BOOK XI. 

CHAPTER I. 

 "THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DOES RUN SMOOTH!" MAY IT NOT BE BECAUSE WHERE THERE ARE NO OBSTACLES, THERE ARE NO TESTS TO THE TRUTH OF LOVE? WHERE THE COURSE IS SMOOTH, THE STREAM IS CROWDED WITH PLEASURE-BOATS. WHERE THE WAVE SWELLS, AND THE SHOALS THREATEN, AND THE SKY LOWERS, THE PLEASURE-BOATS HAVE GONE BACK INTO HARBOUR. SHIPS FITTED FOR ROUGH WEATHER ARE THOSE BUILT AND STORED FOR LONG VOYAGE. 

I pass over the joyous meeting betwen Waife and Sophy. I pass overGeorge's account to his fair cousin of the scene he and Hartopp hadwitnessed, in which Waife's innocence had been manifested and his reasonsfor accepting the penalties of guilt had been explained. The first fewagitated days following Waife's return have rolled away. He is resettledin the cottage from which he had fled; he refuses, as before, to take uphis abode at Lady Montfort's house. But Sophy has been almost constantlyhis companion, and Lady Montfort herself has spent hours with him eachday--sometimes in his rustic parlour, sometimes in the small garden-plotround his cottage, to which his rambles are confined. George has goneback to his home and duties at Humberston, promising very soon to revisithis old friend, and discuss future plans. 

The scholar, though with a sharp pang, conceding to Waife that allattempt publicly to clear his good name at the cost of reversing thesacrifice he had made must be forborne, could not, however, be induced topledge himself to unconditional silence. George felt that there were atleast some others to whom the knowledge of Waife's innocence wasimperatively due. 

Waife is seated by his open window. It is noon; there is sunshine in thepale blue skies--an unusual softness in the wintry air. His Bible lieson the table beside him. He has just set his mark in the page, andreverently closed the book. He is alone. Lady Montfort--who, since herreturn from Fawley, has been suffering from a kind of hectic fever, accompanied by a languor that made even the walk to Waife's cottage afatigue, which the sweetness of her kindly nature enabled her toovercome, and would not permit her to confess--has been so much worsethat morning as to be unable to leave her room. Sophy has gone to seeher. Waife is now leaning his face upon his hand, and that face issadder and more disquieted than it lead been, perhaps, in all hiswanderings. His darling Sophy is evidently unhappy. Her sorrow had notbeen visible during the first two or three days of his return, chasedaway by the joy of seeing himthe excitement of tender reproach andquestion--of tears that seemed as joyous as the silvery laugh whichresponded to the gaiety that sported round the depth of feeling withwhich he himself beheld her once more clinging to his side, or seated, with upward loving eyes, on the footstool by his knees. Even at thefirst look, however, he had found her altered; her cheek was thinner, her colour paled. That might be from fretting for him. She would beherself again, now that her tender anxiety was relieved. But she did notbecome herself again. The arch and playful Sophy he had left was gone, as if never to return. He marked that her step, once so bounding, hadbecome slow and spiritless. Often when she sat near him, seeminglyreading or at her work, he noticed that her eyes were not on the page--that the work stopped abruptly in listless hands; and then he would hearher sigh--a heavy but short impatient sigh! No mistaking that sigh bythose who have studied grief; whether in maid or man, in young or old, inthe gentle Sophy, so new to life, or in the haughty Darrell, weary of theworld, and shrinking from its honours, that sigh had the same character, a like symptom of a malady in common; the same effort to free the heartfrom an oppressive load; the same token of a sharp and ranklingremembrance lodged deep in that finest nerve-work of being, which noanodyne can reach--a pain that comes without apparent cause, and issought to be expelled without conscious effort. 

The old man feared at first that she might, by some means or other, in his absence, have become apprised of the brand on his own name, theverdict that had blackened his repute, the sentence that had hurled himfrom his native sphere; or that, as her reason had insensibly matured, she herself, reflecting on all the mystery that surrounded him--hisincognitos, his hidings, the incongruity between his social grade and hiseducation or bearing, and his repeated acknowledgments that there werecharges against him which compelled him to concealment, and from which hecould not be cleared on earth; that she, reflecting on all theseevidences to his disfavour, had either secretly admitted into her breasta conviction of his guilt, or that, as she grew up to woman, she hadfelt, through him, the disgrace entailed upon herself. Or if such werenot the cause of her sadness, had she learned more of her father's evilcourses; had an emissary of Jasper's worked upon her sensibilities or herfears? No, that could not be the case, since whatever the grounds uponwhich Jasper had conjectured that Sophy was with Lady Montfort, theaccuracy of his conjectures had evidently been doubted by Jasper himself;or why so earnestly have questioned Waife? Had she learned that she wasthe grandchild and natural heiress of a man wealthy and renowned--a chiefamongst the chiefs of England--who rejected her with disdain? Was shepining for her true position? or mortified by the contempt of a kinsman, whose rank so contrasted the vagrancy of the grandsire by whom alone shewas acknowledged?

Tormented by these doubts, he was unable to solve them by such guardedand delicate questions as he addressed to Sophy herself. For she, whenhe falteringly asked what ailed his darling, would start, brighten up forthe momant, answer, "Nothing, now that he had come back"; kiss hisforehead, play with Sir Isaac, and then manage furtively to glide away. 

But the day before that in which we now see him alone, he had asked herabruptly, "If, during his absence, any one besides George Morley hadvisited at Lady Montfort's--any one whom she had seen?" And Sophy'scheek had as suddenly become crimson, then deadly pale; and first shesaid "no, " and then "yes"; and after a pause, looking away from him, sheadded: "The young gentleman who--who helped us to buy Sir Isaac, he hasvisited Lady Montfort--related to some dear friend of hers. "

"What, the painter!"

"No--the other, with the dark eyes. "

"Haughton!" said Waife, with an expression of great pain in his face. 

"Yes--Mr. Haughton; but he has not been here a long, long time. He willnot come again, I believe. "

Her voice quivered, despite herself, at the last words, and she began tobustle about the room--filled Waife's pipe, thrust it into his hands witha laugh, the false mirth of which went to his very heart, and thenstepped from the open window into the little garden, and began to singone of Waife's favourite simple old Border songs; but before she gotthrough the first line, the song ceased, and she was was as lost to sightas a ringdove, whose note comes and goes so quickly amongst theimpenetrable coverts. 

But Waife had heard enough to justify profound alarm for Sophy's peaceof mind, and to waken in his own heart some of its most painfulassociations. The reader, who knows the wrong inflicted on WilliamLosely by Lionel Haughton's father--a wrong which led to all poor Willy'ssubsequent misfortunes--may conceive that the very name of Haughton waswounding to his ear; and when, in his brief, sole, and bitter interviewwith Darrell, the latter had dropped out that Lionel Haughton, howeverdistant of kin, would be a more grateful heir than the grandchild of aconvicted felon--if Willy's sweet nature could have admitted a momentaryhate, it would have been for the thus vaunted son of the man who hadstripped him of the modest all which would perhaps have saved his ownchild from the robber's guilt, and himself from the robber's doom. Longsince, therefore, the reader will have comprehended why, when Waife cameto meet Sophy at the riverside, and learned at the inn on its margin thatthe name of her younger companion was Lionel Haughton--why, I say, he hadso morosely parted from the boy, and so imperiously bade Sophy dismissall thought of meeting "the pretty young gentleman" again. 

And now again this very Lionel Haughton to have stolen into the retreatin which poor Waife had deemed he left his treasure so secure! Was itfor this he had fled from her? Did he return to find her youth blighted, her affections robbed from him, by the son of Charles Haughton? Thefather had despoiled his manhood of independence; must it be the son whodespoiled his age of its only solace? Grant even that Lionel was worthyof Sophy--grant that she had been loyally wooed--must not that attachmentbe fruitless--be fatal? If Lionel were really now adopted by Darrell, Waife knew human nature too well to believe that Darrell wouldcomplacently hear Lionel ask a wife in her whose claim to his lineage hadso galled and incensed him. It was while plunged in these torturingreflections that Lady Montfort (not many minutes after Sophy's song hadceased and her form vanished) had come to visit him, and he at onceaccosted her with agitated inquiries: "When had Mr. Haughton firstpresented himself?--how often had he seen Sophy?--what had passed betweenthem?--did not Lady Montfort see that his darling's heart was breaking?"

But he stopped as suddenly as he had rushed into his thorny maze ofquestions; for, looking imploringly into Caroline Montfort's face, he sawthere more settled signs of a breaking heart than Sophy had yet betrayed, despite her paleness and her sighs. Sad, indeed, the change in hercountenance since he had left the place months ago, though Waife, absorbed in Sophy, had not much remarked it till now, when seeking toread therein secrets that concerned his darling's welfare. LadyMontfort's beauty was so perfect in that rare harmony of feature whichpoets, before Byron, have compared to music, that sorrow could no moremar the effect of that beauty on the eye, than pathos can mar the effectof the music that admits it on the ear. But the change in her faceseemed that of a sorrow which has lost all earthly hope. Waife, therefore, checked questions that took the tone of reproaches, andinvoluntarily murmured "Pardon. "

Then Caroline Montfort told him all the tender projects she had conceivedfor his grandchild's happiness--how, finding Lionel so disinterested andnoble, she had imagined she saw in him the providential agent to placeSophy in the position to which Waife had desired to raise her; Lionel, toshare with her the heritage of which he might otherwise despoil her--bothto become the united source of joy and of pride to the childless man whonow favoured the one to exclude the other. Nor in these schemes had theabsent wanderer been forgotten. No; could Sophy's virtues once berecognised by Darrell, and her alleged birth acknowledged by him--couldthe guardian, who, in fostering those virtues to bloom by Darrell'shearth, had laid under the deepest obligations one who, if unforgiving totreachery, was grateful for the humblest service--could that guardianjustify the belief in his innocence which George Morley had everentertained, and, as it now proved, with reason--then where on all eartha man like Guy Darrell to vindicate William Losely's attainted honour, orfrom whom William Losely might accept cherishing friendship andindependent ease, with so indisputable a right to both! Such had beenthe picture that the fond and sanguine imagination of Caroline Montforthad drawn from generous hope, and coloured with tender fancies. But alasfor such castles in the air! All had failed. She had only herself toblame. Instead of securing Sophys welfare, she had endangered Sophy'shappiness. They whom she had desired to unite were irrevocablyseparated. Bitterly she accused herself--her error in relying so much onLionel's influence with Darrell--on her own early remembrance ofDarrell's affectionate nature and singular sympathies with the young--and thus suffering Lionel and Sophy to grow familiar with each other'swinning characters, and carry on childlike romance into maturersentiment. She spoke, though briefly, of her visit to Darrell, and itsill success--of the few letters that had passed since then betweenherself and Lionel, in which it was settled that he should seek noparting interview with Sophy. He had declared to Sophy no formal suit--they had exchanged no lovers' vows. It would be, therefore, but adishonourable cruelty to her to say, "I come to tell you that I love you, and that we must part for ever. " And how avow the reason--that reasonthat would humble her to the dust? Lionel was forbidden to wed with onewhom Jasper Losely called daughter, and whom the guardian she sovenerated believed to be his grandchild. All of comfort that LadyMontfort could suggest was, that Sophy was so young that she wouldconquer what might be but a girl's romantic sentiment--or, if a moreserious attachment, one that no troth had cemented--for a person shemight not see again for years; Lionel was negotiating exchange into aregiment on active service. "Meanwhile, " said Lady Montfort, "I shallnever wed again. I shall make it known that I look on your Sophy as thechild of my adoption. If I do not live to save sufficient for her out ofan income that is more than thrice what I require, I have instructed mylawyers to insure my life for her provision; it will be ample. Many awooer, captivating as Lionel, and free from the scruples that fetter hischoice, will be proud to kneel at the feet of one so lovely. This rankof mine, which has never yet bestowed on me a joy, now becomes of value, since it will give dignity to--to Matilda's child, and--and to--" LadyMontfort sobbed. 

