BOOK VIII. 

CHAPTER I. 

 "A LITTLE FIRE BURNS UP A GREAT DEAL OF CORN. "--OLD PROVERB. 

Guy Darrell resumed the thread of solitary life at Fawley with a calmwhich was deeper in its gloom than it had been before. The experiment ofreturn to the social world had failed. The resolutions which had inducedthe experiment were finally renounced. Five years nearer to death, andthe last hope that had flitted across the narrowing passage to the grave, fallen like a faithless torch from his own hand, and trodden out by hisown foot. 

It was peculiarly in the nature of Darrell to connect his objects withposterity--to regard eminence in the Present but as a beacon-height fromwhich to pass on to the Future the name he had taken from the Past. Allhis early ambition, sacrificing pleasure to toil, had placed its goal ata distance, remote from the huzzas of bystanders; and Ambition haltednow, baffled and despairing. Childless, his line would perish withhimself--himself, who had so vaunted its restoration in the land! Hisgenius was childless also--it would leave behind it no offspring of thebrain. By toil he had amassed ample wealth; by talent he had achieved asplendid reputation. But the reputation was as perishable as the wealth. Let a half-century pass over his tomb, and nothing would be left to speakof the successful lawyer the applauded orator, save traditionalanecdotes, a laudatory notice in contemporaneous memoirs--perhaps, atmost, quotations of eloquent sentences lavished on forgotten cases andobsolete debates--shreds and fragments of a great intellect, whichanother half-century would sink without a bubble into the depths of Time. He had enacted no laws--he had administered no state--he had composed nobooks. Like the figure on a clock, which adorns the case and has noconnection with the movement, he, so prominent an or nament to time, hadno part in its works. Removed, the eye would miss him for a while; but anation's literature or history was the same, whether with him or without. Some with a tithe of his abilities have the luck to fasten their names tothings that endure; they have been responsible for measures they did notnot invent, and which, for good or evil, influence long generations. They have written volumes out of which a couplet of verse, a period inprose, may cling to the rock of ages, as a shell that survives a deluge. But the orator, whose effects are immediate--who enthralls his audiencein proportion as he nicks the hour--who, were he speaking like Burkewhat, apart from the subject-matter, closet students would praise, must, like Burke, thin his audience, and exchange present oratorical successfor ultimate intellectual renown--a man, in short, whose oratory isemphatically that of the DEBATER is, like an actor, rewarded with a loudapplause and a complete oblivion. Waife on the village stage might winapplause no less loud, followed by oblivion not more complete. 

Darrell was not blind to the brevity of his fame. In his previousseclusion he had been resigned to that conviction--now it saddened him. Then, unconfessed by himself, the idea that he might yet reappear inactive life, and do something which the world would not willingly letdie, had softened the face of that tranquil Nature from which he mustsoon now pass out of reach and sight. On the tree of Time he was a leafalready sear upon the bough--not an inscription graven into the rind. 

Ever slow to yield to weak regrets--ever seeking to combat his ownenemies within--Darrell said to himself one night, while Fairthorn'sflute was breathing an air of romance through the melancholy walls: "Isit too late yet to employ this still busy brain upon works that will livewhen I am dust, and make Posterity supply the heir that fails to myhouse?"

He shut himself up with immortal authors--he meditated on the choice of atheme; his knowledge was wide, his taste refined;--words!--he could notwant words! Why should he not write? Alas; why indeed?--He who hasnever been a writer in his youth, can no more be a writer in his age thanhe can be a painter--a musician. What! not write a book! Oh, yes--as hemay paint a picture or set a song. But a writer, in the emphatic senseof the word--a writer as Darrell was an orator--oh, no! And, least ofall, will he be a writer if he has been an orator by impulse and habit--an orator too happily gifted to require, and too laboriously occupied toresort to, the tedious aids of written preparation--an orator as modernlife forms orators--not, of course, an orator like those of the classicworld, who elaborated sentences before delivery, and who, after delivery, polished each extemporaneous interlude into rhetorical exactitude andmusical perfection. And how narrow the range of compositions to a manburdened already by a grave reputation! He cannot have the self-abandonment--he cannot venture the headlong charge--with which Youthflings the reins to genius, and dashes into the ranks of Fame. Few andaustere his themes--fastidious and hesitating his taste. Restricted arethe movements of him who walks for the first time into the Forum ofLetters with the purple hem on his senatorial toga. Guy Darrell, at hisage, entering among authors as a novice!--he, the great lawyer, to whomattorneys would have sent no briefs had he been suspected of coquettingwith a muse, --he, the great orator who had electrified audiences inproportion to the sudden effects which distinguish oral inspiration fromwritten eloquence--he achieve now, in an art which his whole life hadneglected, any success commensurate to his contemporaneous repute;--howunlikely! But a success which should outlive that repute, win the"everlasting inheritance" which could alone have nerved him to adequateeffort--how impossible! He could not himself comprehend why, never at aloss for language felicitously opposite or richly ornate when it had butto flow from his thought to his tongue, nor wanting ease, even eloquence, in epistolary correspondence confidentially familiar--he should findwords fail ideas, and ideas fail words, the moment his pen became a wandthat conjured up the Ghost of the dread Public! The more copious histhoughts, the more embarrassing their selection; the more exquisite hisperception of excellence in others, the more timidly frigid his effortsat faultless style. It would be the same with the most skilful author, if the Ghost of the Public had not long since ceased to haunt him. Whilehe writes, the true author's solitude is absolute or peopled at his will. But take an audience from an orator, what is he? He commands the livingpublic--the Ghost of the Public awes himself. 

"Surely once, " sighed Darrell, as he gave his blurred pages to theflames--" surely once I had some pittance of the author's talent, andhave spent it upon lawsuits!"

The author's talent, no doubt, Guy Darrell once had--the author'stemperament never. What is the author's temperament? Too long a task todefine. But without it a man may write a clever book, a useful book, abook that may live a year, ten years, fifty years. He will not stand outto distant ages a representative of the age that rather lived in him thanhe in it. The author's temperament is that which makes him an integral, earnest, original unity, distinct from all before and all that maysucceed him. And as a Father of the Church has said that theconsciousness of individual being is the sign of immortality, not grantedto the inferior creatures--so it is in this individual temperament oneand indivisible, and in the intense conviction of it, more than in allthe works it may throw off, that the author becomes immortal. Nay, hisworks may perish like those of Orpheus or Pythagoras; but he himself, inhis name, in the footprint of his being, remains, like Orpheus orPythagoras, undestroyed, indestructible. 

Resigning literature, the Solitary returned to Science. There he wasmore at home. He had cultivated science, in his dazzling academicalcareer, with ardour and success; he had renewed the study, on his firstretirement to Fawley, as a distraction from tormenting memories orunextin guished passions. He now for the first time regarded theabsorbing abstruse occupation as a possible source of fame. To be one inthe starry procession of those sons of light who have solved a new law inthe statute-book of heaven! Surely a grand ambition, not unbecoming tohis years and station, and pleasant in its labours to a man who lovedNature's outward scenery with poetic passion, and had studied her inwardmysteries with a sage's minute research. Science needs not the author'sart--she rejects its gracess--he recoils with a shudder from its fancies. But Science requires in the mind of the discoverer a limpid calm. Thelightnings that reveal Diespiter must flash in serene skies. No cloudsstore that thunder

 "Quo bruta tellus, et vaga flumina, Quo Styx, et invisi horrida Taenari Sedes, Atlanteusque finis Concutitur!"

So long as you take science only as a distraction, science will not leadyou to discovery. And from some cause or other, Guy Darrell was moreunquiet and perturbed in his present than in his past seclusion. Sciencethis time failed even to distract. In the midst of august meditations--of close experiment--some haunting angry thought from the far worldpassed with rude shadow between Intellect and Truth--the heart eclipsedthe mind. The fact is, that Darrell's genius was essentially formed forAction. His was the true orator's temperament, with the qualities thatbelong to it--the grasp of affairs--the comprehension of men and states--the constructive, administrative faculties. In such career, and insuch career alone, could he have developed all his powers, and achievedan imperishable name. Gradually as science lost its interest, heretreated from all his former occupations, and would wander for longhours over the wild unpopulated landscapes round him. As if it were hisobject to fatigue the body, and in that fatigue tire out the restlessbrain, he would make his gun the excuse for rambles from sunrise totwilight over the manors he had purchased years ago, lying many miles offfrom Fawley. There are times when a man who has passed his life incultivating his mind finds that the more he can make the physicalexistence predominate, the more he can lower himself to the rude vigourof the gamekeeper, or his day-labourer--why, the more he can harden hisnerves to support the weight of his reflections. 

In these rambles he was not always alone. Fairthorn contrived toinsinuate himself much more than formerly into his master's habitualcompanionship. The faithful fellow had missed Darrell so sorely in thatlong unbroken absence of five years, that on recovering him, Fairthornseemed resolved to make up for lost time. Departing from his own habits, he would, therefore, lie in wait for Guy Darrell--creeping out of abramble or bush, like a familiar sprite; and was no longer to be awedaway by a curt syllable or a contracted brow. And Darrell, at firstsubmitting reluctantly, and out of compassionate kindness to the flute-player's obtrusive society, became by degrees to welcome and relax in it. Fairthorn knew the great secrets of his life. To Fairthorn alone on allearth could he speak with out reserve of one name and of one sorrow. Speaking to Fairthorn was like talking to himself, or to his pointers, orto his favourite doe, upon which last he bestowed a new collar, with aninscription that implied more of the true cause that had driven him asecond time to the shades of Fawley than he would have let out to AlbanMorley or even to Lionel Haughton. Alban was too old for that confidence--Lionel much too young. But the Musician, like Art itself, was of noage; and if ever the gloomy master unbent his outward moodiness andsecret spleen in any approach to gaiety, it was in a sort of saturnineplayfulness to this grotesque, grown-up infant. They cheered each other, and they teased each other. Stalking side by side over the ridgedfallows, Darrell would sometimes pour forth his whole soul, as a poetdoes to his muse; and at Fairthorn's abrupt interruption or rejoinder, turn round on him with fierce objurgation or withering sarcasm, or whatthe flute-player abhorred more than all else, a truculent quotation fromHorace, which drove Fairthorn away into some vanishing covert or hollow, out of which Darrell had to entice him, sure that, in return, Fairthornwould take a sly occasion to send into his side a vindictive prickle. But as the two came home in the starlight, the dogs dead beat and poorFairthorn too, --ten to one but what the musician was leaning all hisweight on his master's nervous arm, and Darrell was looking with tenderkindness in the face of the SOMEONE left to lean upon him still. 

One evening, as they were sitting together in the library, the twohermits, each in his corner, and after a long silence, the flute-playersaid abruptly

"I have been thinking--"

"Thinking!" quoth Darrell, with his mechanical irony; "I am sorry foryou. Try not to do so again. "

FAIRTHORN. --"Your poor dear father--"

DARRELL (wincing, startled, and expectant of a prickle). --"Eh? myfather--"

FAIRTHORN. --"Was a great antiquary. How it would have pleased him couldhe have left a fine collection of antiquities as an heirloom to thenation!--his name thus preserved for ages, and connected with the studiesof his life. There are the Elgin Marbles. The parson was talking to meyesterday of a new Vernon Gallery; why not in the British Museum aneverlasting Darrell room? Plenty to stock it mouldering yonder in thechambers which you will never finish. "

"My dear Dick, " Said Darrell, starting up, "give me your hand. What abrilliant thought! I could do nothing else to preserve my dear father'sname. Eureka! You are right. Set the carpenters at work to-morrow. Remove the boards; open the chambers; we will inspect their stores, andselect what would worthily furnish 'A Darrell Room. ' Perish Guy Darrellthe lawyer! Philip Darrell the antiquary at least shall live!"

It is marvellous with what charm Fairthorn's lucky idea seized uponDarrell's mind. The whole of the next day he spent in the forlornskeleton of the unfinished mansion slowly decaying beside his small andhomely dwelling. The pictures, many of which were the rarest originalsin early Flemish and Italian art, were dusted with tender care, and hungfrom hasty nails upon the bare ghastly walls. Delicate ivory carvings, wrought by the matchless hand of Cellini-early Florentine bronzes, priceless specimens of Raffaele ware and Venetian glass--the precioustrifles, in short, which the collector of mediaeval curiosities amassesfor his heirs to disperse amongst the palaces of kings and the cabinetsof nations--were dragged again to unfamiliar light. The invadedsepulchral building seemed a very Pompeii of the /Cinque Cento/. To examine, arrange, methodise, select for national purposes, suchmiscellaneous treasures would be the work of weeks. For easier access, Darrell caused a slight hasty passage to be thrown over the gap betweenthe two edifices. It ran from the room nicked into the gables of the oldhouse, which, originally fitted up for scientific studies, now became hishabitual apartment, into the largest of the uncompleted chambers whichhad been designed for the grand reception-gallery of the new building. Into the pompous gallery thus made contiguous to his monk-like cell, hegradually gathered the choicest specimens of his collection. The dampswere expelled by fires on grateless hearthstones; sunshine admitted fromwindows now for the first time exchanging boards for glass; rough ironsconces, made at the nearest forge, were thrust into the walls, andsometimes lighted at night-Darrell and Fairthorn walking arm-in-arm alongthe unpolished floors, in company with Holbein's Nobles, Perugino'sVirgins. Some of that highbred company displaced and banished the nextday, as repeated inspection made the taste more rigidly exclusive. Darrell had found object, amusement, occupation--frivolous if Comparedwith those lenses, and glasses, and algebraical scrawls which had oncewhiled lonely hours in the attic-room hard by; but not frivolous even tothe judgment of the austerest sage, if that sage had not reasoned awayhis heart. For here it was not Darrell's taste that was delighted; itwas Darrell's heart that, ever hungry, had found food. His heart wasconnecting those long-neglected memorials of an ambition baffled andrelinquished--here with a nation, there with his father's grave! How hiseyes sparkled! how his lip smiled! Nobody would have guessed it--none ofus know each other; least of all do we know the interior being of thosewhom we estimate by public repute;--but what a world of simple, fondaffection lay coiled and wasted in that proud man's solitary breast!

