your grandfather's hand. ' I have done my duty, and await your Honour'spleasure. Our gouvernante is not the Frenchwoman. Father dismissed her forneglecting my education, and walking out after dark with Daniel Lettsome. 'Tis only Priscilla, who is something between a servant and a friend, andwho does everything I tell her. "

"A pretty gouvernante!"

"Nay, sir, she is as plain as a pikestaff; that is one of her merits. Mademoiselle thought herself pretty, and angled for a rich husband. Pleasebe so good as to read your letter, grandfather, for I believe it is aboutus. "

Sir John broke the seal, and began to read the letter with a frowning brow, which lightened as he read. Angela stood with her niece clasped in herarms, and watched her father's countenance across the silky brown head thatnestled against her bosom. 

"SIR, --Were it not in the interests of others, who must needs hold a placein your affection second only to that they have in my heart, I shouldscarce presume to address you; but it is to the grandfather of my childrenI write, rather than to the gentleman whom I have so deeply offended. Ilook back, sir, and repent the violence of that unhappy night; but know nochange in the melancholy passion that impelled me to crime. It would havebeen better for me had I been the worst rake-hell at Whitehall, than tohave held myself aloof from the modish vices of my day, only to concentrateall my desires and affections there, where it was most sinful to placethem. 

"Enough, sir. Did I stand alone I should have found an easy solution of alldifficulties, and you, and the lady my madness has so insulted, would havebeen rid for ever of the despicable wretch who now addresses you. 

"I had to remember the dear innocents who bring you this letter, and it wasof them I thought when I humbled myself to turn courtier in order to obtainthe post of Ambassador to Muscovy--in which savage place I shall be soremote from all who ever knew me in this country, that I shall be as goodas dead; and you would have as much compunction in withholding your loveand protection from my boy and girl as if they were de facto orphans. Isend them to you, sir, unheralded. I fling them into the bosom of yourlove. They are rich, and the allowance that will be paid you for them willcover, I apprehend, all outlays on their behalf, or can be increased atyour pleasure. My lawyers, whom you know, will be at your service for allcommunications; and they will spare you the pain of correspondence with me. 

"I leave the nurture, education, and happiness of these, my only son anddaughter, solely in your care and authority. They have been reared inover-much luxury, and have been spoiled by injudicious indulgence. Buttheir faults are trivial faults, and are all on the surface. They aretruthful, and have warm and generous hearts. I shall deem it a furtherfavour if you will allow their nurse, or nurse-gouvernante, Mrs. PriscillaBaker, to remain with them, as your servant, and subject to your authority. Their horses, ponies, hawks, and hounds, carriages, etc. , must beaccommodated, or not, at your pleasure. My girl is greatly taken up withthe Arab horse I gave her on her last birthday, and I should be glad ifyour stable could shelter him. I subscribe myself, perhaps for the lasttime, sir, "Your obedient servant, and a penitent sinner, "FAREHAM. "

When he had come to the end of the letter, reading slowly and thoughtfully, Sir John handed it to his daughter, in a dead silence. 

She tried to read; but at sight of the beloved writing a rush of tearsblinded her, and she gave the letter back to her father. 

"I cannot read it, sir, " she sobbed; "tell me only, are we to keep thechildren?"

"Yes. Henceforward they are our children; and it will be the business ofour lives to make them happy. "

"If you cry, tante, I shall think you are vexed that we have come to plagueyou, " said Henriette, with a pretty, womanly air. "I am very sorry forhis poor lordship, for he also cried when he kissed us; but he will haveskating and sledging in Muscovy, and he will shoot bears; so he will bevery happy. "

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

IN A DEAD CALM. 