Waife listened respectfully, and for the time was comforted. Certainly, in his own heart he was glad that Lionel Haughton was permanentlyseparated from Sophy. There was scarcely a man on earth, of fair stationand repute, to whom he would have surrendered Sophy with so keen a pangas to Charles Haughton's son. 

The poor young lovers! all the stars seemed against them! Was it notenough that Guy Darrell should be so obdurate! must the mild WilliamLosely be also a malefic in their horoscope?

But when, that same evening, the old man more observantly than everwatched his grandchild, his comfort vanished--misgivings came over him--he felt assured that the fatal shaft had been broken in the wound, andthat the heart was bleeding inly. 

True; not without prophetic insight had Arabella Crane said to thepining, but resolute, quiet child, behind the scenes of Mr. Rugge's show, "How much you will love one day. " All that night Waife lay awakepondering--revolving--exhausting that wondrous fertility of resourcewhich teemed in his inventive brain. In vain!

And now--(the day after this conversation with Lady Montfort, whoseillness grieves, but does not surprise him)--now, as he sits and thinks, and gazes abstractedly into that far, pale, winter sky-now, the old manis still scheming how to reconcile a human loving heart to the eternalloss of that affection which has so many perishable counterfeits, butwhich, when true in all its elements--complete in all its varied wealthof feeling, is never to be forgotten and never to be replaced. 

CHAPTER II. 

AN OFFERRING TO THE MANES. 

Three sides of Waife's cottage were within Lady Montfort's grounds; thefourth side, with its more public, entrance, bordered the lane. Now, ashe thus sate, he was startled by a low timid ring at the door whichopened on the lane. Who could it be?--not Jasper! He began to tremble. The ring was repeated. One woman-servant composed all his establishment. He heard her opening the door--heard a low voice; it seemed a soft, fresh, young voice. His room-door opened, and the woman, who of courseknew the visitor by sight and name, having often remarked him on thegrounds with Lady Montfort and Sophy, said, in a cheerful tone, as ifbringing good news, "Mr. Lionel Haughton. "

Scarcely was the door closed--scarcely the young man in the room, before, with all his delightful, passionate frankness, Lionel had clasped Waife'sreluctant hand in both his own, and, with tears in his eyes, and chokingin his voice, was pouring forth sentences so loosely knit together thatthey seemed almost incoherent; now a burst of congratulation--now afalter of condolence--now words that seemed to supplicate as for pardonto an offence of his own--rapid transitions from enthusiasm to pity, fromjoy to grief--variable, with the stormy April of a young, fresh, heartynature. 

Taken so wholly by surprise, Waife, in vain attempting to appear cold anddistant, and only very vaguely comprehending what the unwelcome visitorso confusedly expressed, at last found voice to interrupt the jet andgush of Lionel's impetuous emotion, and said as drily as he could: "I amreally at a loss to conceive the cause of what appears to be meant ascongratulations to me and reproaches to yourself, Mr. --, Mr. Haugh--;"his lips could not complete the distasteful name. 

"My name shocks you--no wonder, " said Lionel, deeply mortified, andbowing down his head as he gently dropped the old man's hand. "Reproaches to myself!--Ah, sir, I am here as Charles Haughton's son!"

"What!" exclaimed Waife, "you know? How could you know that CharlesHaughton--"

LIONEL (interrupting). --" I know. His own lips confessed his shame tohave so injured you. "

WAIFE. --"Confessed to whom?"

LIONEL. --"To Alban Morley. Relieve me, my father's remorse was bitter;it dies not in his grave, it lives in me. I have so longed to meet withWilliam Losely. "

Waife seated himself in silence, shading his face with one hand whilewith the other he made a slight gesture, as if to discourage or rebukefarther allusion to ancient wrong. Lionel, in quick accents, but moreconnected meaning, went on--

"I have just come from Mr. Darrell, where I and Colonel Morley (hereLionel's countenance was darkly troubled) have been staying some days. Two days ago I received this letter from George Morley, forwarded to mefrom London. It says--let me read it: 'You will rejoice to learn thatour dear Waife'--pardon that name. "

"I have no other--go on. "

"'Is once more with his grandchild. '" (Here Lionel sighed heavily--sighlike Sophy's. ) "'You will rejoice yet more to learn that it has pleasedHeaven to allow me and another witness, who, some years ago, had beenmisled into condemning Waife, to be enabled to bear incontrovertibletestimony to the complete innocence of my beloved friend; nay, more--I say to you most solemnly, that in all which appeared to attest guilt, there has been a virtue, which, if known to Mr. Darrell, would make himbow in reverence to that old man. Tell Mr. Darrell so from me; and add, that in saying it, I express my conviction of his own admiring sympathy--for all that is noble and heroic. '"

"Too much-this is too, too much, " stammered out Waife, restlessly turningaway; "but--but, you are folding up the letter. That is all?--he doesnot say more? he does not mention any one else?--eh?--eh?"

"No, sir; that is all. "

"Thank Heaven! He is an honourable man! Yet he has said more than heought--much more than he can prove, or than I--" he broke off, andabruptly asked--"How did Mr. Darrell take these assertions? With anincredulous laugh--eh?--'Why, the old rogue had pleaded guilty!'"

"Sir, Alban Morley was there to speak of the William Losely whom he hadknown; to explain, from facts which he had collected at the time, of whatnature was the evidence not brought forward. The motive that induced youto plead guilty I had long guessed; it flashed in an instant on GuyDarrell; it was not mere guess with him! You ask me what he said? This:'Grand nature! George is right! and I do bow my head in reverence!'"

"He said that?--Guy Darrell? On your honour, he said that?"

"Can you doubt it? Is he not a gentleman?" Waife was fairly overcome. 

"But, sir, " resumed Lionel, "I must not conceal from you, that thoughGeorge's letter and Alban Morley's comnninications sufficed to satisfyDarrell, without further question, your old friend was naturally anxiousto learn a more full account, in the hope of legally substantiating yourinnocence. He therefore despatched by the telegraph a request to hisnephew to come at once to Fawley. George arrived there yesterday. Donot blame him, sir, that we share his secret. "

"You do? Good heavens! And that lawyer will be barbarous enough to--butno--he has an interest in not accusing of midnight robbery his danghter'shusband; Jasper's secret is safe with him. And Colonel Morley--surelyhis cruel nephew will not suffer him to make me--me, with one foot in thegrave--a witness against my Lizzy's son!"

"Colonel Morley, at Darrell's suggestion, came with me to London; and ifhe does not accompany me to you, it is because he is even now busied infinding out your son, not to undo, but to complete the purpose of yourself-sacrifice. 'All other considerations, ' said Guy Darrell, 'must bemerged in this one thought--that such a father shall not have been invain a martyr. ' Colonel Morley is empowered to treat with your son onany terms; but on this condition, that the rest of his life shall inflictno farther pain, no farther fear on you. This is the sole use to which, without your consent, we have presumed to put the secret we have learned. Do you pardon George now?"

Waife's lips murmured inaudibly, but his face grew very bright; and as itwas raised upwards, Lionel's ear caught the whisper of a name--it was notJasper, it was "Lizzy. "

"Ah! why, " said Lionel, sadly, and after a short pause, "why was I notpermitted to be the one to attest your innocence--to clear your name?I, who owed to you so vast an hereditary debt! And now--dear, dear Mr. Losely--"

"Hush! Waife!--call me Waife still!--and always. "

"Willingly! It is the name by which I have accustomed myself to loveyou. Now, listen to me. I am dishonoured until at least the merepecuniary debt, due to you from my father, is paid. Hist! Hist!--AlbanMorley says so--Darrell says so. Darrell says, 'he cannot own me askinsman till that debt is cancelled. ' Darrell lends me the means to doit; he would share his kinsman's ignominy if he did not. Before I couldventure even to come hither, the sum due to you from my father wasrepaid. I hastened to town yesterday evening--saw Mr. Darrell's lawyer. I have taken a great liberty--I have invested this sum already in thepurchase of an annuity for you. Mr. Darrell's lawyer had a client whowas in immediate want of the sum due to you; and, not wishing permanentlyto burthen his estate by mortgage, would give a larger interest by way ofannuity than the public offices would; excellent landed security. Thelawyer said it would be a pity to let the opportunity slip, so I venturedto act for you. It was all settled this morning. The particulars are onthis paper, which I will leave with you. Of course the sum due to you isnot exactly the same as that which my father borrowed before I was born. There is the interest--compound interest; nothing more. I don'tunderstand such matters; Darrell's lawyer made the calculation--it mustbe right. "

Waife had taken the paper, glanced at its contents, dropped it inconfusion, amaze. Those hundreds lent, swelled into all those thousandsreturned! And all methodically computed--tersely--arithmetically-down tofractions. So that every farthing seemed, and indeed was, his lawfuldue. And that sum invested in an annuity of L500 a year--income which, to poor Gentleman Waife, seemed a prince's revenue!

"It is quite a business-like computation, I tell you, sir; all done by alawyer. It is indeed, " cried Lionel, dismayed at Waife's look andgesture. "Compound interest will run up to what seems a large amount atfirst; every child knows that. You can't deny Cocker and calculatingtables, and that sort of thing. William Losely, you cannot leave aneternal load of disgrace on the head of Charles Haughton's son. "

"Poor Charlie Haughton, " murmured Waife. "And I was feeling bitteragainst his memory--bitter against his son. How Heaven loves to teach usthe injustice that dwells in anger! But--but--this cannot be. I thankMr. Darrell humbly--I cannot take his money. "

"It is not his money--it is mine; he only advances it to me. It costshim really nothing, for he deducts the L500 a year from the allowance hemakes me. And I don't want such an absurd allowance as I had beforegoing out of the Guards into the line--I mean to be a soldier in goodearnest. Too much pocket-money spoils a soldier--only gets one intoscrapes. Alban Morley says the same. Darrell, too, says, 'Right; nogold could buy a luxury--like the payment of a father's debt!' Youcannot grudge me that luxury--you dare not--why? because you are anhonest Man. "

"Softly, softly, softly, " said Waife. "Let me look at you. Don't talkof money now--don't let us think of money! What a look of your father!'Tis he, 'tis he whom I see before me. Charlie's sweet bright playfuleyes--that might have turned aside from the path of duty--a sheriff'sofficer! Ah! and Charlie's happy laugh, too, at the slightest joke! ButTHIS is not Charlie's--it is all your own (touching, with gentle finger, Lionel's broad truthful brow). Poor Charlie, he was grieved--you areright--I remember. "

"Sir, " said Lionel, who was now on one knee by Waife's chair--"sir, Ihave never yet asked man for his blessing--not even Guy Darrell. Willyou put your hand on my head? and oh! that in the mystic world beyond us, some angel may tell Charles Haughton that William Losely has blessed hisson!"

Solemnly, but with profound humility--one hand on the Bible beside him, one on the young soldier's bended head--William Losely blessed CharlesHaughton's son--and; having done so, involuntarily his arms opened, andblessing was followed by embrace. 

CHAPTER III. 