CHAPTER II. 

 THE LEARNED COMPUTE THAT SEVEN HUNDRED AND SEVEN MILLIONS OF MILLIONS OF VIBRATIONS HAVE PENETRATED THE EYE BEFORE THE EYE CAN DISTINGUISH THE TINTS OF A VIOLET. WHAT PHILOSOPHY CAN CALCULATE THE VIBRATIONS OF THE HEART BEFORE IT CAN DISTINGUISH THE COLOURS OF LOVE?

While Guy Darrell thus passed his hours within the unfinished fragmentsof a dwelling builded for posterity, and amongst the still relics ofremote generations, Love and Youth were weaving their warm eternal idyllon the sunny lawns by the gliding river. 

There they are, Love and Youth, Lionel and Sophy, in the arbour roundwhich her slight hands have twined the honeysuckle, fond imitation ofthat bower endeared by the memory of her earliest holiday--she seatedcoyly, he on the ground at her feet, as when Titania had watched hissleep. He has been reading to her, the book has fallen from his hand. What book? That volume of poems so unintelligibly obscure to all but thedreaming young, who are so unintelligibly obscure to themselves. But tothe merit of those poems, I doubt if even George did justice. It is nottrue, I believe, that they are not durable. Some day or other, when allthe jargon so feelingly denounced by Colonel Morley about "esthetics, "and "objective, " and "subjective, " has gone to its long home, some criticwho can write English will probably bring that poor little volume fairlybefore the public; and, with all its manifold faults, it will take aplace in the affections, not of one single generation of the young, but--everlasting, ever-dreaming, ever-growing youth. But you and I, reader, have no other interest in these poems, except this--that they werewritten by the brother-in-law of that whimsical, miserly Frank Vance, whoperhaps, but for such a brother-in-law, would never have gone through thelabour by which he has cultivated the genius that achieved his fame; andif he had not cultivated that genius, he might never have known Lionel;and if he had never known Lionel, Lionel might never perhaps have gone tothe Surrey village, in which he saw the Phenomenon: And, to push fartherstill that Voltaireian philosophy of ifs--if either Lionel or Frank Vancehad not been so intimately associated in the minds of Sophy and Lionelwith the golden holiday on the beautiful river, Sophy and Lionel mightnot have thought so much of those poems; and if they had not thought somuch of those poems, there might not have been between them that link ofpoetry without which the love of two young people is a sentiment, alwaysvery pretty it is true, but much too commonplace to deserve specialcommemoration in a work so uncommonly long as this is likely to be. Andthus it is clear that Frank Vance is not a superfluous and episodicalpersonage amongst the characters of this history, but, howeverindirectly, still essentially, one of those beings without whom theauthor must have given a very different answer to the question, "Whatwill he do with it?"

Return we to Lionel and Sophy. The poems have brought their heartsnearer and nearer together. And when the book fell from Lionel's hand, Sophy knew that his eyes were on her face, and her own eyes looked away. And the silence was so deep and so sweet! Neither had yet said to theother a word of love. And in that silence both felt that they loved andwere beloved. Sophy! how childlike she looked still! How little she ischanged!--except that the soft blue eyes are far more pensive, and thather merry laugh is now never heard. In that luxurious home, fosteredwith the tenderest care by its charming owner, the romance of herchildhood realised, and Lionel by her side, she misses the old crippledvagrant. And therefore it is that her merry laugh is no longer heard!"Ah!" said Lionel, softly breaking the pause at length, "do not turn youreyes from me, or I shall think that there are tears in them!" Sophy'sbreast heaved, but her eyes were averted still. Lionel rose gently, andcame to the other side of her quiet form. "Fie! there are tears, and youwould hide them from me. Ungrateful!"

Sophy looked at him now with candid, inexpressible, guileless affectionin those swimming eyes, and said with touching sweetness: "Ungrateful!Should I not be so if I were gay and happy?"

And in self-reproach for not being sufficiently unhappy while that youngconsoler was by her side, she too rose, left the arbour, and lookedwistfully along the river. George Morley was expected; he might bringtidings of the absent. And now while Lionel, rejoining her, exerts allhis eloquence to allay her anxiety and encourage her hopes, and whilethey thus, in that divinest stage of love, ere the tongue repeats whatthe eyes have told, glide along-here in sunlight by lingering flowers-there in shadow under mournful willows, whose leaves are ever the latestto fall, let us explain by what links of circumstance Sophy became thegreat lady's guest, and Waife once more a homeless wanderer. 

CHAPTER III. 

 COMPRISING MANY NEEDFUL EXPLANATIONS ILLUSTRATIVE OF WISE SAWS; AS FOR EXAMPLE, "HE THAT HATH AN ILL NAME IS HALF HANGED. " "HE THAT HATH BEEN BITTEN BY A SERPENT IS AFRAID OF A ROPE. " "HE THAT LOOKS FOR A STAR PUTS OUT HIS CANDLES;" AND, "WHEN GOD WILLS, ALL WINDS BRING RAIN. "

The reader has been already made aware how, by an impulse of womanhoodand humanity, Arabella Crane had been converted from a persecuting into atutelary agent in the destinies of Waife and Sophy. That evolution inher moral being dated from the evening on which she had sought thecripple's retreat, to warn him of Jasper's designs. We have seen by whatstratagem she had made it appear that Waife and his grandchild had sailedbeyond the reach of molestation; with what liberality she had advancedthe money that freed Sophy from the manager's claim; and howconsiderately she had empowered her agent to give the reference whichsecured to Waife the asylum in which we last beheld him. In a few sternsentences she had acquainted Waife with her fearless inflexible resolveto associate her fate henceforth with the life of his lawless son; and, by rendering abortive all his evil projects of plunder, to compel him atlast to depend upon her for an existence neither unsafe nor sordid, provided only that it were not dishonest. The moment that she revealedthat design, Waife's trust in her was won. His own heart enabled him tocomprehend the effect produced upon a character otherwise unamiable andrugged, by the grandeur of self-immolation and the absorption of onedevoted heroic thought. In the strength and bitterness of passion whichthus pledged her existence to redeem another's, he obtained the key toher vehement and jealous nature; saw why she had been so cruel to thechild of a rival; why she had conceived compassion for that child inproportion as the father's unnatural indifference had quenched the angerof her own self-love; and, above all, why, as the idea of reclaiming andappropriating solely to herself the man who, for good or for evil, hadgrown into the all-predominant object of her life, gained more and morethe mastery over her mind, it expelled the lesser and the baser passions, and the old mean revenge against an infant faded away before the light ofthat awakening conscience which is often rekindled from ashes by thesparks of a single better and worthier thought. And in the resolutedesign to reclaim Jasper Losely, Arabella came at once to a ground incommon with his father, with his child. Oh what, too, would the old manowe to her, what would be his gratitude, his joy, if she not only guardedhis spotless Sophy, but saved from the bottomless abyss his guilty son!Thus when Arabella Crane had, nearly five years before, sought Waife'sdiscovered hiding-place, near the old bloodstained Tower, mutualinterests and sympathies had formed between them a bond of alliance notthe less strong because rather tacitly acknowledged than openlyexpressed. Arabella had written to Waife from the Continent, for thefirst half-year pretty often, and somewhat sanguinely, as to the chanceof Losely's ultimate reformation. Then the intervals of silence becamegradually more prolonged, and the letters more brief. But still, whetherfrom the wish not unnecessarily to pain the old man, or, as would be morenatural to her character, which, even in its best aspects, was notgentle, from a proud dislike to confess failure, she said nothing of theevil courses which Jasper had renewed. Evidently she was always nearhim. Evidently, by some means or another, his life, furtive and dark, was ever under the glare of her watchful eyes. 

Meanwhile Sophy had been presented to Caroline Montfort. As Waife had sofondly anticipated, the lone childless lady had taken with kindness andinterest to the fair motherless child. Left to herself often for monthstogether in the grand forlorn house, Caroline soon found an object to herpensive walks in the basket-maker's cottage. Sophy's charming face andcharming ways stole more and more into affections which were denied allnourishment at home. She entered into Waife's desire to improve, byeducation, so exquisite a nature; and, familiarity growing by degrees, Sophy was at length coaxed up to the great house; and during the hourswhich Waife devoted to his rambles (for even in his settled industry hecould not conquer his vagrant tastes, but would weave his reeds or osiersas he sauntered through solitudes of turf or wood), became the dociledelighted pupil in the simple chintz room which Lady Montfort hadreclaimed from the desert of her surrounding palace. Lady Montfort wasnot of a curious turn of mind; profoundly indifferent even to the gossipof drawing-rooms, she had no rankling desire to know the secrets ofvillage hearthstones. Little acquainted even with the great world-scarcely at all with any world below that in which she had her being, save as she approached humble sorrows by delicate charity--the contrastbetween Waife's calling and his conversation roused in her no vigilantsuspicions. A man of some education, and born in a rank that touchedupon the order of gentlemen, but of no practical or professional culture--with whimsical tastes--with roving eccentric habits--had, in the courseof life, picked up much harmless wisdom, but, perhaps from want ofworldly prudence, failed of fortune. Contented with an obscure retreatand a humble livelihood, he might naturally be loth to confide to othersthe painful history of a descent in life. He might have relations in ahigher sphere, whom the confession would shame; he might be silent in themanly pride which shrinks from alms and pity and a tale of fall. Nay, grant the worst--grant that Waife had suffered in repute as well asfortune--grant that his character had been tarnished by some plausiblecircumstantial evidences which he could not explain away to thesatisfaction of friends or the acquittal of a short-sighted world--hadthere not been, were there not always, many innocent men similarlyafflicted? And who could hear Waife talk, or look on his arch smile, andnot feel that he was innocent? So, at least, thought Caroline Montfort. Naturally; for if, in her essentially woman-like character, there was oneall-pervading and all-predominant attribute, it was PITY. Lead Fateplaced her under circumstances fitted to ripen into genial developmentall her exquisite forces of soul, her true post in this life would havebeen that of the SOOTHER. What a child to some grief-worn father! Whata wife to some toiling, aspiring, sensitive man of genius! What a motherto some suffering child! It seemed as if it were necessary to her tohave something to compassionate and foster. She was sad when there wasno one to comfort; but her smile was like a sunbeam from Eden when itchanced on a sorrow it could brighten away. Out of this very sympathycame her faults--faults of reasoning and judgment. Prudent in her ownchilling path through what the world calls temptations, because soineffably pure--because, to Fashion's light tempters, her very thoughtwas as closed, as

 "Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, "

was the ear of Sabrina to the comrades of Comus, --yet place before hersome gentle scheme that seemed fraught with a blessing for others, andstraightway her fancy embraced it, prudence faded--she saw not theobstacles, weighed not the chances against it. Charity to her did notcome alone, but with its sister twins, Hope and Faith. 

Thus, benignly for the old man and the fair child, years rolled on tillLord Montfort's sudden death, and his widow was called upon to exchangeMontfort Court (which passed to the new heir) for the distant jointureHouse of Twickenham. By this time she had grown so attached to Sophy, and Sophy so gratefully fond of her, that she proposed to Waife to takehis sweet grandchild as her permanent companion, complete her education, and assure her future. This had been the old man's cherished day-dream;but he had not contemplated its realisation until he himself were in thegrave. He turned pale, he staggered, when the proposal which wouldseparate him from his grandchild was first brought before him. But herecovered ere Lady Montfort could be aware of the acuteness of the pangshe inflicted, and accepted the generous offer with warm protestations ofjoy and gratitude. But Sophy! Sophy consent to leave her grandfatherafar and aged in his solitary cottage! Little did either of them knowSophy, with her soft heart and determined soul, if they supposed suchegotism possible in her. Waife insisted--Waife was angry--Waife wasauthoritative--Waife was imploring--Waife was pathetic--all in vain! Butto close every argument, the girl went boldly to Lady Montfort, and said:"If I left him, his heart would break--never ask it. " Lady Montfortkissed Sophy tenderly as mother ever kissed a child for some sweet lovingtrait of a noble nature, and said simply "But he shall not be left--heshall come too. "

She offered Waife rooms in her Twickenham house--she wished to collectbooks--he should be librarian. The old man shivered and refused--refusedfirmly. He had made a vow not to be a guest in any house. Finally, thematter was compromised; Waife would remove to the neighbourhood ofTwickenham; there hire a cottage; there ply his art; and Sophy, livingwith him, should spend part of each day with Lady Montfort as now. 