The great bales and chests, and leather trunks, on the filling whereofSir John's household had bestowed a week's labour, were all unpacked andcleared out of the hall, to make room for a waggon load of packages fromChilton Abbey, which preliminary waggon was followed day after day by otherconveyances laden with other possessions of the Honourable Henriette, or the Honourable George. The young lady's virginals, her guitar, herembroidery frames, her books, her "babies, " which the maids had packed, although it was long since she had played with them; the young gentleman'sguns and whips, tennis rackets, bows and arrows, and a mass ofheterogeneous goods; there seemed no end to the two children's personalproperty, and it was well that the old house was sufficiently spacious toafford a wing for their occupation. They brought their gouvernante, and avalet and maid, the falconer, and three grooms, for whom lodgings had tobe found out-of-doors. The valet and waiting-woman spent some days indistributing and arranging all that mass of belongings; but at the end oftheir labour the children's rooms looked more cheerful than their luxuriousquarters at Chilton, and the children themselves were delighted with theirnew home. 

"We are lodged ever so much better here than at the Abbey, " George toldhis grandfather. "We were ever so far away from father and mother, andthe house was under a curse, being stolen from the Church in King Henry'sreign. Once, when I had a fever, an old grey monk came and sat at thefoot of the bed, between the curtains, and wouldn't go away. He sat therealways, till I began to get well again. Father said there was nothingthere, and it was only the fever made me see him; but I know it was theghost of one of the monks who were flung out to starve when the Abbey wasseized by Cromwell's men. Not Oliver Cromwell, grandfather; but another badman of the name, who had his head cut off afterwards; though I doubt hedeserved the axe less than the Brewer did. "

There was no more talk of Montpelier or exile. A new life began in the oldhouse in the valley, with new pleasures, new motives, new duties--a life inwhich the children were paramount. These two eager young minds ruled at theManor Moat. For them the fish-pond teemed with carp and tench, for themhawks flew, and hounds ran, and horses and ponies were moving from morningtill twilight; for them Sir John grew young again, and hunted fox and hare, and rode with the hawks with all the pertinacity of youth, for whom thereis no such word as enough. For them the happy grandfather lived in hisboots from October to March, and the adoring aunt spent industrious hoursin the fabrication of flies for trout, after the recipes in Mr. Walton'sagreeable book. The whole establishment was ordered for their comfort andpleasure; but their education and improvement were also considered ineverything. A Roman Catholic gentleman, from St. Omer, was engaged asGeorge's tutor, and to teach Angela and Henriette Latin and Italian, studies in which the niece was stimulated to industry by her desire tosurpass her aunt, an ambition which her volatile spirits never allowed herto realise. For all other learning and accomplishments Angela was her onlyteacher, and as the girl grew to womanhood aunt and niece read and studiedtogether, like sisters, rather than like pupil and mistress; and Angelataught Henriette to love those books which Fareham had given her, and so ina manner the intellect of the banished father influenced the growing mindof the child. Together, and of one opinion in all things, aunt and niecevisited and ministered to the neighbouring poor, or entertained theirgenteel neighbours in a style at once friendly and elegant. No existencecould have been calmer or happier, to one who was content to renounce allpassionate hopes and desires, all the romantic aspirations of youth; andAngela had resigned herself to such renunciation when she rose from hersick-bed, after the tragedy at Chilton. Here was the calm of the Conventwithout its restrictions and limitations, the peace which is not of thisworld, and yet liberty to enjoy all that is fairest and noblest in thisworld; for had not Sir John pledged himself to take his daughter and nieceand nephew for the grand tour through France and Italy, soon after George'sseventeenth birthday? Father Andrea, who was of Florentine birth, would gowith them; and with such a cicisbeo, they would see and understand all thetreasures of the past and the present, antique and modern art. 

Lord Fareham was still in the north of Europe; but, after three years inRussia, had been transferred from Moscow to Copenhagen, where he was inhigh favour with the King of Denmark. 

Denzil Warner had lately married a young lady of fortune, the only childand heiress of a Wiltshire gentleman, who had made a considerable figure inParliament under the Protector, but was now retired from public affairs. 

And all that remained to Angela of her story of impassioned love, soleevidence of the homage that had been offered to her beauty or her youth, was a letter, now long grown dim with tears, which Henriette had given toher on the first night the children spent under their grandfather's roof. 

"I was to hand you this when no one was by, " the girl said simply, and lefther aunt standing mute and pale with a sealed letter in her hand. 