 NOTHING SO OBSTINATE AS A YOUNG MAN'S HOPE; NOTHING SO ELOQUENT AS A LOVER'S TONGUE. 

Hitherto there had been no reference to Sophy. Not Sophy's lover, butCharles Haughton's son had knelt to Waife and received the old man'sblessing. But Waife could not be long forgetful of his darling--nor hisanxiety on her account. The expression in his varying face changedsuddenly. Not half an hour before, Lionel Haughton was the last man inthe world to whom willingly he would have consigned his grandchild. Now, of all men in the world Lionel Haughton would have been his choice. Hesighed heavily; he comprehended, by his own changed feelings, how tenderand profound an affection Lionel Haughton might inspire in a heart sofresh as Sophy's, and so tenacious of the impressions it received. Butthey were separated forever; she ought not even again to see him. Uneasily Waife glanced towards the open window--rose involuntarily, closed it, and drew down the blind. 

"You must go now, young gentleman, " said he, almost churlishly. 

The quick lover's sense in Lionel divined why the blind Avas drawn, andthe dismissal so abruptly given. 

"Give me your address, " said Waife; "I will write about--that paper. Don't now stay longer--pray--pray. "

"Do not fear, sir. I am not lingering here with the wish to see--her!"

Waife looked down. 

"Before I asked the servant to announce me I took the precaution to learnthat you were alone. But a few words more--hear them patiently. Haveyou any proof that should satisfy Mr. Darrell's reason that your Sophy ishis daughter's child?"

"I have Jasper's assurance that she is; and the copy of the nurse'sattestation to the same effect. They satisfied me. I would not haveasked Mr. Darrell to be as easily contented; I could but have asked himto inquire, and satisfy himself. But he would not even hear me. "

"He will hear you now, and with respect. "

"He will!" cried Waife, joyously. "And if he should inquire and ifSophy should prove to be, as I have ever believed, his daughter's child, would he not' own, and receive, and cherish her?"

"Alas, sir, do not let me pain you; but that is not my hope. If, indeed, it should prove that your son deceived you--that Sophy is no way relatedto him--if she should be the child of peasants, but of honest peasants--why, sir, that is my hope, my last hope--for then I would kneel once moreat your feet, and implore your permission to win her affection and askher hand. "

"What! Mr. Darrell would consent to your union with the child ofpeasants, and not with his own grandchild?"

"Sir, sir, you rack me to the heart; but if you knew all, you would notwonder to hear me say, 'I dare not ask Mr. Darrell to bless my union withthe daughter of Jasper Losely. '"

Waife suppressed a groan, and began to pace the room with disorderedsteps, "But, " resumed Lionel, "go to Fawley yourself. Seek Darrell; compare thereasons for your belief with his for rejecting it. At this moment hispride is more subdued than I have ever known it. He will go calmly intothe investigation of facts; the truth will become clear. Sir--dear, dearsir--I am not without a hope. "

"A hope that the child I have so cherished should be nothing in the worldto me!"

"--Nothing to you! Is memory such a shadow?--is affection such aweathercock? Has the love between you and Sophy been only the instinctof kindred blood? Has it not been hallowed by all that makes Age andChildhood so pure a blessing to each other, rooted in trials bornetogether? Were you not the first who taught her in wanderings, inprivations, to see a Mother in Nature, and pray to a Father which is inHeaven? Would all this be blotted out of your soul, if she were not thechild of that son whom it chills you to remember? Sir, if there be notie to replace the mere bond of kindred, why have you taken such vigilantpains to separate a child from him whom you believe to be her father?"

Waife stood motionless and voiceless. This passionate appeal struck himforcibly. 

"And, sir, " added Lionel, in a lower, sadder tone--"can I ask you, whoselater life has been one sublime self-sacrifice, whether you would ratherthat you might call Sophy grandchild, and know her wretched, than knowher but as the infant angel whom Heaven sent to your side when bereavedand desolate, and know also that she was happy? Oh, William Losely, praywith me that Sophy may not be your grandchild. Her home will not be lessyour home--her attachment will not less replace to you your lost son--andon your knee her children may learn to lisp the same prayers that youtaught to her. Go to Darrell--go--go! and take me with you!"

"I will--I will, " exclaimed Waife; and snatching at his hat and staff:"Come--come! But Sophy should not learn that you have been here--that Ihave gone away with you; it might set her thinking, dreaming, hoping--allto end in greater sorrow. " He bustled out of the room to caution the oldwoman, and to write a few hasty lines to Sophy herself--assuring her, onhis most solemn honour, that he was not now flying from her to resume hisvagrant life--that, without fail, please Heaven, he would return thatnight or the next day. 

In a few minutes he reopened the room-door, beckoning silently to Lionel, and then stole into the quiet lane with quick steps. 

CHAPTER IV. 

 GUY DARRELL'S VIEWS IN THE INVITATION TO WAIFE. 

Lionel had but inadequately represented, for he could but imperfectlycomprehend, the profound impression made upon Guy Darrell by GeorgeMorley's disclosures. Himself so capable of self-sacrifice, Darrell wasthe man above all others to regard with an admiring reverence, whichpartook of awe, a self-immolation that seemed almost above humanity--to him who set so lofty an estimate on good name and fair repute. He hadnot only willingly permitted, but even urged Lionel to repair to Waifeand persuade the old man to come to Fawley. With Waife he was preparedto enter into the full discussion of Sophy's alleged parentage. Butapart even from considerations that touched a cause of perplexity whichdisquieted himself, Darrell was eager to see and to show homage to thesufferer, in whom he recognised a hero's dignity. And if he had sent byLionel no letter from himself to Waife, it was only because, in theexquisite delicacy of feeling that belonged to him, when his bestemotions were aroused, he felt it just that the whole merit and the wholedelight of reparation to the wrongs of William Losely should, withoutdirect interposition of his own, be left exclusively to CharlesHaughton's son. Thus far it will be acknowledged that Guy Darrell wasnot one of those men who, once warmed to magnanimous impulse, are cooledby a thrifty prudence when action grows out of the impulses. Guy Darrellcould not be generous by drachin and scruple. Not apt to say, "Iapologise, "--slow to say, "I repent"; very--very--very slow indeed tosay, "I forgive"; yet let him once say, "I repent, " "I apologise, " or "Iforgive, " and it was said with his whole heart and soul. 

But it must not be supposed that, in authorising Lionel to undertake theembassy to Waife, or in the anticipation of what might pass between Waifeand himself should the former consent to revisit the old house from whichhe had been so scornfully driven, Darrell had altered, or dreamed ofaltering, one iota of his resolves against a Union between Lionel andSophy. True, Lionel had induced him to say--

"Could it be indisputably proved that no drop of Jasper Losely's bloodwere in this girl's veins--that she were the lawful child of honestparents, however humble--my right to stand between her and yourself wouldcease. " But a lawyer's experience is less credulous than a lover's hope. And to Darrell's judgment it was wholly improbable that any honestparents, however humble, should have yielded their child to a knave likeJasper, while it was so probable that his own persuasion was wellfounded, and that she was Jasper's daughter, though not Matilda's. 

The winter evening had closed, George and Darrell were conversing in thelibrary; the theme, of course, was Waife; and Darrell listened with vividinterest to George's graphic accounts of the old man's gentle playfulhumour--with its vague desultory undercurrents of poetic fancy or subtlewisdom. But when George turned to speak of Sophy's endearing, lovelynature, and, though cautiously, to intimate an appeal on her behalf toDarrell's sense of duty, or susceptibility to kindly emotions, the proudman's brow be came knit, and his stately air evinced displeasure. Fortunately, just at a moment when further words might have led to apermanent coldness between men so disposed to esteem each other, theyheard the sound of wheels on the frosty ground--the shrill bell at theporch-door. 

CHAPTER V. 

 THE VAGABOND RECEIVED IN THE MANOR-HOUSE AT FAWLEY. 

Very lamely, very feebly, declining Lionel's arm, and leaning heavily onhis crutch-stick, Waife crossed the threshold of the Manor-house. Georgesprang forward to welcome him. The old man looked on the preacher's facewith a kind of wandering uncertainty in his eye, and George saw that hischeek was very much flushed. He limped on through the hall, stillleaning on his staff, George and Lionel at either side. A pace or two, and there stood Darrell! Did he, the host, not spring forward to offeran arm, to extend a hand? No; such greeting in Darrell would have beenbut vulgar courtesy. As the old man's eye rested on him, the superbgentleman bowed low--bowed as we bow to kings!

They entered the library. Darrell made a sign to George and Lionel. They understood the sign, and left visitor and host alone. 

Lionel drew George into the quaint old dining-hall. "I am very uneasyabout our dear friend, " he said, in agitated accents. "I fear that Ihave had too little consideration for his years and his sensitive nature, and that, what with the excitement of the conversation that passedbetween us and the fatigue of the journey, his nerves have broken down. We were not half-way on the road, and as we had the railway-carriage toourselves, I was talking to him with imprudent earnestness, when he beganto tremble all over, and went into an hysterical paroxysm of mingledtears and laughter. I wished to stop at the next station, but he was notlong recovering, and insisted on coming on. Still, as we approachedFawley, after muttering to himself, as far as I could catch his words, incoherently, he sank into a heavy state of lethargy or stupor, restinghis head on my shoulder. It was with difficulty I roused him when heentered the park. "

"Poor old man, " said George feelingly; "no doubt the quick succession ofemotions through which he has lately passed has overcome him for thetime. But the worst is now passed. His interview with Darrell mustcheer his heart and soothe his spirits; and that interview over, we mustgive him all repose and nursing. But tell me what passed between you--ifhe was very indignant that I could not suffer men like you and my uncleAlban and Guy Darrell to believe him a picklock and a thief. "

Lionel began his narrative, but had not proceeded far in it beforeDarrell's voice was heard shouting loud, and the library bell rangviolently. 

They hurried into the library, and Lionel's fears were verified. Waifewas in strong convulsions; and as these gradually ceased, and he restedwithout struggle, half on the floor, half in Darrell's arms, he wasevidently unconscious of all around him. His eye was open, but fixed ina glassy stare. The servants thronged into the room; one was despatchedinstantly to summon the nearest medical practitioner. "Help me--George--Lionel, " said Darrell, "to bear him up-stairs. Mills, light us. " Whenthey reached the landing-place, Mills asked, "Which room, sir?" Darrellhesitated an instant, then his grey eye lit into its dark fire. "Myfather's room--he shall rest on my father's bed. "

When the surgeon arrived, he declared Waife to be in imminent danger--pressure on the brain. He prescribed prompt and vigorous remedies, whichhad indeed before the surgeon's arrival suggested themselves to, and beenpartly commenced by, Darrell, who had gone through too many varieties ofexperience to be unversed in the rudiments of leechcraft. "If I were inmy guest's state, " asked Darrell of the practitioner, "what would youdo?"

"Telegraph instantly for Dr. F------. "

"Lionel--you hear? Take my own horse--he will carry you like the wind. Off to --------; it is the nearest telegraph station. "

Darrell did not stir from Waife's bedside all that anxious eight. Dr. F------ arrived at morning. He approved of all that had been done, butnevertheless altered the treatment; and after staying some hours, said toDarrell: "I am compelled to leave you for the present, nor could I be ofuse in staying. I have given all the aid in my power to Nature--we mustleave the rest to Nature herself. That fever--those fierce throes andspasms--are but Nature's efforts to cast off the grasp of the enemy we donot see. It now depends on what degree of rallying power be left to thepatient. Fortunately his frame is robust, yet not plethoric. Do youknow his habits?"