So it was resolved. Waife consented to occupy a small house on the vergeof the grounds belonging to the jointure villa, on the condition ofpaying rent for it. And George Morley insisted on the privilege ofpreparing that house for his old teacher's reception, leaving it simpleand rustic to outward appearance, but fitting its pleasant chambers withall that his knowledge of the old man's tastes and habits suggested forcomfort or humble luxury; a room for Sophy, hung with the prettiestpaper, all butterflies and flowers, commanding a view of the river. Waife, despite his proud scruples, could not refuse such gifts from a manwhose fortune and career had been secured by his artful lessons. Indeed, he had already permitted George to assist, though not largely, his ownefforts to repay the L100 advanced by Mrs. Crane. The years he haddevoted to a craft which his ingenuity made lucrative, had just enabledthe basketmaker, with his pupil's aid, to clear off that debt byinstalments. He had the satisfaction of thinking that it was hisindustry that had replaced the sum to which his grandchild owed herrelease from the execrable Rugge. 

Lady Montfort's departure (which preceded Waife's by some weeks) was moremourned by the poor in her immediate neighbourhood than by the wealthierfamilies who composed what a province calls its society; and the gloomwhich that event cast over the little village round the kingly mansionwas increased when Waife and his grandchild left. 

For the last three years, emboldened by Lady Montfort's protection, andthe conviction that he was no longer pursued or spied, the old manrelaxed his earlier reserved and secluded habits. Constitutionallysociable, he had made acquaintance with his humbler neighbours; loungedby their cottage palings in his rambles down the lanes; diverted theirchildren with Sir Isaac's tricks, or regaled them with nuts and applesfrom his little orchard; giving to the more diligent labourers many avaluable hint how to eke out the daily wage with garden produce, or bees, or poultry; doctored farmer's cows; and even won the heart of the stud-groom by a mysterious sedative ball, which had reduced to serene docilitya highly nervous and hitherto unmanageable four-year-old. Sophy had beenno less popular. No one grudged her the favour of Lady Montfort--no onewondered at it. They were loved and honoured. Perhaps the happiestyears Waife had known since his young wife left the earth were passed inthe hamlet which he fancied her shade haunted; for was it not there--there, in that cottage--there, in sight of those green osiers, that herfirst modest virgin replies to his letters of love and hope that soothedhis confinement and animated him--till then little fond of sedentarytoils--to the very industry which, learned in sport, now gavesubsistence, and secured a home. To that home persecution had notcome--gossip had not pryed into its calm seclusion--even chance, whenthreatening disclosure, had seemed to pass by innocuous. For once--a year or so before he left--an incident had occurred which alarmed himat the time, but led to no annoying results. The banks of the greatsheet of water in Montfort Park were occasionally made the scene of ruralpicnics by the families of neighbouring farmers or tradesmen. One dayWaife, while carelessly fashioning his baskets on his favourite spot, wasrecognised, on the opposite margin, by a party of such holiday-makers towhom he himself had paid no attention. He was told the next day by thelandlady of the village inn, the main chimney of which he had undertakento cure of smoking, that a "lady" in the picnic symposium of the daybefore had asked many questions about him and his grandchild, and hadseemed pleased to hear they were both so comfortably settled. The"lady" had been accompanied by another "lady, " and by two or three younggentlemen. They had arrived in a "buss, " which they had hired for theoccasion. They had come from Humberston the day after those famous raceswhich annually filled Humberston with strangers--the time of year inwhich Rugge's grand theatrical exhibition delighted that ancient town. From the description of the two ladies Waife suspected that they belongedto Rugge's company. 

But they had not claimed Waife as a ci-devant comrade; they had notspoken of Sophy as the Phenomenon or the Fugitive. No molestationfollowed this event; and, after all, the Remorseless Baron had no longerany claim to the Persecuted Bandit or to Juliet Araminta. 

But the ex-comedian is gone from the osiers--the hamlet. He is in hisnew retreat by the lordly river--within an hour of the smoke and roar oftumultuous London. He tries to look cheerful and happy, but his reposeis troubled--his heart is anxious. Ever since Sophy, on his account, refused the offer which would have transferred her, not for a few dailyhours, but for habitual life, from a basketmaker's roof to all theelegancies and refinements of a sphere in which, if freed from him, hercharms and virtues might win her some such alliance as seemed impossible, while he was thus dragging her down to his own level, --ever since thatday the old man had said to himself, "I live too long. " While Sophy wasby his side he appeared busy at his work and merry in his humour; themoment she left him for Lady Montfort's house, the work dropped from hishands, and he sank into moody thought. 

Waife had written to Mrs. Crane (her address then was at Paris) onremoving to Twickenhain, and begged her to warn him should Jaspermeditate a return to England, by a letter directed to him at the GeneralPost-office, London. Despite his later trust in Mrs. Crane, he did notdeem it safe to confide to her Lady Montfort's offer to Sophy, or theaffectionate nature of that lady's intimacy with the girl now grown intowomanhood. With that insight into the human heart, which was in him notso habitually clear and steadfast as to be always useful, but at timessingularly if erratically lucid, he could not feel assured that ArabellaCrane's ancient hate to Sophy (which, lessening in proportion to thegirl's destitution, had only ceased when the stern woman felt, with asentiment bordering on revenge, that it was to her that Sophy owed anasylum obscure and humble) might not revive, if she learned that thechild of a detested rival was raised above the necessity of herprotection, and brought within view of that station so much Loftier thanher own, from which she had once rejoiced to know that the offspring of amarriage which had darkened her life was excluded. For indeed it hadbeen only on Waife's promise that he would not repeat the attempt thathad proved so abortive, to enforce Sophy's claim on Guy Darrell, thatArabella Crane had in the first instance resigned the child to his care. His care--his--an attainted outcast! As long as Arabella Crane could seein Sophy but an object of compassion, she might haughtily protect her;but, could Sophy become an object of envy, would that protection last?No, he did not venture to confide in Mrs. Crane further than to say thathe and Sophy had removed from Montfort village to the vicinity of London. Time enough to say more when Mrs. Crane returned to England; and then, not by letter, but in personal interview. 

Once a month the old man went to London to inquire at the General Post-office for any communications his correspondent might there address tohim. Only once, however, had he heard from Mrs. Crane since theannouncement of his migration, and her note of reply was extremely brief, until in the fatal month of June, when Guy Darrell and Jasper Losely hadalike returned, and on the same day, to the metropolis; and then the oldman received from her a letter which occasioned him profound alarm. Itapprised him not only that his terrible son was in England--in London;but that Jasper had discovered that the persons embarked for America werenot the veritable Waife and Sophy whose names they had assumed. Mrs. Crane ended with these ominous words: "It is right to say now that he hasdescended deeper and deeper. Could you see him, you would wonder that Ineither abandon him nor my resolve. He hates me worse than the gibbet. To me and not to the gibbet he shall pass--fitting punishment to both. I am in London, not in my old house, but near him. His confidant is myhireling. His life and his projects are clear to my eyes--clear as if hedwelt in glass. Sophy is now of an age in which, were she placed in thecare of some person whose respectability could not be impunged, she couldnot be legally forced away against her will; but if under your roof, those whom Jasper has induced to institute a search, that he has no meansto institute very actively himself, might make statements which (as youare already aware) might persuade others, though well-meaning, to assisthim in separating her from you. He might publicly face even a police-court, if he thus hoped to shame the rich man into buying off anintolerable scandal. He might, in the first instance, and more probably, decoy her into his power through stealth; and what might become of herbefore she was recovered? Separate yourself from her for a time. It isyou, notwithstanding your arts of disguise, that can be the more easilytracked. She, now almost a woman, will have grown out of recognition. Place her in some secure asylum until, at least, you hear from me again. "

Waife read and re-read this epistle (to which there was no direction thatenabled him to reply) in the private room of a little coffee-house towhich he had retired from the gaze and pressure of the street. Thedetermination he had long brooded over now began to take shape--to behurried on to prompt decision. On recovering his first shock, he formedand matured his plans. That same evening he saw Lady Montfort. He feltthat the time had come when, for Sophy's sake, he must lift the veil fromthe obloquy on his own name. To guard against the same concession toJasper's authority that had betrayed her at Gatesboro', it was necessarythat he should explain the mystery of Sophy's parentage and position toLady Montfort, and go through the anguish of denouncing his own son asthe last person to whose hands she should be consigned. He approachedthis subject not only with a sense of profound humiliation, but with nounreasonable fear lest Lady Montfort might at once decline a charge whichwould possibly subject her retirement to a harassing invasion. But, tohis surprise as well as relief, no sooner had he named Sophy's parentagethan Lady Montfort evinced emotions of a joy which cast into the shadeall more painful or discreditable associations. "Henceforth, believeme, " she said, "your Sophy shall be my own child, my own treasureddarling!--no humble companion--my equal as well as my charge. Fear notthat any one shall tear her from me. You are right in thinking that myroof should be her home--that she should have the rearing and the stationwhich she is entitled as well as fitted to adorn. But you must not partfrom her. I have listened to your tale; my experience of you suppliesthe defence you suppress--it reverses the judgment which has aspersedyou. And more ardently than before, I press on you a refuge in the Homethat will shelter your grandchild. " Noble-hearted woman! and nobler forher ignorance of the practical world, in the proposal which would haveblistered with scorching blushes the cheek of that Personification of all"Solemn Plausibilities, " the House of Vipont! Gentleman Waife was notscamp enough to profit by the ignorance which sprang from generousvirtue. But, repressing all argument, and appearing to acquiesce in thepossibility of such an arrangement, he left her benevolent delightunsaddened--and before the morning he was gone. Gone in stealth, and bythe starlight, as he had gone years ago from the bailiff's cottage-gone, for Sophy, in waking, to find, as she had found before, farewell lines, that commended hope and forbade grief. "It was, " he wrote, "for boththeir sakes that he had set out on a tour of pleasant adventure. Heneeded it; he had felt his spirits droop of late in so humdrum andsettled a life. And there was danger abroad--danger that his briefabsence would remove. He had confided all his secrets to Lady Montfort;she must look on that kind lady as her sole guardian till he return--asreturn he surely would; and then they would live happy ever afterwards asin fairy tales. He should never forgive her if she were silly enough tofret for him. He should not be alone; Sir Isaac would take care of him. He was not without plenty of money-savings of several months; if hewanted more, he would apply to George Morley. He would write to heroccasionally; but she must not expect frequent letters; he might be awayfor months--what did that signify? He was old enough to take care ofhimself; she was no longer a child to cry her eyes out if she lost asenseless toy, or a stupid old cripple. She was a young lady, and heexpected to find her a famous scholar when he returned. " And so, withall flourish and bravado, and suppressing every attempt at pathos, theold man went his way, and Sophy, hurrying to Lady Montfort's, weeping, distracted, imploring her to send in all directions to discover and bringback the fugitive, was there detained a captive guest. But Waife left aletter also for Lady Montfort, cautioning and adjuring her, as she valuedSophy's safety from the scandal of Jasper's claim, not to make anyimprudent attempts to discover him. Such attempt would only create thevery publicity from the chance of which he was seeking to escape. Thenecessity of this caution was so obvious that Lady Montfort could onlysend her most confidential servant to inquire guardedly in theneighbourhood, until she had summoned George Morley from Humberston, and taken him into counsel. Waife had permitted her to relate to him, on strict promise of secrecy, the tale he had confided to her. Georgeentered with the deepest sympathy into Sophy's distress; but he made hercomprehend the indiscretion and peril of any noisy researches. Hepromised that he himself would spare no pains to ascertain the old man'shiding-place, and see, at least, if he could not be persuaded either toreturn or suffer her to join him, that he was not left destitute andcomfortless. Nor was this an idle promise. George, though his inquirieswere unceasing, crippled by the restraint imposed on them, was so acutein divining, and so active in following up each clue to the wanderer'sartful doublings, that more than once he had actually come upon thetrack, and found the very spot where Waife or Sir Isaac had been seen afew days before. Still, up to the day on which Morley had last reportedprogress, the ingenious ex-actor, fertile in all resources of stratagemand disguise, had baffled his research. At first, however, Waife hadgreatly relieved the minds of these anxious friends, and cheered evenSophy's heavy heart, by letters, gay though brief. These letters having, by their postmarks, led to his trace, he had stated, in apparent anger, that reason for discontinuing them. And for the last six weeks no linefrom him had been received. In fact, the old man, on resolving toconsummate his self-abnegation, strove more and more to wean hisgrandchild's thoughts from his image. He deemed it so essential to herwhole future that, now she had found a home in so secure and so elevateda sphere, she should gradually accustom herself to a new rank of life, from which he was an everlasting exile; should lose all trace of his verybeing; efface a connection that, ceasing to protect, could henceforthonly harm and dishonour her, --that he tried, as it were, to blot himselfout of the world which now smiled on her. He did not underrate her griefin its first freshness; he knew that, could she learn where he was, allelse would be forgotten--she would insist on flying to him. But hecontinually murmured to himself: "Youth is ever proverbially short ofmemory; its sorrows poignant, but not enduring; now the wounds arealready scarring over--they will not reopen if they are left to heal. "

He had, at first, thought of hiding somewhere not so far but that oncea-week, or once a-month, he might have stolen into the grounds, looked atthe house that held her--left, perhaps, in her walks some little token ofhimself. But, on reflection, he felt that that luxury would be tooimprudent, and it ceased to tempt him in proportion as he reasonedhimself into the stern wisdom of avoiding all that could revive her grieffor him. At the commencement of this tale, in the outline given of thatgrand melodrama in which Juliet Araminta played the part of the Bandit'sChild, her efforts to decoy pursuit from the lair of the persecuted Mimewere likened to the arts of the skylark to lure eye and hand from thenest of his young. More appropriate that illustration now to the parent-bird than then to the fledgling. Farther and farther from the nest inwhich all his love was centred fled the old man. What if Jasper diddiscover him now; that very discovery would mislead the pursuit fromSophy. Most improbable that Losely would ever guess that they couldbecome separated; still more improbable, unless Waife, imprudentlylurking near her home, guided conjecture, that Losely should dream ofseeking under the roof of the lofty peeress the child that had fled fromMr. Rugge. 