 * * * * *

"How shall I thank or praise you for the sacrifice your love made for oneso unworthy--a sacrifice that cut me to the heart? Alas, my beloved, itwould have been better for both of us hadst thou given me thyself ratherthan so empty a gift as thy good name. I hoped to tell you, lip to lip, inone last meeting, all my gratitude and all my hopeless love; but though Ihave watched and hung about your gardens and meadows day after day, youhave been too jealously guarded, or have kept too close, and only with mypen can I bid you an eternal farewell. 

"I go out of your life for ever, since I am leaving for a distant countrywith the fixed intention never to return to England. I bequeath you mychildren, as if I left you a rag of my own lacerated heart. 

"If you ever think of me, I pray you to consider the story of my lifeas that of an invincible passion, wicked and desperate if you will, butconstant as life and death. You were, and are, and will be to my latestbreath, my only love. 

"Perhaps you will think sometimes, as I shall think always, that we mighthave lived innocently and happily in New England, forgetting and forgottenby the rabble we left behind us, having shaken off the slough of an unhappylife, beginning the world again, under new names, in a new climate andcountry. It was a guilty dream to entertain, perhaps; but I shall dreamit often enough in a strange land, among strange faces and strangemanners--shall dream of you on my death-bed, and open dying eyes to see youstanding by my bedside, looking down at me with that sweetly sorrowfullook I remember best of all the varying expressions in the face Iworship. --Farewell for ever. 

"F. "

While her son and daughter were growing up at the Manor Moat, Lady Farehamsparkled at the French Court, one of the most brilliant figures in thatbrilliant world, a frequent guest at the Louvre and Palais Royal, and thebrand-new palace of Versailles, where the largest Court that had evercollected round a throne was accommodated in a building of Palladianrichness in ornament and detail, a Palace whose offices were spaciousenough for two thousand servants. No foreigner at the great King's courtwas more admired than the lovely Lady Fareham, whose separation from herblack-browed husband occasioned no scandal in a society where the husbandsof beautiful women were for the most part gentlemen who pursued their ownvulgar amours abroad, and allowed a wide liberty to the Venus at home; norwas Henri de Malfort's constant attendance upon her ladyship a cause ofevil-speaking, since there was scarce a woman of consequence who had nother _cavalière servante_. 

Madame de Sévigné, in one of those budgets of Parisian scandal with whichshe cheered a kinsman's banishment, assured Bussy de Rabutin that LadyFareham had paid her friend's debts more than once since her return toFrance; but constancy such as De Malfort's could hardly be expectedwere not the golden fetters of love riveted by the harder metal ofself-interest. Their alliance was looked on with favour by all thatbrilliant world, and even tolerated by that severe moralist, the Duedu Montausier, who had been lately rewarded for his wife's civility toMademoiselle de la Vallière, now Duchess and reigning favourite, by beingmade guardian of the infant Dauphin. 

Every one approved, every one admired; and Hyacinth's life in the landshe loved was like a long summer day. But darkness came upon that day assuddenly as the night of the tropics. She rose one morning, light-heartedand happy, to pursue the careless round of pleasure. She lay down in adarkened chamber, never again to mix in that splendid crowd. 

Betwixt noon and twilight Henri de Malfort had fallen in a combat of eight, a combat so savage as to recall that fatal fight of five against fiveduring the Fronde, in which Nemours had fallen, shot through the heart byBeaufort. 

The light words of a fool in a tavern, backed by three other fools, had ledto this encounter, in which De Malfort had been the challenger. He andone of his friends died on the ground, while three on the other sidewere mortally wounded. It would henceforth be fully understood that LadyFareham's name was not for ribald jesters; but the man Lady Fareham lovedwas dead, and her life of pleasure had ended with a pistol-ball from anunerring hand. To her it seemed the hand of Fate. She scarcely thought ofthe man who had killed him. 

As her life had been brilliant and conspicuous, so her retirement from theworld was not without _éclat_. Royalty witnessed the solemn office of theChurch which transformed Hyacinth, Lady Fareham, into Mère Agnes, of theSeven Wounds; while, seated in the royal tribune, a King's mistress, beautiful and adored, thought of a day when she, too, might bring to yonderaltar the sacrifice of a broken spirit and a life that had outlived earthlyhappiness. 

THE END.