"I know, " answered George--" most temperate, most innocent. "

"Then, with constant care, minute attention to my directions, he mayrecover. "

"If care and attention can save my guest's life, he shall not die, " saidDarrell. 

The physician looked at the speaker's pale face and compressed lips. "But, Mr. Darrell, I must not have you on my hands too. You must not beout of your bed again tonight. "

"Certainly not, " said George. "I shall watch alone. "

"No, " cried Lionel, "that is my post too. "

"Pooh!" said Darrell; "young men so far from Death are not such watchfulsentinels against his stroke as men of my years, who have seen him in allaspects; and, moreover, base indeed in the host who deserts his ownguest's sick-chamber. Fear not for me, doctor; no man needs sleep lessthan I do. "

Dr. F------ slid his hand on Darrell's pulse. "Irregular--quick; butwhat vitality! what power!--a young man's pulse. Mr. Darrell, many yearsfor your country's service are yet in these lusty beats. "

Darrell breathed his chronic sigh, and turning back to Waife's bedside, said to the doctor, "When will you come again?"

"The day after to-morrow. "

When the doctor returned, Waife was out of immediate danger. Nature, fortified by the "temperate, innocent habits" which husband up herpowers, had dislodged, at least for a time, her enemy; but the attack wasfollowed by extreme debility. It was clear that for days, perhaps evenweeks to come, the vagrant must remain a prisoner under Darrell's roof-tree. 

Lionel had been too mindful of Sophy's anxiety to neglect writing to LadyMontfort the day after Waife's seizure. But he could not find the heartto state the old man's danger; and with the sanguine tendencies of hisyoung nature, even when at the worst he clung to belief in the best. Herefrained from any separate and private communication of Waife's state toLady Montfort, lest the sadness it would not fail to occasion her shouldbe perceptible to Sophy, and lead her to divine the cause. So hecontented himself with saying that Waife had accompanied him to Mr. Darrell's, and would be detained there, treated with all kindness andhonour, for some days. 

Sophy's mind was relieved by this intelligence, but it filled her withwonder and conjecture. That Waife, who had so pertinaciously refused tobreak bread as a guest under any man's roof-tree, should be for daysreceiving the hospitality of Lionel Haughton's wealthy and powerfulkinsman, was indeed mysterious. But whatever brought Waife and Lionelthus in confidential intercourse could not but renew yet more vividly thehopes she had been endeavouring of late to stifle. And combiningtogether many desultory remembrances of words escaped unawares fromLionel, from Lady Montfort, from Waife himself, the truth (of which hernative acuteness had before admitted glimpses) grew almost clear to her. Was not Mr. Darrell that relation to her lost mother upon whom she hadclaims not hitherto conceded? Lionel and Waife both with that relationnow! Surely the clouds that had rested on her future were admitting thesun through their opening rents--and she blushed as she caught its ray. 

CHAPTER VI. 

 INDIVIDUAL CONCESSIONS ARE LIKE POLITICAL; WHEN YOU ONCE BEGIN, THERE IS NO SAYING WHERE YOU WILL STOP. 

Waife's first words on recovering consciousness were given to thoughts ofSophy. He had promised her to return, at farthest, the next day; shewould be so uneasy he must get up--he must go at once. When he found hisstrength would not suffer him to rise, he shed tears. It was only verygradually and at intervals that he became acquainted with the length andseverity of his attack, or fully sensible that he was in Darrell's house;that that form, of which he had retained vague dreamy reminiscences, hanging over his pillow, wiping his brow, and soothing him with thesweetest tones of the sweet human voice--that that form, so genial, sobrotherlike, was the man who had once commanded him not to sully with hispresence a stainless home. 

All that had passed within the last few days was finally made clear tohim in a short, unwitnessed, touching conversation with his host; afterwhich, however, he became gradually worse; his mind remaining clear, butextremely dejected; his bodily strength evidently sinking. Dr. F------was again summoned in haste. That great physician was, as every greatphysician should be, a profound philosopher, though with a familiar easeof manner, and a light off-hand vein of talk, which made the philosophyless sensible to the taste than any other ingredient in hispharmacopoeia. Turning everybody else out of the room, he examined hispatient alone--sounded the old man's vital organs, with ear and withstethoscope--talked to him now on his feelings, now on the news of theday, and then stepped out to Darrell. 

"Something on the heart, my dear sir; I can't get at it; perhaps you can. Take off that something, and the springs will react, and my patient willsoon recover. All about him sound as a rock--but the heart; that hasbeen horribly worried; something worries it now. His heart may be seenin his eye. Watch his eye; it is missing some face it is accustomed tosee. "

Darrell changed colour. He stole back into Waife's room, and took theold man's hand. Waife returned the pressure, and said: "I was justpraying for you--and--and--I am sinking fast. Do not let me die, sir, without wishing poor Sophy a last good-bye!"

Darrell passed back to the landing-place where George and Lionel werestanding, while Dr. F------- was snatching a hasty refreshment in thelibrary before his return to town. Darrell laid his hand on Lionel'sshoulder. "Lionel, you must go back to London with Dr. F-------. I cannot keep you here longer. I want your room. "

"Sir, " said Lionel, aghast, "while Waife is still so ill! You cannot bethus unkind. "

"Inconsiderate egotist! would you deprive the old man of a presencedearer to him than yours? George, you will go too, but you will return. You told me, yesterday, that your wife was in London for a few days;entreat her to accompany you hither; entreat her to bring with her thepoor young lady whom my guest pines to see at his bedside--the face thathis eye misses. "

CHAPTER VII. 

 SOPHY, DARRELL, AND THE FLUTE-PLAYER. DARRELL. PREPARES A SURPRISE FOR WAIFE. 

Sophy is come. She has crossed that inexorable threshold. She is aguest in the house which rejects her as a daughter. She has been theresome days. Waife revived at the first sight of her tender face. He hasleft his bed; can move for some hours a day into an adjoining chamber, which has been hastily arranged for his private sitting-room; and canwalk its floors with a step that grows daily firmer in the delight ofleaning on Sophy's arm. 

Since the girl's arrival, Darrell has relaxed his watch over the patient. He never now enters his guest's apartment without previous notice; and, by that incommunicable instinct which passes in households between onesilent breast and another, as by a law equally strong to attract or repel--here drawing together, there keeping apart--though no rule in eithercase has been laid down;--by virtue, I say, of that strange intelligence, Sophy is not in the old man's room when Darrell enters. Rarely in thetwenty-four hours do the host and the fair young guest encounter. ButDar rell is a quick and keen observer. He has seen enough of Sophy to besensible of her charms--to penetrate into her simple natural lovelinessof character--to feel a deep interest in her, and a still deeper pity forLionel. Secluding himself as much as possible in his private room, or inhis leafless woods, his reveries increase in gloom. Nothing unbends hismoody brow like Fairthorn's flute or Fairthorn's familiar converse. 

It has been said before that Fairthorn knew his secrets. Fairthorn hadidolised Caroline Lyndsay. Fairthorn was the only being in the world towhen Guy Darrell could speak of Caroline Lyndsay--to whom he could ownthe unconquerable but unforgiving love which had twice driven him fromthe social world. Even to Fairthorn, of course, all could not be told. Darrell could not speak of the letter he had received at Malta, nor ofCaroline's visit to him at Fawley; for to do so, even to Fairthorn, waslike a treason to the dignity of the Beloved. And Guy Darrell might railat her inconstancy--her heartlessness; but to boast that she had loweredherself by the proffers that were dictated by repentance, Guy Darrellcould not do that;--he was a gentleman. Still there was much left tosay. He could own that he thought she would now accept his hand; andwhen Fairthorn looked happy at that thought, and hinted at excuses forher former fickleness, it was a great relief to Darrell to fly into arage; but if the flute-player meanly turned round and became himselfCaroline's accuser, then poor Fairthorn was indeed frightened; forDarrell's trembling lip or melancholy manner overwhelmed the assailantwith self-reproach, and sent him sidelong into one of his hidden coverts. 

But at this moment Fairthorn was a support to him under other trials--Fairthorn, who respects as he does, as no one else ever can, the sanctityof the Darrell line--who would shrink like himself from the thought thatthe daughter of Jasper Losely, and in all probability not a daughter ofMatilda Darrell, should ever be mistress of that ancestral hall, lowlyand obscure and mouldering though it be--and that the child of a sharper, a thief, a midnight assassin, should carry on the lineage of knights andwarriors in whose stainless scutcheons, on many a Gothic tomb or over theportals of ruined castles, was impaled the heraldry of Brides sprung fromthe loins of Lion Kings! Darrell, then, doing full justice to allSophy's beauty and grace, purity and goodness, was more and more torturedby the conviction that she could never be wife to the man on whom, forwant of all nearer kindred, would devolve the heritage of the Darrellname. 

On the other hand, Sophy's feelings towards her host were almost equallypainful and embittered. The tenderness and reverence that he had showedto her beloved grandfather, the affecting gratitude with which Waifespoke of him, necessarily deepened her prepossessions in his favour asLionel's kinsman; and though she saw him so sparingly, still, when theydid meet, she had no right to coimplain of his manner. It might bedistant, taciturn; but it was gentle, courteous--the manner which mightbe expected, in a host of secluded habits, to a young guest from whosesympathies he was removed by years, but to whose comforts he wasunobtrusively considerate--whose wishes were delicately forestalled. Yetwas this all that her imagination had dared to picture on entering thosegrey walls? Where was the evidence of the relationship of which she haddreamed?--where a single sign that she was more in that house than a mereguest?--where, alas! a token that even Lionel had named her to hiskinsman, and that for Lionel's sake that kinsman bade her welcome? AndLionel too--gone the very day before she arrived! That she learnedincidentally from the servant who showed her into the room. Gone, andnot addressed a line to herself, though but to condole with her on hergrandfather's illness, or congratulate her that the illness had sparedthe life! She felt wounded to the very core. As Waife's progressiverestoration allowed her thoughts more to revert to so many causes forpain and perplexity, the mystery of all connected with her own andWaife's sojourn under that roof baffled her at tempts at conjecture. Theold man did not volunteer explanations. Timidly she questioned him; buthis nerves yet were so unstrung, and her questions so evidently harassedhim, that she only once made that attempt to satisfy her ownbewilderment, and smiled as if contented when he said, after a longpause: "Patience yet, my child; let me get a little stronger. You seeMr. Darrell will not suffer me to talk with him on matters that must bediscussed with him before I go; and then--and then--Patience till then, Sophhy. "

Neither George nor his wife gave her any clue to the inquiries thatpreyed upon her mind. The latter, a kind, excellent woman, meeklydevoted to her husband, either was, or affected to be, in ignorance ofthe causes that had led. Waife to Fawley, save very generally thatDarrell had once wronged him by an erring judgment, and had hastened toefface that wrong. And then she kissed Sophy fondly, and told her thatbrighter days were in store for the old man and herself. George saidwith more authority--the authority of the priest: "Ask no questions. Time, that solves all riddles, is hurrying on, and Heaven directs itsmovements. "

Her very heart was shut up, except where it could gush forth--nor eventhen with full tide--in letters to Lady Montfort. Caroline had heardfrom George's wife, with intense emotion, that Sophy was summoned toDarrell's house, the gravity of Waife's illness being consideratelysuppressed. Lady Montfort could but suppose that Darrell's convictionshad been shaken--his resolutions softened; that he sought an excuse tosee Sophy, and judge of her himself. Under this impression, in partingwith her young charge, Caroline besought Sophy to write to her constantlyand frankly. Sophy felt all inexpressible relief in this correspondence. But Lady Montfort in her replies was not more communicative than Waife orthe Morleys; only she seemed more thoughtfully anxious that Sophy shoulddevote her self to the task of propitiating her host's affections. Sheurged her to try and break through his reserve--see more of him; as ifthat were possible! And her letters were more filled with questionsabout Darrell than even with admonitions and soothings to Sophy. Theletters that arrived at Fawley were brought in a bag, which Darrellopened; but Sophy noticed that it was with a peculiar compression of lip, and a marked change of colour, that he had noticed the handwriting onLady Montfort's first letter to her, and that after that first time herletters were not enclosed in the bag, but came apart, and were neveragain given to her by her host. 