Poor old man! his heart was breaking; but his soul was so brightlycomforted that there, where many, many long miles off, I see himstanding, desolate and patient, in the corner of yon crowded market-place, holding Sir Isaac by slackened string with listless hand--SirIsaac unshorn, travel-stained, draggled, with drooping head andmelancholy eyes--yea, as I see him there, jostled by the crowd, to whom, now and then, pointing to that huge pannier on his arm, filled with somehomely pedlar wares, he mechanically mutters, "Buy"--yea, I say, verily, as I see him thus, I cannot draw near in pity--I see what the crowd doesnot--the shadow of an angel's wing over his grey head; and I standreverentially aloof, with bated breath and bended knee. 

CHAPTER IV. 

 A WOMAN TOO OFTEN REASONS FROM HER HEART--HENCE TWO-THIRDS OF HER MISTAKES AND HER TROUBLES. A MAN OF GENIUS, TOO, OFTEN REASONS FROM HIS HEART-WENCE, ALSO, TWO-THIRDS OF HIS TROUBLES AND MISTAKES. WHEREFORE, BETWEEN WOMAN AND GENIUS THERE IS A SYMPATHETIC AFFINITY; EACH HAS SOME INTUITIVE COMPREHENSION OF THE SECRETS OF THE OTHER, AND THE MORE FEMININE THE WOMAN, THE MORE EXQUISITE THE GENIUS, THE MORE SUBTLE THE INTELLIGENCE BETWEEN THE TWO. BUT NOTE WELL THAT THIS TACIT UNDERSTANDING BECOMES OBSCURED, IF HUMAN LOVE PASS ACROSS ITS RELATIONS. SHAKESPEARE INTERPRETS ARIGHT THE MOST INTRICATE RIDDLES IN WOMAN. A WOMAN WAS THE FIRST TO INTERPRET ARIGHT THE ART THAT IS LATENT IN SHAKESPEARE. BUT DID ANNE HATHAWAY AND SHAKESPEARE UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER?

Unobserved by the two young people, Lady Montfort sate watching them asthey moved along the river banks. She was seated where Lionel had firstseen her--in the kind of grassy chamber that had been won from thefoliage and the sward, closed round with interlaced autumnal branches, save where it opened towards the water. If ever woman's brain canconceive and plot a scheme thoroughly pure from one ungentle, selfishthread in its web, in such a scheme had Caroline Montfort broughttogether those two fair young natures. And yet they were not uppermostin her thoughts as she now gazed on them; nor was it wholly for them thather eyes were filled with tears at once sweet, yet profoundly mournful--holy, and yet intensely human. 

Women love to think themselves uncomprehended--nor often without reasonin that foible; for man, howsoever sagacious, rarely does entirelycomprehend woman, howsoever simple. And in this her sex has theadvantage over ours. Our hearts are bare to their eyes, even though theycan never know what have been our lives. But we may see every action oftheir lives, guarded and circumscribed in conventional forms, while theirhearts will have many mysteries to which we can never have the key. But, in more than the ordinary sense of the word, Caroline Montfort never hadbeen a woman uncomprehended. Nor even in her own sex did she possess oneconfidante. Only the outward leaves of that beautiful flower opened tothe sunlight. The leaves round the core were gathered fold upon foldclosely as when life itself was in the bud. 

As all the years of her wedded existence her heart had been denied thenatural household vents, so by some strange and unaccountable chance herintellect also seemed restrained and pent from its proper freedom andplay. During those barren years, she had read--she had pondered--she hadenjoyed a commune with those whose minds instruct others, and still herown intelligence, which in early youth had been characterised by singularvivacity and brightness, and which Time had enriched with every womanlyaccomplishment, seemed chilled and objectless. It is not enough that amind should be cultured--it should have movement as well as culture. Caroline Montfort's lay quiescent like a beautiful form spellbound torepose, but not to sleep. Looking on her once, as he stood amongst acrowd whom her beauty dazzled, a poet said abruptly: "Were my guess not asacrilege to one so spotless and so haughty, I should say that I had hiton the solution of an enigma that long perplexed me; and in the core ofthat queen of the lilies, could we strip the leaves folded round it, weshould find Remorse. "

Lady Montfort started; the shadow of another form than her own fell uponthe sward. George Morley stood behind her, his finger on his lips. "Hush, " he said in a whisper, see, Sophy is looking for me up the river. I knew she would be--I stole this way on purpose--for I would speak toyou before I face her questions. "

"What is the matter? you alarm me, " said Lady Montfort, on gaining a partof the grounds more remote from the river, to which George had silentlyled the way. 

"Nay, my dear cousin, there is less cause for alarm than for anxiousdeliberation, and that upon more matters than those which directly relateto our poor fugitive. You know that I long shrunk from enlisting thepolice in aid of our search. I was too sensible of the pain and offencewhich such an application would occasion Waife--(let us continue so tocall him)--and the discovery of it might even induce him to put himselfbeyond our reach, and quit England. But his prolonged silence, and myfears lest some illness or mishap might have befallen him, together withmy serious apprehensions of the effect which unrelieved anxiety mightproduce on Sophy's health, made me resolve to waive former scruples. Since I last saw you I have applied to one of the higher police-officersaccustomed to confidential investigations of a similar nature. The nextday he came to tell me that he had learned that a friend of his, who hadbeen formerly a distinguished agent in the detective police, had beenengaged for months in tracking a person whom he conjectured to be thesame as the one whom I had commissioned him to discover, and withsomewhat less caution and delicacy than I had enjoined. The fugitive'sreal name had been given to this ex-agent--the cause for search, that hehad abducted and was concealing his granddaughter from her father. Itwas easy for me to perceive why this novel search had hitherto failed, nosuspicion being entertained that Waife had separated himself from Sophy, and the inquiry being therefore rather directed towards the grandchildthan the grandfather. But that inquiry had altogether ceased of late, and for this terrible reason--a different section of the police had fixedits eye upon the father on whose behalf the search had been instituted. This Jasper Losely (ah! our poor friend might well shudder to think Sophyshould fall into his hands!) haunts the resorts of the most lawless andformidable desperadoes of London. He appears to be a kind of authorityamongst them; but there is no evidence that as yet he has committedhimself to any participation in their habitual courses. He livesprofusely, for a person in such society (regaling Daredevils whom he awesby a strength and courage which are described as extraordinary), but without any visible means. It seems that the ex-agent, who had been thuspreviously employed in Jasper Losely's name, had been engaged, not byJasper himself, but by a person in very respectable circumstances, whosename I have ascertained to be Poole. And the ex-agent deemed it right toacquaint this Mr. Poole with Jasper's evil character and ambiguous modeof life, and to intimate to his employer that it might not be prudent tohold any connection with such a man, and still less proper to assist inrestoring a young girl to his care. On this Mr. Poole became so muchagitated, and expressed himself so incoherently as to his relations withJasper, that the ex-agent conceived suspicions against Poole himself, andreported the whole circumstances to one of the chiefs of the formerservice, through whom they reached the very man whom I myself wasemploying. But this ex-agent, who had, after his last interview withPoole, declined all further interference, had since then, through acorrespondent in a country town, whom he had employed at the first, obtained a clue to my dear old friend's wanderings, more recent, and Ithink more hopeful, than any I had yet discovered. You will rememberthat when questioning Sophy as to any friends in her former life to whomit was probable Waife might have addressed himself, she could think of noone so probable as a cobbler named Merle, with whom he and she had oncelodged, and of whom he had often spoken to her with much gratitude ashaving put him in the way of recovering herself, and having shown him apeculiar trustful kindness on tha+ occasion. But you will remember alsothat I could not find this Merle; he had left the village, near this veryplace, in which he had spent the greater part of his lifehis humble tradehaving been neglected in consequence of some strange superstitiousoccupations in which, as he had gown older, he had become more and moreabsorbed. He had fallen into poverty, his effects had been sold off; hehad gone away no one knew whither. Well, the ex-agent, who had also beendirected to this Merle by his employer, had, through his correspondent, ascertained that the cobbler was living at Norwich, where he passed underthe name of the Wise Man, and where he was in perpetual danger of beingsent to the house of correction as an impostor, dealing in astrology, crystal-seeing, and such silly or nefarious practices. Very odd, indeed, and very melancholy, too, " quoth the scholar, lifting up his hands andeyes, "that a man so gifted as our poor friend should ever havecultivated an acquaintance with a cobbler who deals in the Black Art!"

"Sophy has talked to me much about that cobbler, " said Lady Montfort, with her sweet half-smile. "It was under his roof that she first sawLionel Haughton. But though the poor man may be an ignorant enthusiast, he is certainly, by her account, too kind and simple-hearted to be adesigning impostor. "

GEORGE. --"Possibly. But to go on with my story: A few weeks ago, anelderly lame man, accompanied by a dog, who was evidently poor dear SirIsaac, lodged two days with Merle at Norwich. On hearing this, I myselfwent yesterday to Norwich, saw and talked to Merle, and through this manI hope, more easily, delicately, and expeditiously than by any othermeans, to achieve our object. He evidently can assist us, and, asevidently, Waife has not told him that he is flying from Sophy andfriends, but from enemies and persecutors. For Merle, who is imperviousto bribes, and who at first was churlish and rude, became softened as myhonest affection for the fugitive grew clear to him, and still more whenI told him how wretched Sophy was at her grandfather's disappearance, andthat she might fret herself into a decline. And we parted with thispromise on his side, that if I would bring "down to him either Sophyherself (which is out of the question) or a line from her, which, inreferring to any circumstances while under his roof that could only beknown to her and himself, should convince him that the letter was fromher hand, assuring him that it was for Waife's benefit and at her prayerthat he should bestir himself in search for her grandfather, and that hemight implicitly trust to me, he would do all he could to help us. Sofar, then, so good. But I have now more to say, and that is in referenceto Sophy herself. While we are tracking her grandfather, the peril toher is not lessened. Never was that peril thoroughly brought before myeyes until I had heard actually from the police agent the dreadfulcharacter and associations of the man who can claim her in a fathersname. Waife, it is true, had told you that his son was profligate, spendthrift, lawless--sought her, not from natural affection, but as aninstrument to be used, roughly and coarsely, for the purpose of extortingmoney from Mr. Darrell. But this stops far short of the terriblereality. Imagine the effect on her nerves, so depressed as they now are, nay, on her very life, should this audacious miscreant force himself hereand say, 'Come with me, you are my child. ' And are we quite sure thatout of some refining ncbleness of conscience she might not imagine it herduty to obey, and to follow him? The more abject and friendless hiscondition, the more she might deem it her duty to be by his side. I havestudied her from her childhood. She is capable of any error in judgment, if it be made to appear a martyr's devoted self-sacrifice. You may wellshudder, my dear cousin. But grant that she were swayed by us and by theargument that so to act would betray and kill her beloved grandfather, still, in resisting this ruffian's paternal authority, what violent andpainful scenes might ensue! What dreadful publicity to be attached forever to her name! Nor is this all. Grant that her father does notdiscover her, but that he is led by his associates into some criminaloffence, and suffers by the law--her relationship, both to him from whomyou would guard her, and to him whose hearth you have so tenderly rearedher to grace, suddenly dragged to day--would not the shame kill her? Andin that disclosure how keen would be the anguish of Darrell!"

"Oh, heavens!" cried Caroline Montfort, white as ashes and wringing herhands, "you freeze me with terror. But this man cannot be so fallen asyou describe. I have seen him--spoken with him in his youth--hoped thento assist in a task of conciliation, pardon. Nothing about him thenforeboded so fearful a corruption. He might be vain, extravagant, selfish, false--Ah, yes! he was false indeed! but still the ruffian youpaint, banded with common criminals, cannot be the same as the gay, dainty, perfumed, fair-faced adventurer with whom my ill-fated playmatefled her father's house. You shake your head--what is it you advise?"