Thus passed days in which Sophy's time was spent chiefly in Waife's sick-room. But now he is regaining strength hourly. To his sitting-roomcomes George frequently to relieve Sophy's watch. There, once a day, comes Guy Darrell, and what then passed between the two men nonewitnessed. In these hours Waife insisted upon Sophy's going forth forair and exercise. She is glad to steal out alone-steal down by the banksof the calm lake, or into the gloom of the mournful woods. Here she notunfrequently encounters Fairthorn, who, having taken more than ever tothe flute, is driven more than ever to outdoor rambles, for he has beencautioned not to indulge in his melodious resource within doors lest hedisturb the patient. 

Fairthorn and Sophy thus made acquaintance, distant and shy at first onboth sides; but it gradually became more frank and cordial. Fairthornhad an object not altogether friendly in encouraging this intimacy. Hethought, poor man, that he should be enabled to extract from Sophy somerevelations of her early life, which would elucidate, not in favour ofher asserted claims, the mystery that hung upon her parentage. But hadDick Fairthorn been the astutest of diplomatists, in this hope he wouldhave been equally disappointed. Sophy had nothing to communicate. Heringenuousness utterly baffled the poor flute-player. Out of an innocent, unconscious kind of spite, on ceasing to pry into Sophy's descent, hebegan to enlarge upon the dignity of Darrell's. He inflicted on her thelong-winded genealogical memoir, the recital of which had, on a previousoccasion, so nearly driven Lionel Haughton from Fawley. He took her tosee the antiquary's grave; he spoke to her, as they stood there, ofDarrell's ambitious boyhood--his arid, laborious manhood--hisdetermination to restore the fallen line--the very vow he had made tothe father he had so pityingly revered. He sought to impress on her theconsciousness that she was the guest of one who belonged to a race withwhom spotless honour was the all in all; and who had gone through lifewith bitter sorrows, but reverencing that race, and vindicating thathonour; Fairthorn's eye would tremble--his eyes flash on her while hetalked. She, poor child, could not divine why; but she felt that he wasangry with her--speaking at her. In fact, Fairthorn's prickly tongue wason the barbed point of exclaiming: "And how dare you foist yourself intothis unsullied lineage--how dare you think that the dead would not turnin their graves, ere they would make room in the vault of the Darrellsfor the daughter of a Jasper Losely!" But though she could not conceivethe musician's covert meaning in these heraldic discourses, Sophy, with ajustness of discrimination that must have been intuitive, separated fromthe more fantastic declamations of the grotesque genealogist that whichwas genuine and pathetic in the single image of the last descendant in along and gradually falling race, lifting it up once more into power andnote on toiling shoulders, and standing on the verge of age, with themelancholy consciousness that the effort was successful only for hisfleeting life; that, with all his gold, with all his fame, the hope whichhad achieved alike the gold and the fame was a lying mockery, and thatname and race would perish with himself, when the earth yawned for himbeside the antiquary's grave. 

And these recitals made her conceive a more soft and tender interest inGuy Darrell than she had before admitted; they accounted for themournfulness on his brow; they lessened her involuntary awe of thatstateliness of bearing which before had only chilled her as the evidenceof pride. 

While Fairthorn and Sophy thus matured acquaintance, Darrell and Waifewere drawing closer and closer to each other. Certainly no one would bepredisposed to suspect any congeniality of taste, intellect, experience, or emotion, between two men whose lives had been so widely different--inwhose faults or merits the ordinary observer would have seen nothing butantagonism and contrast. Unquestionably their characters were strikinglydissimilar, yet there was that in each which the other recognised asfamiliar to his own nature. Each had been the victim of his heart; eachhad passed over the ploughshare of self-sacrifice. Darrell had offeredup his youth--Waife his age; Darrell to a Father and the unrequitingDead--Waife to a Son whose life had become his terror. To one man, NAMEhad been an idol; to the other, NAME had been a weed cast away into themire. To the one man, unjoyous, evanescent glory--to the other, a shamethat had been borne with a sportive cheerfulness, dashed into sorrow onlywhen the world's contumely threatened to despoil Affection of its food. But there was something akin in their joint experience of earthlyvanities;--so little solace in worldly honours to the triumphant Orator--so little of misery to the vagrant Mime while his conscience mutelyappealed to Heaven from the verdict of his kind. And as beneath all thelevity and whim of the man reared and nurtured, and fitted by hischaracteristic tendencies, to view life through its humours, not throughits passions, there still ran a deep undercurrent of grave and earnestintellect and feeling--so too, amidst the severer and statelier textureof the once ambitious, laborious mind, which had conducted Darrell torenown--amidst all that gathered-up intensity of passion, which admittedno comedy into Sorrow, and saw in Love but the aspect of Fate--amidst allthis lofty seriousness of soul, there was yet a vivid capacity ofenjoyment--those fine sensibilities to the pleasurable sun-rays of life, which are constitutional to all GENIUS, no matter how grave itsvocations. True, affliction at last may dull them, as it dulls all elsethat we took from Nature when she equipped us for life. Yet, in the mindof Darrell, affliction had shattered the things most gravely coveted, even more than it had marred its perceptive acknowledgment of thesympathies between fancies that move to smiles, and thoughts thatbequeath solemn lessons, or melt to no idle tears. Had Darrell beenplaced amidst the circumstances that make happy the homes of earnest men, Darrell would have been mirthful; had Waife been placed amongst thecircumstances that concentrate talent, and hedge round life with trainedthicksets and belting laurels, Waife would have been grave. 

It was not in the earlier conferences that took place in Waife'sapartment that the subject which had led the old man to Fawley wasbrought into discussion. When Waife had sought to introduce it--when, after Sophy's arrival, he had looked wistfully into Darrell's face, striving to read there the impression she had created, and, unable todiscover, had begun, with tremulous accents, to reopen the cause thatweighed on him--Darrell stopped him at once. "Hush--not yet; rememberthat it was in the very moment you first broached this sorrowful topic, on arriving here, and perceived how different the point of view fromwhich we two must regard it, that your nerves gave way--your illnessrushed on you. Wait, not only till you are stronger, but till we knoweach other better. This subject is one that it becomes us to treat withall the strength of our reason--with all the calm which either can imposeupon the feelings that ruffle judgment. At present, talk we of allmatters except that, which I promise you shall be fairly discussed atlast. "

Darrell found, however, that his most effective diversion from thesubject connected with Sophy was through another channel in the oldman's affections, hopes, and fears. George Morley, in repeating theconversation he had overheard between Waife and Jasper, had naturally, while clearing the father, somewhat softened the bravado and cynicism ofthe son's language, and more than somewhat brightened the touches ofnatural feeling by which the bravado and cynicism had been alternated. And Darrell had sufficient magnanimity to conquer the repugnance withwhich he approached a name associated with so many dark and hatefulmemories, and, avoiding as much as possible distinct reference toJasper's past life, to court a consultation on the chances of saving fromthe worst the life that yet remained. With whom else, indeed, thanJasper's father could Darrell so properly and so unreservedly discuss amatter in which their interest and their fear were in common?--As thoughhe were rendering some compensation to Waife for the disappointment hewould experience when Sophy's claims came to be discussed--if he couldassist in relieving the old man's mind as to the ultimate fate of the sonfor whom he had made so grand a sacrifice, Darrell spoke to Waifesomewhat in detail of the views with which he had instructed ColonelMorley to find out and to treat with Jasper. He heard from the Colonelalmost daily. Alban had not yet discovered Jasper, nor even succeeded intracing Mrs. Crane! But an account of Jasper's farewell visit to thatden of thieves, from which he had issued safe and triumphant, had reachedthe ears of a detective employed by the Colonel, and on tolerably goodterms with Cutts; and it was no small comfort to know that Jasper hadfinally broken with those miscreant comrades, and had never again beenseen in their haunts. As Arabella had introduced herself to Alban by herformer name, and neither he nor Darrell was acquainted with that she nowbore, and as no questions on the subject could be put to Waife during theearlier stages of his illness, so it was several days before the Colonelhad succeeded in tracing her out as Mrs. Crane of Podden Place--adiscovery effected by a distant relation to whom he had been referred atthe famous school of which Arabella had been the pride, and who was nodoubt the owner of those sheepskin account-books by which the poor grimwoman had once vainly sought to bribe Jasper into honest work. But thehouse in Podden Place was shut up--not a soul in charge of it. Thehouses immediately adjoining it were tenantless. The Colonel learned, however, from a female servant in an opposite house, that several daysago she had seen a tall, powerful-looking man enter Mrs. Crane's street-door; that she had not seen him quit it; and that some eveningsafterwards, as this servant was closing up the house in which she served, she had remarked a large private carriage driving away from Mrs. Crane'sdoor; that it was too dark to see who were in the carriage, but she hadnoticed a woman whom she felt fully sure was Mrs. Crane's servant, Bridgett Greggs, on the box beside the coachman. 

Alban had been to the agent employed by Mrs. Crane in the letting of herhouses, but had not there gained any information. The Colonel believedthat Mrs. Crane had succeeded in removing Jasper from London--had, perhaps, accompanied him abroad. If with her, at all events for thepresent he was safe from the stings of want, and with one who had swornto save him from his own guilty self. If, however, still in England, Alban had no doubt, sooner or later, to hunt him up. 

Upon the whole, this conjectural information, though unsatisfactory, allayed much anxiety. Darrell made the most of it in his representationsto Waife. And the old man, as we know, was one not hard to comfort, never quarrelling irrevocably with Hope. 

And now Waife is rapidly recovering. Darrell, after spending the greaterpart of several days, intent upon a kind of study from which he had beenestranged for many years, takes to frequent absences for the whole day;goes up to London by the earliest train, comes back by the latest. George Morley also goes to London for a few hours. Darrell, onreturning, does not allude to the business which took him to themetropolis; neither does George, but the latter seems unusually animatedand excited. At length, after one of these excursions, so foreign to hishabits, he and George enter together the old man's apartment not longbefore the early hour at which the convalescent retires to rest. Sophywas seated on the footstool at Waife's knee, reading the Bible to him, his hand resting lightly on her bended head. The sight touched bothGeorge and Darrell; but Darrell of the two was the more affected. Whatyoung, pure voice shall read to HIM the Book of Hope in the evening oflonely age? Sophy started in some confusion, and as, in quitting theroom, she passed by Darrell, he took her hand gently, and scanned herfeatures more deliberately, more earnestly than he had ever yet seemed todo; then he sighed, and dropped the hand, murinuring, "Pardon me. " Washe seeking to read in that fair face some likeness to the Darrelllineaments? If he had found it, what then? But when Sophy was gone, Darrell came straight to Waife with a cheerful brow--with a kindling eye. 

"William Losely, " said he. 