"To expedite your own project--to make at once the resolute attempt tosecure to this poor child her best, her most rightful protector--to letwhatever can be done to guard her from danger or reclaim her father fromcourses to which despair may be driving him--to let, I say, all this bedone by the person whose interest in doing it effectively is soparamount--whose ability to judge of and decide on the wisest means is soimmeasurably superior to all that lies within our own limited experienceof life. "

"But you forget that our friend told me that he had appealed to--to Mr. Darrell on his return'to England: that Mr. Darrell had peremptorilyrefused to credit the claim; and had sternly said that, even if Sophy'sbirth could be proved, he would not place under his father's roof thegrandchild of William Losely. "

"True; and yet you hoped reasonably enough to succeed where he, pooroutcast, had failed. "

"Yes, yes; I did hope that Sophy--her manners formed, her educationcompleted--all her natural exquisite graces so cultured and refined, asto justify pride in the proudest kindred--I did so hope that she shouldbe brought, as it were by accident, under his notice; that she wouldinterest and charm him; and that the claim, when made, might thus bewelcomed with delight. Mr. Darrell's abrupt return to a seclusion sorigid forbids the opportunity that ought easily have been found or madeif he had remained in London. But suddenly, violently to renew a claimthat such a man has rejected, before he has ever seen that dear child-before his heart and his taste plead for her--who would dare to do it?or, if so daring, who could hope success?"

"My dear Lady Montfort, my noble cousin, with repute as spotless as theermine of your robe--who but you?"

"Who but I? Any one. Mr. Darrell would not even read through a letteraddressed to him by me. "

George stared with astonishment. Caroline's face was downcast--herattitude that of profound humiliated dejection. 

"Incredible!" said he at length. "I have always suspected, and so indeedhas my uncle, that Darrell had some cause of complaint against yourmother. Perhaps he might have supposed that she had not sufficientlywatched over his daughter, or had not sufficiently inquired into thecharacter of the governess whom she recommended to him; and that this hadled to an estrangement between Darrell and your mother, which could notfail to extend somewhat to yourself. But such misunderstandings cansurely now be easily removed. Talk of his not reading a letter addressedto him by you! Why, do I not remember, when I was on a visit to myschoolfellow, his son, what influence you, a mere child yourself, hadover that grave, busy man, then in the height of his career--how youalone could run without awe into his study--how you alone had theprivilege to arrange his books, sort his papers--so that we two boyslooked on you with a solemn respect, as the depositary of all his statesecrets--how vainly you tried to decoy that poor timid Matilda, hisdaughter, into a share of your own audacity!--Is not all this true?"

"Oh yes, yes--old days gone for ever!"

"Do I not remember how you promised that, before I went back to school, I should hear Darrell read aloud--how you brought the volume of Miltonto him in the evening--how he said, 'No, to-morrow night; I must nowgo to the House of Commons'--how I marvelled to hear you answer boldly, 'To-morrow night George will have left us, and I have promised that heshall hear you read'--and how, looking at you under those dark brows withserious softness, he said: 'Right: promises once given, must be kept. But was it not rash to promise in another's name?'--and you answered, half gently, half pettishly, 'As if you could fail me!' He took the bookwithout another word, and read. What reading it was too! And do you notremember another time, how--"

LADY MONTFORT (interrupting with nervous impatience). --"Ay, ay--I needno reminding of all--all! Kindest, noblest, gentlest friend to a giddy, heedless child, unable to appreciate the blessing. But now, George, Idare not, I cannot write to Mr. Darrell. "

George mused a moment, and conjectured that Lady Montfort had, in theinconsiderate impulsive season of youth, aided in the clandestinemarriage of Darrell's daughter, and had become thus associated in hismind with the affliction that had embittered his existence. Were thisso, certainly she would not be the fitting, intercessor on behalf ofSophy. His thoughts then turned to his uncle, Darrell's earliest friend, not suspecting that Colonel Morley was actually the person whom Darrellhad already appointed his adviser and representative in all transactionsthat might concern the very parties under discussion. But just as he wasabout to suggest the expediency of writing to Alban to return to England, and taking him into confidence and consultation, Lady Montfort resumed, in a calmer voice and with a less troubled countenance:

"Who should be the pleader for one whose claim, if acknowledged, wouldaffect his own fortunes, but Lionel Haughton?--Hold!--look where yonderthey come into sight--there by the gap in the evergreens. May we nothope that Providence, bringing those two beautiful lives together, givesa solution to the difficulties which thwart our action and embarrass ourjudgment? I conceived and planned a blissful romance the first moment Igathered fran Sophy's artless confidences the effect that had beenproduced on her whole train of thought and feeling by the first meetingwith Lionel in her childhood; by his brotherly, chivalrous kindness, and, above all, by the chance words he let fall, which discontented her with alife of shift and disguise, and revealed to her the instincts of her ownholiest truthful nature. An alliance between Lionel Haughton and Sophyseemed to me the happiest possible event that could befall Guy Darrell. The two branches of his family united--a painful household secretconfined to the circle of his own kindred--granting Sophy's claim neverperfectly cleared up, but subject to a tormenting doubt--her futureequally assured--her possible rights equally established--Darrell'sconscience and pride reconciled to each other. And how, even but aswife to his young kinsman, he would learn to love one so exquisitelyendearing!" [Lady Montfort paused a moment, and then resumed. ] "WhenI heard that Mr. Darrell was about to marry again, my project wasnecessarily arrested. "

"Certainly, " said George, "if he formed new ties, Sophy would be less anobject in his existence, whether or not he recognised her birth. Thealliance between her and Lionel would lose many of its advantages; andany address to him on Sophy's behalf would become yet more ungraciouslyreceived. "

LADY MONTFORT. --"In that case I had resolved to adopt Sophy as my ownchild; lay by from my abundant income an ample dowry for her; and whetherMr. Darrell ever know it or not, at least I should have the secret joy tothink that I was saving him from the risk of remorse hereafter--shouldshe be, as we believe, his daughter's child, and have been thrown uponthe world destitute;--yes, the secret joy of feeling that I wassheltering, fostering as a mother, one whose rightful home might be withhim who in my childhood sheltered, fostered me!"

GEORGE (much affected). --"How, in proportion as we know you, the beautywhich you veil from the world outshines that which you cannot prevent theworld from seeing! But you must not let this grateful enthusiasm blindyour better judgment. You think these young persons are beginning to bereally attached to each other. Then it is the more necessary that notime should be lost in learning how Mr. Darrell would regard such amarriage. I do not feel so assured of his consent as you appear to do. At all events, this should be ascertained before their happiness isseriously involved. I agree with you that Lionel is the bestintermediator to plead for Sophy; and his very generosity in urging herprior claim to a fortune that might otherwise pass to him is likely tohave weight with a man so generous himself as Guy Darrell is held to be. But does Lionel yet know all? Have you yet ventured to confide to him, or even to Sophy herself, the nature of her claim on the man who soproudly denies it?"

"No--I deemed it due to Sophy's pride of sex to imply to her that shewould, in fortune and in social position, be entitled to equality withthose whom she might meet here. And that is true, if only as the childwhom I adopt and enrich. I have not said more. And only since Lionelhas appeared has she ever seemed interested in anything that relates toher parentage. From the recollection of her father she naturallyshrinks--she never mentions his name. But two days ago she did asktimidly, and with great change of countenance, if it was through hermother that she was entitled to a rank higher than she had hithertoknown; and when I answered 'yes, ' she sighed, and said 'But my deargrandfather never spoke to me of her; he never even saw my mother. '"

GEORGE. --"And you, I suspect, do not much like to talk of that mother. I have gathered from you, unawares to yourself, that she was not a personyou could highly praise; and to me, as a boy, she seemed, with all hertimidity, wayward and deceitful. "

LADY MONTFORT. --"Alas! how bitterly she must have suffered--and how youngshe was! But you are right; I cannot speak to Sophy of her mother, thesubject is connected with so much sorrow. But I told her 'that sheshould know all soon, ' and she said, with a sweet and melancholypatience, 'When my poor grandfather will be by to hear; I can wait. '"

GEORGE. --"But is Lionel, with his quick intellect and busy imagination, equally patient? Does he not guess at the truth? You have told him thatyou do meditate a project which affects Guy Darrell, and required hispromise not to divulge to Darrell his visits in this house. "

LADY MONTFORT--"He knows that Sophy's paternal grandfather was WilliamLosely. From your uncle he heard William Losely's story, and--"

GEORGE. --"My uncle Alban?"

LADY MOSTFORT. --"Yes; the Colonel was well acquainted with the elderLosely in former days, and spoke of him to Lionel with great affection. It seems that Lionel's father knew him also, and thoughtlessly involvedhim in his own pecuniary difficulties. Lionel was not long a visitorhere before he asked me abruptly if Mr. Waife's real name was not Losely. I was obliged to own it, begging him not at present to question mefurther. He said then, with much emotion, that he had an hereditary debtto discharge to William Losely, and that he was the last person who oughtto relinquish belief in the old man's innocence of the crime for whichthe law had condemned him, or to judge him harshly if the innocence werenot substantiated. You remember with what eagerness he joined in yoursearch, until you positively forbade his interposition, fearing thatshould our poor friend hear of inquiries instituted by one whom he couldnot recognise as a friend, and might possibly consider an emissary ofhis son's, he would take yet greater pains to conceal himself. But fromthe moment that Lionel learned that Sophy's grandfather was WilliamLosely, his manner to Sophy became yet more tenderly respectful. He hasa glorious nature, that young man! But did your uncle never speak to youof William Losely?"

"No. I am not surprised at that. My uncle Alban avoids 'painfulsubjects. ' I am only surprised that he should have revived a painfulsubject in talk to Lionel. But I now understand why, when Waife firstheard my name, he seemed affected, and why he so specially enjoined menever to mention or describe him to my friends and relations. ThenLionel knows Losely's story, but not his son's connection with Darrell?"

"Certainly not. He knows but what is generally said in the world, thatDarrell's daughter eloped with a Mr. Hammond, a man of inferior birth, and died abroad, leaving but one child, who is also dead. Still Lioneldoes suspect, --my very injunctions of secrecy must make him more thansuspect, that the Loselys are somehow or other mixed up With Darrell'sfamily history. Hush! I hear his voice yonder--they approach. "

"My dear cousin, let it be settled between us, then, that you frankly andwithout delay communicate to Lionel the whole truth, so far as it isknown to us, and put it to him how best and most touchingly to move Mr. Darrell towards her, of whom we hold him to be the natural protector. I will write to my uncle to return to England that he may assist us inthe same good work. Meanwhile, I shall have only good tidings tocommunicate to Sophy in my new hopes to discover her grandfather throughMerle. "

Here, as the sun was setting, Lionel and Sophy came in sight, --abovetheir heads, the western clouds bathed in gold and purple. Sophy, perceiving George, bounded forwards, and reached his side, breathless. 

CHAPTER V. 

 LIONEL HAUGHTON HAVING LOST HIS HEART, IT IS NO LONGER A QUESTION OF WHAT HE WILL DO WITH IT. BUT WHAT WILL BE DONE WITH IT IS A VERY GRAVE QUESTION INDEED. 

Lionel forestalled Lady Montfort in the delicate and embarrassing subjectwhich her cousin had urged her to open. For while George, leading awaySophy, informed her of his journey to Norwich, and his interview withMerle, Lionel drew. Lady Montfort into the house, and with muchagitation, and in abrupt hurried accents, implored her to withdraw thepromise which forbade him to inform his benefactor how and where his timehad been spent of late. He burst forth with a declaration of that lovewith which Sophy had inspired him, and which Lady Montfort could not bebut prepared to hear. "Nothing, " said he, "but a respect for her morethan filial anxiety at this moment could have kept my heart thus longsilent. But that heart is so deeply pledged--so utterly hers--that ithas grown an ingratitude, a disrespect--to my generous kinsman, toconceal from him any longer the feelings which must colour my wholefuture existence. Nor can I say to her, 'Can you return my affection?--will you listen to my vows?--will you accept them at the altar?'--until Ihave won, as I am sure to win, the approving consent of my more thanfather. "

"You feel sure to win that consent, in spite of the stain on hergrandfather's name?"

"When Darrell learns that, but for my poor father's fault, that namemight be spotless now!--yes! I am not Mr. Darrell's son--the transmitterof his line. I believe yet that he will form new ties. By my mother'sside I have no ancestors to boast of; and you have owned to me thatSophy's mother was of gentle birth. Alban Morley told me, when I lastsaw him, that Darrell wishes me to marry, and leaves me free to choose mybride. Yes; I have no doubt of Mr. Darrell's consent. My dear motherwill welcome to her heart the prize so coveted by mine; and CharlesHaughton's son will have a place at his hearth for the old age of WilliamLosely. Withdraw your interdict at once, dearest Lady Montfort, andconfide to me all that you have hitherto left unexplained, but havepromised to reveal when the time came. The time has come. "

"It has come, " said Lady Montfort, solemnly; "and Heaven grant that itmay bear the blessed results which were in my thoughts when I took Sophyas my own adopted daughter, and hailed in yourself the reconciler ofconflicting circumstance. Not under this roof should you woo WilliamLosely's grandchild. Doubly are you bound to ask Guy Darrell's consentand blessing. At his hearth woo your Sophy--at his hands ask a bride inhis daughter's child. "

And to her wondering listener, Cayoline Montford told her grounds for thebelief that connected the last of the Darrells with the convict'sgrandchild. 