"Waife, if you please, sir, " interrupted the old man. William Losely, "repeated Darrell, "justice seeks to repair, so far as, alas! it now can, the wrongs inflicted on the name of William Losely. Your old friendAlban Morley supplying me with the notes he had made in the matter ofyour trial, I arranged the evidence they furnished. The Secretary forthe Home Department is one of my most intimate political friends--a manof humanity--of sense. I placed that evidence before him. I, George, and Mr. Hartopp, saw him after he had perused it--"

"My--son--Lizzy's son!"

"His secret will be kept. The question was not who committed the act forwhich you suffered, but whether you were clearly, incontestably, innocentof the act, and, in pleading guilty, did but sublimely bear the penaltyof another. There will be no new trial--there are none who wouldprosecute. I bring back to you the Queen's free pardon under the GreatSeal. I should explain to you that this form of the royal grace is sorarely given that it needed all the strength and affecting circumstanceof your peculiar case to justify the Home Secretary in listening, notonly to the interest I could bring to bear in your favour, but to his ownhumane inclinations. The pardon under the Great Seal differs from anordinary pardon. It purges the blood from the taint of felony--it remitsall the civil disabilities which the mere expiry of a penal sentence doesnot remove. In short, as applicable to your case, it becomes virtually acomplete and formal attestation of your innocence. Alban Morley willtake care to apprise those of your old friends who may yet survive, ofthat revocation of unjust obloquy, which this royal deed implies--AlbanMorley, who would turn his back on the highest noble in Britain if butguilty of some jockey trick on the turf! Live henceforth openly, and inbroad daylight if you please; and trust to us three--the Soldier, theLawyer, the Churchman--to give to this paper that value which yourSovereign's advisers intend it to receive. "

"Your hand now, dear old friend!" cried George. "You remember Icommanded you once to take mine as man and gentleman--as man andgentleman, now honour me with yours. "

"Is it possible?" faltered Waife, one hand in George's, the otherextended in imploring appeal to Darrell--"is it possible? I vindicated--I cleared--and yet no felon's dock for Jasper!--the son not criminated bythe father's acquittal! Tell me that! again--again!"

"It is so, believe me. All that rests is to force on that son, if hehave a human heart, the conviction that he will be worse than a parricideif he will not save himself. "

"And he will--he shall. Oh, that I could but get at him!" exclaimed thepreacher. 

"And now, " said Darrell--"now, George, leave us; for now, upon equalterms, we two fathers can discuss family differences. "

CHAPTER VIII. 

 SOPHY'S CLAIM EXAMINED AND CANVASSED. 

"I take this moment, " said Darrell, when left alone with Waife--(ah, reader, let us keep to that familiar name to the last!)--"I take thismoment, " said Darrell, "the first moment in which you can feel thoroughlyassured that no prejudice against yourself clouds my judgment inreference to her whom you believe to be your grandchild, to commence, andI trust to conclude forever, the subject which twice brought you withinthese walls. On the night of your recent arrival here, you gave thiscopy of a French woman's declaration, to the effect that two infants hadbeen placed out with her to nurse; that one of them was my poordaughter's infant, who was about to be taken away from her; that theother was confided to her by its parent, a French lady, whom she speaksof as a very liberal and distinguished person, but whose name is notstated in the paper. "

WAIFE. --"The confession describes that lady as an artiste; distinguishedartiste is the expression-viz. , a professional person--a painter--anactress--a singer--or--"

DARRELL (drily). --"An opera-dancer! I understand the French wordperfectly. And I presume the name is not mentioned in the document, frommotives of delicacy; the child of a distinguished French artiste is notnecessarily born in wedlock. But this lady was very grateful to thenurse for the care shown to her infant, who was very sickly; and promisedto take the nurse, and the nurse's husband also, into her service. Thenurse states that she herself was very poor; that the lady's offerappeared to her like a permanent provision; that the life of thisartiste's infant was of the utmost value to her--the life of my poordaughter's child of comparative insignificance. But the infant of theartiste died, and the nurse's husband put it into his wife's head to tellyour son (then a widower, and who had seen so little of his child as tobe easily deceived), that it was his infant who died. The nurse shortlyafterwards removed to Paris, taking with her to the artiste's house thechild who in reality was my daughter's. "

"It seems very probable, does it not--does it not?" said the ex-comedianeagerly. 

"It seems to me, " replied the ex-lawyer, "very probable that a witness, entering into court with the confession of one villanous falsehood, wouldhave little scruple to tell another. But I proceed. This rich andliberal artiste dies; the nurse's conscience then suddenly awakens--shesees Mr. Hammond--she informs him of the fraud she has practised. A ladyof rank, who had known Matilda, and had seen both the infants when bothwere living under the nurse's charge, and observed them more attentivelythan your son had done--corroborates the woman's story, stating that theartiste's child had dark eyes instead of blue; that the artiste herselfwas never deceived--but, having taken a great fancy to the spuriousinfant, was willing to receive and cherish it as her own; and that sheknows several persons who will depose that they heard the artiste saythat the child was not her own. On this evidence your son takes tohimself this child--and this child is your Sophy--and you wish me toacknowledge her as my daughter's offspring. Do not look me so earnestlyin the face, my dear and respected guest. It was when you read in myface what my lips shrank from uttering that your emotions overcame yourstrength, and your very mind deserted you. Now, be firmer. Your Sophyhas no need of me--she is under your charge, and your name is cleared. She has found a friend--a protectress--in her own sex. Lady Montfort'srank gives to her a position in the world as high as I could offer; andas to mere pecuniary provision for her, make your mind easy--it shall besecured. But bear with me when I add, resolutely and calmly, that thisnurse's attestation is to me a grosser and poorer attempt at imposturethan I had anticipated; and I am amazed that a man of your abilitiesshould have been contented to accept it. "

"Oh, Mr. Darrell, don't say so! It was such a blessing to think, when myson was lost to me, that I might fill up the void in my heart with aninnocent, loving child. Don't talk of my abilities. If you, whoseabilities none can question--if you had longed and yearned for such acomforter--if you had wished--if you wished now this tale to be true, youwould have believed it too; you would believe it now--you would indeed. Two men look so differently at the same story--one deeply interested thatit should be true--one determined, if possible, to find it false. Is itnot so?"

Darrell smiled slightly, but could not be induced to assent even to sogeneral a proposition. He felt as if he were pitted against a counselwho would take advantage of every concession. 

Waife continued. "And whatever seems most improbable in this confession, is rendered probable at once--if--if--we may assume that my unhappy son, tempted by the desire to--to--"

"Spare yourself--I understand-if your son wished to obtain his wife'sfortune, and therefore connived at the exchange of the infants, and wastherefore, too, enabled always to corroborate the story of the exchangewhenever it suited him to reclaim the infant, I grant this--and I grantthat the conjecture is sufficiently plausible to justify you in attachingto it much weight. We will allow that it was his interest at one time torepresent his child, though living, as no more; but you must allow alsothat he would have deemed it his interest later, to fasten upon me, as mydaughter's, a child to whom she never gave birth. Here we entangleourselves in a controversy without data, without facts. Let us close it. Believe what you please. Why should I shake convictions that render youhappy? Be equally forbearing with me. I do full justice to your Sophy'scharming qualities. In herself, the proudest parent might rejoice to ownher; but I cannot acknowledge her to be the daughter of Matilda Darrell. And the story that assured you she was your grandchild, still moreconvinces me that she is not mine!"

"But be not thus inflexible, I implore you;--you can be so kind, sogentle;--she would be such a blessing to you--later--perhaps--when I amdead. I am pleading for your sake--I owe you so much! I should repayyou, if I could but induce you to inquire--and if inquiry should provethat I am right. "

"I have inquired sufficiently. "

"'Then I'll go and find out the nurse. I'll question her. I'll--"

"Hold. Be persuaded! Hug your belief! Inquire no farther!"

"Why--why?"

Darrell was mute. 

Waife passed and repassed his hand over his brow, and then criedsuddenly: "But if I could prove her not to be my grandchild, then shemight be happy!--then--then-ah, sir, young Haughton tells me that if shewere but the daughter of honest parents--no child of Jasper's, nograndchild of mine--then you might not be too proud to bless her at leastas his bride! And, sir, the poor child loves the young man. How couldshe help it? And, at her age, life without hope is either very short, orvery, very long! Let me inquire! I should be happy even to know thatshe was not my grandchild. I should not love her less; and then shewould have others to love her when I am gone to Lizzy!"

Darrell was deeply moved. To him there was something in this old man-ever forgetting himself, ever so hurried on by his heart--something, Isay, in this old man, before which Darrell felt his intellect subdued andhis pride silenced and abashed. 

"Yes, sir, " said Waife, musingly, "so let it be. I am well now. I willgo to France to-morrow. "

Darrell nerved his courage. He had wished to spare Waife the pain whichhis own persuasions caused to himself. Better now to be frank. He laidhis hand on Waife's shoulder, and looking him in the face, said solemnly:"I entreat you not! Do you suppose that I would not resume inquiry inperson, nor pause till the truth were made amply clear, if I had notstrong reason to prefer doubt to certainty?"

"What do you mean, sir?"

"There is a woman whose career is, I believe, at this moment revived intofresh notoriety as the heroine of some drama on the stage of Paris--awoman who, when years paled her fame and reft her spoils, as a courtesanrenowned for the fools she had beggared, for the young hearts she hadcorrupted, sought plunder still by crimes, to which law is less lenient;charged with swindling, with fraud, with forgery, and at last more thansuspected as a practised poisoner, she escaped by suicide the judgment ofhuman tribunals. "

"I know of whom you speak--that dreadful Gabrielle Desmarets, but forwhom my sacrifice to Jasper's future might not have been in vain! It wasto save Sophy from the chance of Jasper's ever placing her within reachof that woman's example that I took her away. "

"Is it not, then, better to forbear asking who were your Sophy's parents, than to learn from inquiry that she is indeed your grandchild, and thather mother was Gabrielle Desmarets?"

Waife uttered a cry like a shriek, and then sate voiceless and aghast. At last he exclaimed: "I am certain it is not so! Did you ever see thatwoman?"

"Never that I know of; but George tells me that he heard your son stateto you that she had made acquaintance with me under another name, and ifthere was a design to employ her in confirmation of his tale--if he wasthen speaking truth to you, doubtless this was the lady of rank referredto in the nurse's confession--doubtless this was the woman once palmedupon me as Matilda's confidante. In that case I have seen her. Whatthen?"

"Mother was not written on her face! She could never have been a mother. Oh, you may smile, sir; but all my life I have been a reader of the humanface; and there is in the aspect of some women the barrenness as ofstone--no mother's throb in their bosom--no mother's kiss on their lips. "

"I am a poor reader of women's faces, " said Darrell; "but she must be veryunlike women in general, who allows you to know her a bit better if youstood reading her face till doomsday. Besides, at the time you sawGabrielle Desmarets, her mode of life had perhaps given to her an aspectnot originally in her countenance. And I can only answer your poeticconceit by a poetic illustration--Niobe turned to stone; but she had agreat many daughters before she petrified. Pardon me, if I would turnoff by a jest a thought that I see would shock you, as myself, if gravelyencouraged. Encourage it not. Let us suppose it only a chance thatinquiry might confirm this conjecture; but let us shun that chance. Meanwhile, if inquiry is to be made, one more likely than either of usto get at the truth has promised to make it, and sooner or later we maylearn from her the results--I mean that ill-fated Arabella Fossett, whomyou knew as Crane. "

Waife was silent; but he kept turning in his hand, almost disconsolately, the document which assoiled him from the felon's taint, and said atlength, as Darrell was about to leave, "And this thing is of no use toher, then?"