CHAPTER VI. 

 CREDULOUS CRYSTAL-SEERS, YOUNG LOVERS, AND GRAVE WISE MEN--ALL IN THE SAME CATEGORY. 

George Morley set out the next day for Norwich, in which antique city, ever since the 'Dane peopled it, some wizard or witch, star-reader, orcrystal-seer' has enjoyed a mysterious renown, perpetuating thus throughall change in our land's social progress the long line of Vala and Saga, who came with the Raven and Valkyr from Scandinavian pine shores. Merle's reserve vanished on the perusal of Sophy's letter to him. Heinformed George that Waife declared he had plenty of money, and had evenforced a loan upon Merle; but that he liked an active, wandering life;it kept him from thinking, and that a pedlar's pack would give him alicense for vagrancy, and a budget to defray its expenses; that Merle hadbeen consulted by him in the choice of light popular wares, and as to theroute he might find the most free from competing rivals. Merle willinglyagreed to accompany George in quest of the wanderer, whom, by the help ofhis crystal, he seemed calmly sure he could track and discover. Accordingly, they both set out in the somewhat devious and desultory roadwhich Merle, who had some old acquaintances amongst the ancientprofession of hawkers, had advised Waife to take. But Merle, unhappilyconfiding more in his crystal than Waife's steady adherence to the chartprescribed, led the Oxford scholar the life of a will-of-the-wisp;zigzag, and shooting to and fro, here and there, till, just when Georgehad lost all patience, Merle chanced to see, not in the crystal, apelerine on the neck of a farmer's daughter, which he was morally certainhe had himself selected for Waife's pannier. And the girl stating inreply to his inquiry that her father had bought that pelerine as apresent for her, not many days before, of a pedlar in a neighbouringtown, to the market of which the farmer resorted weekly, Merle cast anhorary scheme, and finding the Third House (of short journeys) infavourable aspect to the Seventh House (containing the object desired), and in conjunction with the Eleventh House (friends), he gravely informedthe scholar that their toils were at an end, and that the Hour and theMan were at hand. Not over-sanguine, George consigned himself and theseer to an early train, and reached the famous town of Oazelford, whither, when the chronological order of our narrative (which we have sofar somewhat forestalled) will permit, we shall conduct the inquisitivereader. 

Meanwhile Lionel, subscribing without a murmur to Lady Montfort'sinjunction to see Sophy no more till Darrell had been conferred with andhis consent won, returned to his lodgings in London, sanguine of success, and flushed with joy. His intention was to set out at once to Fawley;but on reaching town he found there a few lines from Dairell himself, inreply to a long and affectionate letter which Lionel had written a fewdays before asking permission to visit the old manor-house; for amidstall his absorbing love for Sophy, the image of his lonely benefactor inthat gloomy hermitage often rose before him. In these lines, Darrell, not unkindly, but very peremptorily, declined Lionel's overtures. 

"In truth, my dear young kinsman, " wrote the recluse--"in truth I am, with slowness, and with frequent relapses, labouring throughconvalescence from a moral fever. My nerves are yet unstrung. I am asone to whom is prescribed the most complete repose;--the visits, even offriends the dearest, forbidden as a perilous excitement. The sight ofyou--of any one from the great world--but especially of one whose richvitality of youth and hope affronts and mocks my own fatigued exhaustion, would but irritate, unsettle, torture me. When I am quite well I willask you to come. I shall enjoy your visit. Till then, on no account, and on no pretext, let my morbid ear catch the sound of your footfall onmy quiet floor. Write to me often, but tell me nothing of the news andgossip of the world. Tell me only of yourself, your studies, yourthoughts, your sentiments, your wishes. Nor forget my injunctions. Marry young, marry for love; let no ambition of power, no greed of gold, ever mislead you into giving to your life a companion who is not the halfof your soul. Choose with the heart of a man; I know that you willchoose with the self-esteem of a gentleman; and be assured beforehand ofthe sympathy and sanction of your 'CHURLISH BUT LOVING KINSMAN. '"

After this letter, Lionel felt that, at all events, he could not at onceproceed to the old manor-house in defiance of its owner's prohibition. He wrote briefly, entreating Darrell to forgive him if he persisted inthe prayer to be received at Fawley, stating that his desire for apersonal interview was now suddenly become special and urgent; that itnot only concerned himself, but affected his benefactor. By return ofpost Darrell replied with curt frigidity, repeating, with even sternness, his refusal to receive Lionel, but professing himself ready to attend toall that his kinsman might address to him by letter. "If it be as youstate, " wrote Darrell, with his habitual irony, "a matter that relates tomyself, I claim, as a lawyer for my own affairs--the precaution I onceenjoined to my clients--a written brief should always precede a personalconsultation. "

In fact, the proud man suspected that Lionel had been directly orindirectly addressed on behalf of Jasper Losely; and cerainly that wasthe last subject on which he would have granted an interview to his youngkinsman. Lionel, however; was not perhaps sorry to be thus compelled totrust to writing his own and Sophy's cause. Darrell was one of those menwhose presence inspires a certain awe--one of those men whom we feel, upon great occasions, less embarrassed to address by letter than inperson. Lionel's pen moved rapidly--his whole heart and soul suffusedwith feeling--; and, rushing over the page, he reminded Darrell of theday when he had told to the rich man the tale of the lovely wanderingchild, and how, out of his sympathy for that child, Darrell's approving, fostering tenderness to himself had grown. Thus indirectly to herforlorn condition had he owed the rise in his own fortunes. He wentthrough the story of William Losely as he had gathered it from AlbanMorley, and touched pathetically on his own father's share in that darkhistory. If William Losely really was hurried into crime by the temptingnecessity for a comparatively trifling sum, but for Charles Haughtonwould the necessity have arisen? Eloquently then the lover unitedgrandfather and grandchild in one touching picture--their love for eachother, their dependence on each other. He enlarged on Sophy's charming, unselfish, simple, noble character; he told how he had again found her;he dwelt on the refining accomplishments she owed to Lady Montfort'scare. How came she with Lady Montfort? Why had Lady Montfort cherished, adopted her? Because Lady Montfort told him how much her own childhoodhad owed to Darrell; because, should Sophy be, as alleged, the offspringof his daughter, the heiress of his line, Caroline Montfort rejoiced toguard her from danger, save her from poverty, and ultimately thus to fither to be not only acknowledged with delight, but with pride. Why had hebeen enjoined not to divulge to Darrell that he had again found, andunder Lady Montfort's roof, the child whom, while yet unconscious of herclaims, Darrell himself had vainly sought to find, and benevolentlydesigned to succour? Because Lady Montfort wished to fulfil her task-complete Sophy's education, interrupted by grief for her missinggrandfather, and obtain indeed, when William Losely again returned, some proofs (if such existed) to corroborate the assertion of Sophy'sparentage. "And, " added Lionel, "Lady Montfort seems to fear that shehas given you some cause of displeasure--what I know not, but which mighthave induced you to disapprove of the acquaintance I had begun with her. Be that as it may, would you could hear the reverence with which she everalludes to your worth--the gratitude with which she attests her mother'sand her own early obligations to your intellect and heart!" Finally, Lionel wove all his threads of recital into the confession of the deeplove into which his romantic memories of Sophy's wandering childhood hadbeen ripened by the sight of her graceful, cultured youth. "Grant, " hesaid, "that her father's tale be false--and no doubt you have sufficientreasons to discredit it--still, if you cannot love her as your daughter'schild, receive, know her, I implore--let her love and revere you--as mywife! Leave me to protect her from a lawless father--leave me to redeem, by some deeds of loyalty and honour, any stain that her grandsire'ssentence may seem to fix upon our union. Oh! if ambitious before, howambitious I should be now--to efface for her sake, as for mine, hergrandsire's shame, my father's errors! But if, on the other hand, sheshould, on the requisite inquiries, be proved to descend from yourancestry--your father's blood in her pure veins--I know, alas! then thatI should have no right to aspire to such nuptials. Who would even thinkof her descent from a William Losely? Who would not be too proud toremember only her descent from you? All spots would vanish in thesplendour of your renown; the highest in the land would court heralliance. And I am but the pensioner of your bounty, and only on myfather's side of gentle origin. But still I think you would not rejectme--you would place the future to my credit; and I would wait, waitpatiently, till I had won such a soldier's name as would entitle me tomate with a daughter of the Darrells. "

Sheet upon sheet the young eloquence flowed on--seeking, with an art ofwhich the writer was unconscious, all the arguments and points of viewwhich might be the most captivating to the superb pride or to theexquisite tenderness which seemed to Lionel the ruling elements ofDarrell's character. 

He had not to wait long for a reply. At the first glance of the addresson its cover, his mind misgave him; the hopes that bad hitherto elatedhis spirit yielded to abrupt forebodings. Darrell's handwriting washabitually in harmony with the intonations of his voice-singularly clear, formed with a peculiar and original elegance, yet with the undulatingease of a natural, candid, impulsive character. And that decorous carein such mere trifles as the very sealing of a letter, which, neglected bymusing poets and abstracted authors, is observable in men of high publicstation, was in Guy Darrell significant of the Patrician dignity thatimparted a certain stateliness to his most ordinary actions. 

But in the letter which lay in Lionel's hand the writer was scarcelyrecognisable--the direction blurred, the characters dashed off from a penfierce yet tremulous; the seal a great blotch of wax; the device of theheron, with its soaring motto, indistinct and mangled, as if the stampinginstrument had been plucked wrathfully away before the wax had cooled. And when Lionel opened the letter, the handwriting within was yet moreindicative of mental disorder. The very ink looked menacing and angry-blacker as the pen had been forcibly driven into the page. "Unhappyboy!" began the ominous epistle, "is it through you that the false anddetested woman who has withered up the noon-day of my life seeks todishonour its blighted close? Talk not to me of Lady Montfort'sgratitude and reverence! Talk not to me of her amiable, tender, holyaim, to obtrude upon my childless house the grand-daughter of a convictedfelon! Show her these lines, and ask her by what knowledge of my natureshe can assume that ignominy to my name would be a blessing to my hearth?Ask her, indeed, how she can dare to force herself still upon mythoughts--dare to imagine she can lay me under obligations--dare to thinkshe can be something still in my forlorn existence! Lionel Haughton, Icommand you in the name of all the dead whom we can claim as ancestors incommon, to tear from your heart, as you would tear a thought of disgrace, this image which has bewitched your reason. My daughter, thank Heaven, left no pledge of an execrable union. But a girl who has been brought upby a thief--a girl whom a wretch so lost to honour as Jasper Loselysought to make an instrument of fraud to my harassment and disgrace, beher virtues and beauty what they may, I could not, without intolerableanguish, contemplate as the wife of Lionel Haughton. But receive her asyour wife!

"Admit her within these walls! Never, never; I scorn to threaten you withloss of favour, loss of fortune. Marry her if you will. You shall havean ample income secure to you. But from that moment our lives areseparated--our relation ceases. You will never again see nor address me. But oh, Lionel, can you--can you inflict upon me this crowning sorrow?Can you, for the sake of a girl of whom you have seen but little, or inthe Quixotism of atonement for your father's fault, complete theingratitude I have experienced from those who owed me most? I cannotthink it. I rejoice that you wrote--did not urge this suit in person. I should not have been able to control my passion; we might have partedfoes. As it is, I restrain myself with difficulty! That woman, thatchild, associated thus to tear from me the last affection left to myruined heart. No! You will not be so cruel! Send this, I command you, to Lady Montfort. See again neither her nor the impostor she has beencherishing for my disgrace. This letter will be your excuse to break offwith both--with both. GUY DARRELL. "

Lionel was stunned. Not for several hours could he recover self-possession enough to analyse his own emotions, or discern the sole coursethat lay before him. After such a letter from such a benefactor, nooption was left to him. Sophy must be resigned; but the sacrificecrushed him to the earth--crushed the very manhood out of him. He threwhimself on the floor, sobbing--sobbing as if body and soul were torn, each from each, in convulsive spasms. 

But send this letter to Lady Montfort? A letter so wholly at variancewith Darrell's dignity of character--a letter in which rage seemed lashedto unreasoning frenzy. Such bitter language of hate and scorn, and eveninsult to a woman, and to the very woman who had seemed to Lionel soreverently to cherish the writer's name--so tenderly to scheme for thewriter's happiness! Could he obey a command that seemed to lower Darrelleven more than it could humble her to whom it was sent?

Yet disobey! What but the letter itself could explain? Ah--and wasthere not some strange misunderstanding with respect to Lady Montfort, which the letter itself, and nothing but the letter, would enable her todispel; and if dispelled, might not Darrell's whole mind undergo achange? A flash of joy suddenly broke on his agitated, tempestuousthoughts. He forced himself again to read those blotted impetuous lines. Evidently--evidently, while writing to Lionel--the subject Sophy--theman's wrathful heart had been addressing itself to neither. A suspicionseized him; with that suspicion, hope. He would send the letter, andwith but few words from himself--words that revealed his immense despairat the thought of relinquishing Sophy--intimated his belief that Darrellhere was, from some error of judgment which Lionel could not comprehend, avenging himself on Lady Montfort; and closed with his prayer to her, ifso, to forgive lines coloured by hasty passion, and, for the sake of all, not to disdain that self-vindication which might perhaps yet soften anature possessed of such depths of sweetness as that which appeared nowso cruel and so bitter. He would not yet despond--not yet commission herto give his last farewell to Sophy. 

CHAPTER VII. 

 THE MAN-EATER CONTINUES TO TAKE HIS QUIET STEAK OUT OF DOLLY POOLE; AND IS IN TURN SUBJECTED TO THE ANATOMICAL KNIFE OF THE DISSECTING AUTHOR. TWO TRAPS ARE LAID FOR HIM--ONE BY HIS FELLOW MAN-EATERS-- ONE BY THAT DEADLY PERSECUTRIX, THE WOMAN WHO TRIES TO SAVE HIM IN SPITE OF ALL HE CAN DO TO BE HANGED. 

Meanwhile the unhappy Adolphus Poole had been the reluctant but unfailingsource from which Jasper Losely had weekly drawn the supplies to hisworthless and workless existence. Never was a man more constrainedlybenevolent, and less recompensed for pecuniary sacrifice by applaudingconscience, than the doomed inhabitant of Alhambra Villa. In the utterfailure of his attempts to discover Sophy, or to induce Jasper to acceptColonel Morley's proposals, he saw this parasitical monster fixed uponhis entrails, like the vulture on those of the classic sufferer inmythological tales. Jasper, indeed, had accommodated himself to thisregular and unlaborious mode of gaining "/sa pauvre vie/. " To call oncea week upon his old acquaintance, frighten him with a few threats, orforce a deathlike smile from agonising lips by a few villanous jokes, carry off his four sovereigns, and enjoy himself thereon till pay-dayduly returned, was a condition of things that Jasper did not greatly careto improve; and truly had he said to Poole that his earlier energy hadleft him. As a sensualist of Jasper's stamp grows older and falls lower, indolence gradually usurps the place once occupied by vanity or ambition. Jasper was bitterly aware that his old comeliness was gone; that nevermore could he ensnare a maiden's heart or a widow's gold. And when thistruth was fully brought home to him, it made a strange revolution in allhis habits. He cared no longer for dress and gewgaws--sought rather tohide himself than to parade. In the neglect of the person he had once soidolised--in the coarse roughness which now characterised his exterior--there was that sullen despair which the vain only know when what hadmade them dainty and jocund is gone for ever. The human mind, indeteriorating, fits itself to the sphere into which it declines. Jasperwould not now, if he could, have driven a cabriolet down St. James'sStreet. He had taken more and more to the vice of drinking as theexcitement of gambling was withdrawn from him. For how gamble with thosewho had nothing to lose, and to whom he himself would have been pigeon, not hawk? And as he found that, on what he thus drew regularly fromDolly Poole, he could command all the comforts that his embruted tastesnow desired, so an odd kind of prudence for the first time in his lifecame with what he chose to consider "a settled income. " He mixed withruffians in their nightly orgies; treated them to cheap potations;swaggered, bullied, boasted, but shared in no project of theirs whichmight bring into jeopardy the life which Dolly Poole rendered socomfortable and secure. His energies, once so restless, were lulled, partly by habitual intoxication, partly by the physical pains which hadnestled themselves into his robust fibres, efforts of an immense andstill tenacious vitality to throw off diseases repugnant to its nativemagnificence of health. The finest constitutions are those which, whenonce seriously impaired, occasion the direst pain; but they also enablethe sufferer to bear pain that would soon wear away the delicate. AndJasper bore his pains stoutly, though at times they so exasperated histemper, that woe then to any of his comrades whose want of caution orrespect gave him the occasion to seek relief in wrath! His hand was asheavy, his arm as stalwart as ever. George Morley had been rightlyinformed. Even by burglars and cut-throats, whose dangers he shunned, while fearlessly he joined their circle, Jasper Losely was regarded withterror. To be the awe of reckless men, as he had been the admiration offoolish women, this was delight to his vanity, the last delight that wasleft to it. But he thus provoked a danger to which his arrogance wasblind. His boon companions began to grow tired of him. He had beenwelcomed to their resort on the strength of the catchword or passportwhich confederates at Paris had communicated to him, and of thereputation for great daring and small scruple which he took from Cutts, who was of high caste amongst their mysterious tribes, and who every nowand then flitted over the Continent, safe and accursed as the WanderingJew. But when they found that this Achilles of the Greeks would onlytalk big, and employ his wits on his private exchequer and his thewsagainst themselves, they began not only to tire of his imperious manner, but to doubt his fidelity to the cause. And, all of a sudden, Cutts, whohad at first extolled Jasper as one likely to be a valuable acquisitionto the Family of Night, altered his tone, and insinuated that the bravowas not to be trusted; that his reckless temper and incautious talk whendrunk would unfit him for a safe accomplice in any skilful project ofplunder; and that he was so unscrupulous, and had so little sympathy withtheir class, that he might be quite capable of playing spy or turningking's evidence; that, in short, it would be well to rid themselves ofhis domineering presence. Still there was that physical power in thislazy Hercules--still, if the Do-nought, he was so fiercely the Dread-nought--that they did not dare, despite the advantage of numbers, openlyto brave and defy him. No one would bell the cat--and such a cat! Theybegan to lay plots to get rid of him through the law. Nothing could beeasier to such knowing adepts in guilt than to transfer to his charge anydeed of violence one of their own gang had committed--heap damningcircumstances round him--privily apprise justice--falsely swear away hislife. In short, the man was in their way as a wasp that has blunderedinto an ants' nest; and, while frightened at the size of the intruder, these honest ants were resolved to get him out of their citadel alive ordead. Probable it was that Jasper Losely would meet with his deserts atlast for an offence of which he was as innocent as a babe unborn. 

It is at this juncture that we are re-admitted to the presence ofArabella Crane. 

She was standing by a window on the upper floor of a house situated ina narrow street. The blind was let down, but she had drawn it a littleaside, and was looking out. By the fireside was seated a thin, vague, gnome-like figure, perched comfortless on the edge of a rush-bottomedchair, with its shadowy knees drawn up till they nearly touched itsshadowy chin. There was something about the outline of this figure soindefinite and unsubstantial, that you might have taken it for an opticalillusion, a spectral apparition on the point of vanishing. This thingwas, however, possessed of voice, and was speaking in a low but distincthissing whisper. As the whisper ended, Arabella Crane, without turningher face, spoke, also under her breath. 

"You are sure that, so long as Losely draws this weekly stipend from theman whom he has in his power, he will persist in the same course of life. Can you not warn him of the danger?"

"Peach against pals! I dare not. No trusting him. "

"He would come down, mad with brandy, make an infernal row, seize two orthree by the throat, dash their heads against each other, blab, bully, and a knife would be out, and a weasand or two cut, and a carcase or sodropped into the Thames--mine certainly--his perhaps. "

"You say you can keep back this plot against him for two or three days?"

"For two days--yes. I should be glad to save General Jas. He has thebones of a fine fellow, and if he had not destroyed himself by brandy, hemight have been at the top of the tree-in the profession. But he is fitfor nothing now. "

"Ah! and you say the brandy is killing him?"

"No, he will not be killed by brandy, if he continues to drink it amongthe same jolly set. "

"And if he were left without the money to spend amongst these terriblecompanions, he would no longer resort to their meetings? You are rightthere. The same vanity that makes him pleased to be the great man inthat society would make him shrink from coming amongst them as a beggar. "

"And if he had not the wherewithal to pay the weekly subscription, therewould be an excuse to shut the door in his face. All these fellows wishto do is to get rid of him; and if by fair means, there would be nonecessity to resort to foul. The only danger would be that from whichyou have so often saved him. In despair, would he not commit someviolent rash action--a street robbery, or something of the kind? He hascourage for any violence, but no longer the cool head to plan a schemewhich would not be detected. You see I can prevent my pals joining insuch risks as he may propose, or letting him (if he were to ask it) intoan adventure of their own, for they know that I am a safe adviser; theyrespect me; the law has never been able to lay hold of me; and when I sayto them, 'That fellow drinks, blabs, and boasts, and would bring us allinto trouble, ' they will have nothing to do with him; but I cannotprevent his doing what he pleases out of his own muddled head, and withhis own reckless hand. "

"But you will keep in his confidence, and let me know till that heproposes!"

"Yes. "

"And meanwhile, he must come to me. And this time I have more hope thanever, since his health gives way, and he is weary of crime itself. Mr. Cutts, come near--softly. Look-nay, nay, he cannot see you from below, and you are screened by the blind. Look, I say, where he sits. "

She pointed to a room on the ground-floor in the opposite house, wheremight be dimly seen a dull red fire in a sordid grate, and a man's form, the head pillowed upon arms that rested on a small table. On the table aglass, a bottle. 

"It is thus that his mornings pass, " said Arabella Crane, with a wildbitter pity in the tone of her voice. "Look, I say, is he formidablenow? can you fear him?"

"Very much indeed, " muttered Cutts. "He is only stupefied, and he canshake off a doze as quickly as a bulldog does when a rat is let into hiskennel. "

"Mr. Cutts, you tell me that he constantly carries about him the same oldpocket-book which he says contains his fortune; in other words, thepapers that frighten his victim into giving him the money which is nowthe cause of his danger. There is surely no pocket you cannot pick orget picked, Mr. Cutts? Fifty pounds for that book in three hours. "

"Fifty pounds are not enough; the man he sponges on would give more tohave those papers in his power. "

"Possibly; but Losely has not been dolt enough to trust you sufficientlyto enable you to know how to commence negotiations. Even if the man'sname and address be amongst those papers, you could not make use of theknowledge without bringing Jasper himself upon you; and even if Jasperwere out of the way, you would not have the same hold over his victim;you know not the circumstances; you could make no story out of someincoherent rambling letters; and the man, who, I can tell you, is bynature a bully, and strong, compared with any other man but Jasper, wouldseize you by the collar; and you would be lucky if you got out of hishouse with no other loss than the letters, and no other gain but a brokenbone. Pooh! YOU know all that, or you would have stolen the book, andmade use of it before. Fifty pounds for that book in three hours; and ifJasper Losely be safe and alive six months hence, fifty pounds more, Mr. Cutts. See! he stirs not must be fast asleep. Now is the moment. "

"What, in his own room!" said Cutts with contempt. "Why, he would knowwho did it; and where should I be to-morrow? No--in the streets; any onehas a right to pick a pocket in the Queen's highways. In three hours youshall have the book. "

CHAPTER VIII. 

 MERCURY IS THE PATRON DEITY OF MERCANTILE SPECULATORS, AS WELL AS OF CRACK-BRAINED POETS; INDEED, HE IS MUCH MORE FAVOURABLE, MORE A FRIEND AT A PINCH, TO THE FORMER CLASS OF HIS PROTEGES THAN HE IS TO THE LATTER. 

 "Poolum per hostes mercurius celer, Denso paventem sustulit aere. "

Poole was sitting with his wife after dinner. He had made a goodspeculation that day; little Johnny would be all the better for it a fewyears hence, and some other man's little Johnnys all the worse--but eachfor himself in this world! Poole was therefore basking in the light ofhis gentle helpmate's approving smile. He had taken all extra glass of avenerable port-wine, which had passed to his cellar from the bins ofUncle Sam. Commercial prosperity without, conjugal felicity within, thewalls of Alhambra Villa; surely Adolphus Poole is an enviable man! Doeshe look so? The ghost of what he was but a few months ago! His cheekshave fallen in; his clothes hang on him like bags; there is a worried, haggard look in his eyes, a nervous twitch in his lips, and every now andthen he looks at the handsome Parisian clock on the chimneypiece, andthen shifts his posture, snubs his connubial angel, who asks "what ailshim?" refills his glass, and stares on the fire, seeing strange shapes inthe mobile aspects of the coals. 