Darrell came back to the old man's chair, and said softly: "Friend, donot fancy that the young have only one path to happiness. You grievethat I cannot consent to Lionel's marriage with your Sophy. Dismiss fromyour mind the desire for the Impossible. Gently wean from hers what isbut a girl's first fancy. "

"It is a girl's first love. "

"And if it be, " said Darrell, calmly, "no complaint more sure to yield tochange of air. I have known a girl as affectionate, as pure, as full ofall womanly virtues, as your Sophy (and I can give her no higher praise)--loved more deeply than Lionel can love; professing, doubtless at thetime believing, that she also loved for life; betrothed too; faithsolemnised by promise; yet in less than a year she was another's wife. Change of air, change of heart! I do not underrate the effect which ayoung man, so winning as Lionel, would naturally produce on the fancy orthe feelings of a girl, who as yet, too, has seen no others; butimpressions in youth are characters in the sand. Grave them ever sodeeply, the tide rolls over them; and when the ebb shows the surfaceagain, the characters are gone, for the sands are shifted. Courage!Lady Montfort will present to her others with forms as fair as Lionel's, and as elegantly dressed. With so much in her own favour, there areyoung patricians enough who will care not a rush what her birth;--younglords--Lady Montfort knows well how fascinating young lords can be!Courage! before a year is out, you will find new characters written onthe sand. "

"You don't know Sophy, sir, " said Waife, simply; "and I see you areresolved not to know her. But you say Arabella Crane is to inquire; andshould the inquiry prove that she is no child of Gabrielle Desmarets--that she is either your own grandchild or not mine--that--"

"Let me interrupt you. If there be a thing in the world that is crueland treacherous, it is a false hope! Crush out of every longing thoughtthe belief that this poor girl can prove to be one whom, with my consent, my kinsman can woo to be his wife. Lionel Haughton is the sole kinsmanleft to whom I can bequeath this roof-tree--these acres hallowed to mebecause associated with my earliest lessons in honour and with the dreamswhich directed my life. He must take with the heritage the name itrepresents. In his children, that name of Darrell can alone live stillin the land. I say to you, that even were my daughter now in existence, she would not succeed me--she would not inherit nor transmit that name. Why?--not because I am incapable of a Christian's forgiveness, butbecause I am not capable of a gentleman's treason to his ancestors andhimself;--because Matilda Darrell was false and perfidious; because shewas dead to honour, and therefore her birthright to a heritage of honourwas irrevocably forfeited. And since you compel me to speak rudely, while in you I revere a man above the power of law to degrade--while, could we pass a generation, and Sophy were your child by your Lizzy, Ishould proudly welcome an alliance that made you and me as brothers--yetI cannot contemplate--it is beyond my power--I cannot contemplate thepicture of Jasper Losely's daughter, even by my own child, the Mistressin my father's home--the bearer of my father's name. 'Tis in vain toargue. Grant me the slave of a prejudice--grant these ideas to beantiquated bigotry--I am too old to change. I ask from others nosacrifice which I have not borne. And whatever be Lionel's grief at myresolve, grief will be my companion long after he has forgotten that hemourned. "

CHAPTER IX. 

 POOR SOPHY!

The next morning Mills, in giving Sophy a letter from Lady Montfort, gaveher also one for Waife, and she recognised Lionel Haughton's handwritingon the address. She went straight to Waife's sitting-room, for the oldman had now resumed his early habits, and was up and dressed. She placedthe letter in his hands without a word, and stood by his side while heopened it, with a certain still firmness in the expression of her face, as if she were making up her mind to some great effort. The letter wasostensibly one of congratulation. Lionel had seen Darrell the daybefore, after the latter had left the Home Secretary's office, and hadlearned that all which Justice could do to repair the wrong inflicted hadbeen done. Here Lionel's words, though brief, were cordial, and almostjoyous; but then came a few sentences steeped in gloom. There was anallusion, vague and delicate in itself, to the eventful conversation withWaife in reference to Sophy--a sombre, solemn farewell conveyed to herand to hope--a passionate prayer for her happiness--and then an abruptwrench, as it were, away from a subject too intolerably painful toprolong--an intimation that he had succeeded in exchanging into aregiment very shortly to be sent into active service; that he should setout the next day to join that regiment in a distant part of the country;and that he trusted, should his life be spared by war, that it would bemany years before he should revisit England. The sense of the letter wasthe more affecting in what was concealed than in what was expressed. Evidently Lionel desired to convey to Waife, and leave it to him toinform Sophy, that she was henceforth to regard the writer as vanishedout of her existence--departed, as irrevocably as depart the Dead. 

While Waife was reading, he had turned himself aside from Sophy; he hadrisen--he had gone to the deep recess of the old mullioned window, halfscreening himself beside the curtain. Noiselessly, Sophy followed; andwhen he had closed the letter, she laid her hand on his arm, and saidvery quietly: "Grandfather, may I read that letter?"

Waife was startled, and replied on the instant, "No, my dear. "

"It is better that I should, " said she, with the same quiet firmness; andthen seeing the distress in his face, she added, with her more accustomedsweet docility, yet with a forlorn droop of the head: "But as you please, grandfather. "

Waife hesitated an instant. Was she not right?--would it not be betterto show the letter? After all, she must confront the fact that Lionelcould be nothing to her henceforth; and would not Lionel's own wordswound her less than all Waife could say? So he put the letter into herhands, and sate down, watching her countenance. 

At the opening sentences of congratulation, she looked up inquiringly. Poor man, he had not spoken to her of what at another time it would havebeen such joy to speak; and he now, in answer to her look, said almostsadly: "Only about me, Sophy; what does that matter?" But before thegirl read, a line farther, she smiled on him, and tenderly kissed hisfurrowed brow. 

"Don't read on, Sophy, " said he quickly. She shook her head and resumed. His eye still upon her face, he marked it changing as the sense of theletter grew upon her, till, as, without a word, with scarce a visibleheave of the bosom, she laid the letter on his knees, the change hadbecome so complete, that it seemed as if ANOTHER stood in her place. Invery young and sensitive persons, especially female (though I have seenit even in our hard sex), a great and sudden shock or revulsion offeeling reveals itself thus in the almost preternatural alteration of thecountenance. It is not a mere paleness-a skin-deep loss of colour: it isas if the whole bloom of youth had rushed away; hollows never discerniblebefore appear in the cheek that was so round and smooth; the muscles fallas in mortal illness; a havoc, as of years, seems to have been wrought ina moment; flame itself does not so suddenly ravage--so suddenly alter--leave behind it so ineffable an air of desolation and ruin. Waife sprangforward and clasped her to his breast. 

"You will bear it, Sophy! The worst is over now. Fortitude, my child!--fortitude! The human heart is wonderfully sustained when it is notthe conscience that weighs it down-griefs, that we think at the momentmust kill us, wear themselves away. I speak the truth, for I too havesuffered!"

"Poor grandfather!" said Sophy, gently; and she said no more. But whenhe would have continued to speak comfort, or exhort to patience, shepressed his hand tightly, and laid her finger on her lip. He was hushedin an instant. 

Presently she began to move about the room, busying herself, as usual, inthose slight, scarce perceptible arrangements by which she loved to thinkthat she ministered to the old man's simple comforts. She placed thearmchair in his favourite nook by the window, and before it the footstoolfor the poor lame foot; and drew the table near the chair, and lookedover the books that George had selected for his perusal from Darrell'slibrary; and chose the volume in which she saw his mark, to place nearestto his hand, and tenderly cleared the mist from his reading-glass; andremoved one or two withered or ailing snowdrops from the little winternosegay she had gathered for him the day before--he watching her all thetime, silent as herself, not daring, indeed, to speak, lest his heartshould overflow. 

These little tasks of love over, she came towards him a few paces, andsaid: "Please, dear grandfather, tell me all about what has happened toyourself, which should make us glad--that is, by-and-by; but nothing asto the rest of that letter. I will just think over it by myself; butnever let us talk of it, grandy dear, never more--never more. "

CHAPTER X. 

 TREES THAT, LIKE THE POPLAR, LIFT UPWARD ALL THEIR BOUGHS, GIVE NO SHADE AND NO SHELTER, WHATEVER THEIR HEIGHT. TREES THE MOST LOVINGLY SHELTER AND SHADE US, WHEN, LIKE THE WILLOW, THE HIGHER SOAR THEIR SUMMITS, THE LOWLIER DROOP THEIR BOUGHS. 

Usually when Sophy left Waife in the morning, she would wander out intothe grounds, and he could see her pass before his window; or she wouldlook into the library, which was almost exclusively given up to theMorleys, and he could hear her tread on the old creaking stairs. But nowshe had stolen into her own room, which communicated with his sitting-room--a small lobby alone intervening--and there she remained so longthat he grew uneasy. He crept softly to her door and listened. He had afineness of hearing almost equal to his son's; but he could not hear asob--not a breath. At length he softly opened the door and looked inwith caution. 

The girl was seated at the foot of the bed, quite still--her eyes fixedon the ground, and her finger to her lip, just as she had placed it therewhen imploring silence; so still, it might be even slumber. All who havegrieved respect grief. Waife did not like to approach her; but he said, from his stand at the threshold: "The sun is quite bright now, Sophy; goout for a little while, darling. "

She did not look round, she did not stir; but she answered withreadiness, "Yes, presently. "

So he closed the door and left her. An hour passed away; he looked inagain; there she was still--in the same place, in the same attitude. 

"Sophy, dear, it is time to take your walk; go--Mrs. Morley is in front, before my window. I have called to her to wait for you. "

"Yes--presently, " answered Sophy, and she did not move. 

Waife was seriously alarmed. He paused a moment-then went back to hisroom--took his hat and his staff--came back. 

"Sophy, I should like to hobble out and breathe the air; it will do megood. Will you give me your arm? I am still very weak. "

Sophy now started--shook back her fair curls-rose-put on her bonnet, andin less than a minute was by the old man's side. Drawing his arm fondlyinto hers, they descend the stairs; they are in the garden; Mrs. Morleycomes to meet them--then George. Wife exerts himself to talk--to be gay--to protect Sophy's abstracted silence by his own active, desultory, erratic humour. Twice or thrice, as he leans on Sophy's arm, she drawsit still nearer to her, and presses it tenderly. She understands--shethanks him. Hark! from some undiscovered hiding-place near the water--Fairthorn's flute! The music fills the landscape as with a livingpresence; the swans pause upon the still lake--the tame doe stealsthrough yonder leafless trees; and now, musing and slow, from the samedesolate coverts, comes the doe's master. The music spells them all. Guy Darrell sees his guests where they have halted by the stone sun-dial. He advances--joins them--congratulates Waife on his first walk as aconvalescent. He quotes Gray's well-known verses applicable to thatevent, and when, in that voice sweet as the flute itself, he comes to thelines: ["See the wretch who long has tost, " &c. --GRAY. ]

 "The common sun, the air, the skies, To him are opening paradise"

Sophy, as if suddenly struck with remorse at the thought that she, andshe alone, was marring that opening paradise to the old man in his escapefrom the sick-room to "the sun, the air, the skies, " abruptly raised herlooks from the ground, and turned them full upon her guardian's face, with an attempt at gladness in her quivering smile, which, whatever itseffect on Waife, went straight to the innermost heart of Guy Darrell. Onthe instant he recognised, as by intuitive sympathy, the anguish fromwhich that smile struggled forth--knew that Sophy had now learned thatgrief which lay deep within himself--that grief which makes a sickchamber of the whole external world, and which greets no more, in thecommon boons of Nature, the opening Paradise of recovered Hope! His eyelingered on her face as its smile waned, and perceived that CHANGE whichhad so startled Waife. Involuntarily he moved to her side--involuntarilydrew her arm within his own--she thus supporting the one who cherished--supported by the one who disowned her. Guy Darrell might be stern inresolves which afflicted others, as he was stern in afflicting himself;but for others he had at least compassion. 