To-morrow brings back this weekly spectre! To-morrow Jasper Losely, punctual to the stroke of eleven, returns to remind him of that pastwhich, if revealed, will blast the future. And revealed it might be anyhour despite the bribe for silence which he must pay with his own hands, under his own roof. Would he trust another with the secret of thatpayment?--horror! Would he visit Losely at his own lodging, and pay himthere?--murder! Would he appoint him somewhere in the streets--run thechance of being seen with such a friend? Respectability confabulatingwith offal?--disgrace! And Jasper had on the last two or three visitsbeen peculiarly disagreeable. He had talked loud. Poole feared that hiswife might have her ear at the keyhole. Jasper had seen the parlour-maidin the passage as he went out, and caught her round the waist. Theparlour-maid had complained to Mrs. Poole, and said she would leave if soinsulted by such an ugly blackguard. Alas! what the poor lady-killer hascome to! Mrs. Poole had grown more and more inquisitive and troublesomeon the subject of such extraordinary visits; and now, as her husbandstirred the fire-having roused her secret ire by his previous unmanlysnubbings, and Mrs. Poole being one of those incomparable wives who havea perfect command of temper, who never reply to angry words at themoment, and who always, with exquisite calm and self-possession, pay offevery angry word by an amiable sting at a right moment--Mrs. Poole, Isay, thus softly said:

"Sammy, duck, we know what makes oo so cross; but it shan't vex oo long, Sammy. That dreadful man comes to-morrow. He always comes the same dayof the week. "

"Hold your tongue, Mrs. Poole. "

"Yes, Sammy, dear, I'll hold my tongue. But Sammy shan't be imposed uponby mendicants; for I know he is a mendicant--one of those sharpers orblacklegs who took oo in, poor innocent Sam, in oo wild bachelor days, and oo good heart can't bear to see him in distress; but there must be anend to all things. "

"Mrs. Poole--Mrs. Poole-will you stop your fool's jaw or not?"

"My poor dear hubby, " said the angel, squeezing out a mild tear, "oo willbe in good hands to advise oo; for I've been and told Pa!"

"You have, " faltered Poole, "told your father--you have!" and theexpression of his face became so ghastly that Mrs. Poole grew seriouslyterrified. She had long felt that there was something very suspicious inher husband's submission to the insolence of so rude a visitor. But sheknew that he was not brave; the man might intimidate him by threats ofpersonal violence. The man might probably be some poor relation, or someone whom Poole had ruined, either in bygone discreditable sporting 'days, or in recent respectable mercantile speculations. But at that ghastlylook a glimpse of the real truth broke upon her; and she stood speechlessand appalled. At this moment there was a loud ring at the street-doorbell. Poole gathered himself up, and staggered out of the room into thepassage. 

His wife remained without motion; for the first time she conceived a fearof her husband. Presently she heard a harsh female voice in the hall, and then a joyous exclamation from Poole himself. Recovered by theseunexpected sounds, she went mechanically forth into the passage, just intime to see the hems of a dark-grey dress disappearing within Poole'sstudy, while Poole, who had opened the study-door, and was bowing-in theiron-grey dress obsequiously, turned his eye towards his wife, andstriding towards her for a moment, whispered, "Go up-stairs and stirnot, " in a tone so unlike his usual gruff accents of command, that itcowed her out of the profound contempt with which she habituallyreceived, while smilingly obeying, his marital authority. 

Poole, vanishing into his study, carefully closed his door, and wouldhave caught his lady visitor by both her hands; but she waived him back, and, declining a seat, remained sternly erect. 

"Mr. Poole, I have but a few words to say. The letters which gave JasperLosely the power to extort money from you are no longer in hispossession; they are in mine. You need fear him no more--you will feehim no more. "

"Oh!" cried Poole, falling on his knees, "the blessing of a father of afamily--a babe not six weeks born--be on your blessed, blessed head!"

"Get up, and don't talk nonsense. I do not give you these papers atpresent, nor burn them. Instead of being in the power of a muddled, irresolute drunkard, you are in the power of a vigilant, clear-brainedwoman. You are in my power, and you will act as I tell you. "

"You can ask nothing wrong, I am sure, " said Poole, his gratefulenthusiasm much abated. "Command me; but the papers can be of no use toyou; I will pay for them handsomely. "

"Be silent and listen. I retain these papers-first, because JasperLosely must not know that they ever passed to my hands; secondly, becauseyou must inflict no injury on Losely himself. Betray me to him, or tryto render himself up to the law, and the documents will be used againstyou ruthlessly. Obey, and you have nothing to fear, and nothing to pay. When Jasper Losely calls on you tomorrow, ask him to show you theletters. He cannot; he will make excuses. Decline peremptorily, but notinsultingly (his temper is fierce), to pay him farther. He will perhapscharge you with having hired some one to purloin his pocket-book; let himthink it. Stop--your window here opens on the ground--a garden without:--Ah! have three of the police in that garden, in sight of the window. Point to them if he threaten you; summon them to your aid, or pass out tothem, if he actually attempt violence. But when he has left the house, you must urge no charge against him; he must be let off unscathed. Youcan be at no loss for excuse in this mercy; a friend of former times--needy, unfortunate, whom habits of drink maddened for the moment--necessary to eject him--inhuman to prosecute--any story you please. Thenext day you can, if you choose, leave London for a short time; I adviseit. But his teeth will be drawn; he will most probably never trouble youagain. I know his character. There, I have done; open the door, sir. "

CHAPTER IX. 

 THE WRECK AND THE LIFE-BOAT IN A FOG. 

The next day, a little after noon, Jasper Losely, coming back fromAlhambra Villa--furious, desperate, knowing not where to turn for bread, or on whom to pour his rage--beheld suddenly, in a quiet, half-builtstreet, which led from the suburb to the New Road, Arabella Cranestanding right in his path. She had emerged from one of the manystraight intersecting roads which characterise that crude nebula of afuture city; and the woman and the man met thus face to face; not anotherpasser-by visible in the thoroughfare;--at a distance the dozing hackcab-stand; round and about them carcases of brick and mortar--some withgaunt scaffolding fixed into their ribs, and all looking yet more weirdin their raw struggle into shape through the living haze of a yellow fog. 

Losely, seeing Arabella thus planted in his way, recoiled; and thesuperstition in which he had long associated her image with baffledschemes and perilous hours sent the wrathful blood back through his veinsso quickly that be heard his heart beat!

MRS. CRANE. --"SO! You see we cannot help meeting, Jasper dear, do whatyou will to shun me. "

LOSELY. " I--I--you always startle me so!--you are in town, then?--tostay?--your old quarters?"

MRS. CRANE. --"Why ask? You cannot wish to know where I am--you would notcall. But how fares it?--what do you do?--how do you live? You lookill--Poor Jasper. "

LOSELY (fiercely). --"Hang your pity, and give me some money. "

MRS. CRANE (calmly laying her lean hand on the arm which was dartedforward more in menace than entreaty, and actually terrifying theGladiator as she linked that deadly arm into her own). --"I said you wouldalways find me when at the worst of your troubles. And so, Jasper, itshall be till this right hand of yours is powerless as the clay at ourfeet. Walk--walk; you are not afraid of me?--walk on, tell me all. Where have you just been?"

Jasper, therewith reminded of his wrongs, poured out a volley of abuse onPoole, communicating to Mrs. Crane the whole story of his claims on thatgentleman--the loss of the pocket-book filched from him, and Poole'sknowledge that he was thus disarmed. 

"And the coward, " said he, grinding his teeth, "got out of his window--and three policemen in his garden. He must have bribed a pickpocket--low knave that he is. But I shall find out--and then--"

"And then, Jasper, how will you be better off?--the letters are gone; andPoole has you in his power if you threaten him again. Now, hark you; youdid not murder the Italian who was found stabbed in the fields yonder aweek ago; L100 reward for the murderer?"

"I--no. How coldly you ask! I have hit hard in fair fight; murdered--never. If ever I take to that, I shall begin with Poole. "

"But I tell you, Jasper, that you are suspected of that murder; that youwill be accused of that murder; and if I had not thus fortunately metyou, for that murder you would be tried and hanged. "

"Are you serious? Who could accuse me?"

"Those who know that you are not guilty--those who could make you appearso--the villains with whom you horde, and drink and brawl! Have I everbeen wrong in my warnings yet?"

"This is too horrible, " faltered Losely, thinking not of the conspiracyagainst his life, but of her prescience in detecting it. "It must bewitchcraft, and nothing else. How could you learn what you tell me?"

"That is my affair; enough for you that I am right. Go no more to thoseblack haunts; they are even now full of snares and pitfalls for you. Leave London, and you are safe. Trust to me. "

"And where shall I go?"

"Look you, Jasper; you have worn out this old world no refuge for you butthe new. Whither went your father, thither go you. Consent, and youshall not want. You cannot discover Sophy. You have failed in allattempts on Darrell's purse. But agree to sail to Australasia, and Iwill engage to you an income larger than you say you extorted from Poole, to be spent in those safer shores. "

"And you will go with me, I suppose, " said Losely, with ungracioussullenness. 

"Go with you, as you please. Be where you are--yes. " The ruffianbounded with rage and loathing. 

"Woman, cross me no more, or I shall be goaded into--"

"Into killing me--you dare not! Meet my eye if you can--you dare not!Harm me, yea a hair of my head, and your moments are numbered!--your doomsealed. Be we two together in a desert--not a human eye to see the deed--not a human ear to receive my groan, and still I should stand by yourside unharmed. I, who have returned the wrongs received from you, byvigilant, untiring benefits--I, who have saved you from so many enemies, and so many dangers--I, who, now when all the rest of earth shun you--when all other resource fails-I, who now say to you, 'Share my income, but be honest!' I receive injury from that hand. No; the guilt would betoo unnatural--Heaven would not permit it. Try, and your arm will fallpalsied by your side!"

Jasper's bloodshot eyes dropped beneath the woman's fixed and scorchinggaze, and his lips, white and tremulous, refused to breathe the fiercecurse into which his brutal nature concentrated its fears and its hate. He walked on in gloomy silence; but some words she had let fall suggesteda last resort to his own daring. 

She had urged him to quit the old world for the new, but that had beenthe very proposition conveyed to him from Darrell. If that proposition, so repugnant to the indolence that had grown over him, must be embraced, better at least sail forth alone, his own master, than be the dependentslave of this abhorred and persecuting benefactress. His despair gavehim the determination he had hitherto lacked. He would seek Darrellhimself, and make the best compromise he could. This resolve passed intohis mind as he stalked on through the yellow fog, and his nervesrecovered from their irritation, and his thoughts regained something oftheir ancient craft as the idea of escaping from Mrs. Crane's vigilanceand charity assumed a definite shape. 

"Well, " said he at length, dissimulating his repugnance, and with aneffort at his old half-coaxing, half-rollicking tones, "you certainly arethe best of creatures; and, as you say, 'Had I a heart for falsehood framed, I ne'er could injure you, '

ungrateful dog though I may seem, and very likely am. I own I have ahorror of Australasia--such a long sea-voyage! New scenes no longerattract me; I am no longer young, though I ought to be; but if you insiston it, and will really condescend to accompany me in spite of all my sinsto you, why, I can make up my mind. And as to honesty, ask thoseinfernal rascals, who, you say, would swear away my life, and they willtell you that I have been as innocent as a lamb since my return toEngland; and that is my guilt in their villanous eyes. As long as thatinfamous Poole gave me enough for my humble wants, I was a reformed man. I wish to keep reformed. Very little suffices for me now. As you say, Australasia may be the best place for me. When shall we go?"

"Are you serious?"

"To be sure. "

"Then I will inquire the days on which the vessels sail. You can call onme at my own old home, and all shall be arranged. Oh, Jasper Losely, donot avoid this last chance of escape from the perils that gather roundyou. "

"No; I am sick of life--of all things except repose. Arabella, I sufferhorrible pain. "

He groaned, for he spoke truly. At that moment the gnaw of the monsteranguish, which fastens on the nerves like a wolf's tooth, was so keenthat he longed to swell his groan into a roar. The old fable of Herculesin the poisoned tunic was surely invented by some skilled physiologist, to denote the truth that it is only in the strongest frames that pain canbe pushed into its extremest torture. The heart of the grim woman wasinstantly and thoroughly softened. She paused; she made him lean on herarm; she wiped the drops from his brow; she addressed him in the mostsoothing tones of pity. The spasm passed away suddenly as it does inneuralgic agonies, and with it any gratitude or any remorse in the breastof the sufferer. 

"Yes, " he said, "I will call on you; but meanwhile I am without afarthing. Oh, do not fear that if you helped me now, I should again shunyou. I have no other resource left; nor have I now the spirit I oncehad. I no longer now laugh at fatigue and danger. "

"But will you swear by all that you yet hold sacred--if, alas! there beaught which is sacred to you--that you will not again seek the company ofthose men who are conspiring to entrap you into the hangman's hands?"

"Seek them again, the ungrateful cowardly blackguards! No, no; I promiseyou that--solemnly; it is medical aid that I want; it is rest, I tellyou--rest, rest, rest. " Arabella Crane drew forth her purse. "Take whatyou will, " said she gently. Jasper, whether from the desire to deceiveher, or because her alms were so really distasteful to his strange kindof pride that he stinted to bare necessity the appeal to them, contentedhimself with the third or fourth of the sovereigns that the pursecontained, and after a few words of thanks and promises, he left herside, and soon vanished in the fog that grew darker and darker as thenight-like wintry day deepened over the silenced thoroughfares. 

The woman went her way through the mists, hopeful--through the mists wentthe man, hopeful also. Recruiting himself by slight food and strongdrink at a tavern on his road, he stalked on to Darrell's house inCarlton Gardens; and, learning there that Darrell was at Fawley, hastenedto the station from which started the train to the town nearest to theold Manor-house; reached that town safely, and there rested for thenight.