Poor Waife, with nature so different, marked Darrell's movement, and, ever ready to seize on comfort, said inly: "He relents. I will not goto-morrow as I had intended. Sophy must win her way; who can resisther?"

Talk languished--the wintry sun began to slope--the air grew keen--Waifewas led in--the Morleys went up into his room to keep him company--Sophyescaped back to her own. Darrell continued his walk, plunging deep intohis maze of beechwoods, followed by the doe. The swans dip their necksamongst the water-weeds; the flute has ceased, and drearily still is thegrey horizon, seen through the skeleton boughs--seen behind the raggedsky-line of shaft and parapet in the skeleton palace. 

Darrell does not visit Waife's room that day; he concludes that Waife andSophy would wish to be much alone; he dreads renewal of the only subjecton which he has no cheering word to say. Sophy's smile, Sophy's facehaunted him. In vain he repeated to himself: "Tut, it will soon pass--only a girl's first fancy. "

But Sophy does not come back to Waife's room when the Morleys have leftit: Waife creeps into her room as before, and, as before, there she sitsstill as if in slumber. She comes in, however, of her own accord, toassist, as usual, in the meal which he takes apart in his room helps him--helps herself, but eats nothing. She talks, however, almost gaily;hopes he will be well enough to leave the next day; wonders whether SirIsaac has missed them very much; reads to him Lady Montfort'saffectionate letter to herself; and when dinner is over, and Waife'schair drawn to the fireside, she takes her old habitual place on thestool beside him, and says: "Now, dear grandfather--all about yourself--what happy thing has chanced to you?"

Alas! poor Waife has but little heart to speak; but he forces himself;what he has to say may do good to her. 

"You know that, on my own account, I had reasons for secresy--change ofname. I shunned all those whom I had ever known in former days; couldtake no calling in life by which I might be recognised; deemed it ablessed mercy of Providence that when, not able to resist offers thatwould have enabled me to provide for you as I never otherwise could, Iassented to hazard an engagement at a London theatre--trusting for myincognito to an actor's arts of disguise--came the accident which, ofitself, annihilated the temptation into which I had suffered myself to beled. For, ah, child! had it been known who and what was the WilliamWaife whose stage-mime tricks moved harmless mirth, or tears as pleasant, the audience would have risen, not to applaud, but hoot, 'Off, off, ' fromboth worlds--the Mimic as the Real! Well, had I been dishonest, you--youalone felt that I could not have dared to take you, guiltless infant, bythe hand. You remember that, on my return to Rugge's wandering theatre, bringing you with me, I exaggerated the effects of my accident--affectedto have lost voice--stipulated to be spared appearing on his stage. Thatwas not the mere pride of manhood shrinking from the display of physicalafflictions. No. In the first village that we arrived at, I recognisedan old friend, and I saw that, in spite of time, and the accident thathad disfigured me, he recognised me, and turned away his face, as if inloathing. An old friend, Sophy--an old friend! Oh, it pierced me to theheart; and I resolved, from that day, to escape from Rugge's stage; and Iconsented till the means of escape, and some less dependent mode oflivelihood, were found, to live on thy earnings, child; for if I werediscovered by other old friends, and they spoke out, my disgrace wouldreflect on you; and better to accept support, from you than that! Alas!appearances were so strong against me, I never deemed they could becleared away, even from the sight of my nearest friends. But Providence, you know, has been so kind to us hitherto; and so Providence will be kindto us again, Sophy. And now, the very man I thought most hard to me--this very Guy Darrell, under whose roof we are--has been the man to makethose whose opinion I most value know that I am not dishonest; andProvidence has raised a witness on my behalf in that very Mr. Hartopp, who judged me (and any one else might have done the same) too bad to befit company for you! And that is why I am congratulated; and, oh, Sophy, though I have borne it as Heaven does enable us to bear what of ourselveswe could not, and though one learns to shrug a patient shoulder under theobloquy which may be heaped on us by that crowd of mere strangers to usand to each other, which is called 'the WORLD, ' yet to slink out of sightfrom a friend, as one more to be shunned than a foe--to take like acoward the lashings of Scorn--to wince, one raw sore, from the kindnessof Pity--to feel that in life the sole end of each shift and contrivanceis to slip the view--hallo, into a grave without epitaph, by paths asstealthy and sly as the poor hunted fox, when his last chance--and soleone--is, by winding and doubling, to run under the earth; to know that itwould be an ungrateful imposture to take chair at the board--at thehearth, of the man who, unknowing your secret, says, 'Friend, be social';accepting not a crust that one does not pay for, lest one feel a swindlerto the kind fellow-creature whose equal we must not be!--all this--allthis, Sophy, did at times chafe and gall more than I ought to have let itdo, considering that there was ONE who saw it all, and would--Don't cry, Sophy; it is all over now. "

"Not cry! Oh, it does me so much good. "

"All over now! I am under this roof--without shame or scruple; and ifGuy Darrell, knowing all my past, has proved my innocence in the eyes ofthose whom alone I cared for, I feel as if I had the right to standbefore any crowd of men erect and shameless--a Man once more with Men!Oh, darling! let me but see thy old happy smile again! The happy smilesof the young are the sunshine of the old. Be patient--be firm;Providence is so very kind, Sophy. "

CHAPTER XI. 

 WAIFE EXACTS FROM GEORGE MORLEY THE FULFILMENT OF ONE OF THOSE PROMISES WHICH MEAN NOTHING OR EVERYTHING. 

The next day George Morley visited Waife's room earlier than usual. Waife had sent for him. Sophy was seated by her grandfather--his hand inhers. She had been exerting herself to the utmost to talk cheerfully--toshake from her aspect every cloud of sorrow. But still THAT CHANGE wasthere--more marked than even on the previous day. A few hours of intensestruggle, a single night wholly without sleep, will tell on the face ofearly youth. Not till we, hard veterans, have gone through suchstruggles as life permits not to the slight responsibilities of newrecruits--not till sleepless nights have grown to us familiar willThought seem to take, as it were, strength, not exhaustion, fromunrelaxing exercise--nourish the brain, sustain the form by its ownuntiring, fleshless, spiritual immortality; not till many a winter hasstripped the leaves; not till deep, and far out of sight, spread theroots that support the stem--will the beat of the east wind leave no signon the rind. 

George has not, indeed, so noticed, the day before, the kind of witheringblight that has passed over the girl's countenance; but he did now--whenshe met his eye more steadfastly, and had resumed something of the opengenial infantine grace of manner which constituted her peculiar charm, and which it was difficult to associate with deeper griefs than those ofchildhood. 

"You must scold my grandfather, " she said. "He chooses to fancy thathe is not well enough yet to leave; and I am sure that he is, and willrecover more quickly at home than here. "

"Pooh!" said Waife; "you young things suppose we old folks can be asbrisk as yourselves; but if I am to be scolded, leave Mr. George unawedby your presence, and go out, my dear, while the sun lasts: I know by theways of that blackbird that the day will be overcast by noon. "

As soon as they were alone, George said abruptly: "Your Sophy is lookingvery ill, and if you are well enough to leave, it might be better for herto move from this gloomy house. Movement itself is a great restorative, "added George, with emphasis. 

"You see, then, that she looks ill--very ill, " said Waife deliberately;"and there is that in your manner which tells me you guess the cause. "

"I do guess it from the glimpse which I caught of Lionel's face after hehad been closeted a short time with Mr. Darrell at my uncle's house twodays ago. I guess it also from a letter I have received from my uncle. "

"You guess right--very right, " said Waife, still with the same serious, tranquil manner. "I showed her this letter from young Haughton. Readit. " George hurried his eye over the letter, and returned it silently. Waife proceeded:

"I was frightened yesterday by the strange composure she showed. In herface alone could be read what she suffered. We talked last night. Ispoke of myself--of my old sorrows--in order to give her strength tosupport hers; and the girl has a heroic nature, Mr. George--and she isresolved to conquer or to die. But she will not conquer. " George beganthe usual strain of a consoles in such trials. Waife stopped him. "Allthat you can say, Mr. George, I know beforehand; and she will need noexhortation to prayer and to fortitude. I stole from my room when itwas almost dawn. I saw a light under the door of her chamber. I justlooked in--softly--unperceived. She had not gone to bed. She was by theopen window--stars dying out of the sky--kneeling on the floor, her faceburied in her hands. She has prayed. In her soul, at this moment, besure that she is praying now. She will devote herself to me--she will becheerful--you will hear her laugh, Mr. George; but she will not conquerin this world; long before the new year is out, she will be looking downupon our grief with her bright smile; but we shall not see her, Mr. George. Do not think this is an old man's foolish terror; I know sorrowas physicians know disease; it has its mortal symptoms. Hush! hear meout. I have one hope--it is in you. "

"In me?"

"Yes. Do you remember that you said, if I could succeed in opening toyour intellect its fair career, you would be the best friend to me manever had? and I said, 'Agreed, but change the party in the contract;befriend my Sophy instead of me, and if ever I ask you, help me in aughtfor her welfare and happiness;' and you said, 'With heart and soul. 'That was the bargain, Mr. George. Now you have all that you thendespaired of; you have the dignity of your sacred calling--you have theeloquence of the preacher. I cannot cope with Mr. Darrell--you can. Hehas a heart--it can be softened; he has a soul--it can be freed from thewither that tether it down; he has the virtues you can appeal to; and hehas the pride which you, as a Christian minister, have the right to proveto be a sin. I cannot argue with him; I cannot reprove the man to whom Iowe so much. All ranks of men and of mind should be equal to you, thepastor, the divine. You ministers of the gospel address yourselvesunabashed to the poor, the humble, the uninstructed. Did Heaven give youpower and commandment over these alone? Go, Preacher! go! Speak withthe same authority to the great, to the haughty, to the wise!" The oldman's look and gesture were sublime. 

The Preacher felt a thrill vibrate from his ear to his heart; but hisreason was less affected than his heart. He shook his head mournfully. The task thus assigned to him was beyond the limits which customprescribes to the priest of the English Church;--dictation to a man noteven of his own flock, upon the closest affairs of that man's privatehearth and home! Our society allows no such privilege; and our societyis right. 

Waife, watching his countenance, saw at once what was passing in hismind, and resumed, as if answering George's own thought:

"Ay, if you were but the commonplace priest! But, you are somethingmore; you are the priest specially endowed for all special purposes ofgood. You have the mind to reason--the tongue to persuade--the majesticearnestness of impassioned zeal. Nor are you here the priest alone; youare here the friend, the confidant, of all for whom you may exert yourpowers. Oh, George Morley, I am a poor ignorant blunderer when presumingto exhort you as Christian minister; but in your own words--I address youas man and gentleman, you declared that 'thought and zeal should notstammer whenever I said, Keep your promise. ' I say it now--Keep faith tothe child you swore to me to befriend!"

"I will go-and at once, " said George, rising. "But be not sanguine. I see not a chance of success. A man so superior to myself in years, station, abilities, repute!"

"Where would be Christianity, " said Waife, "if the earliest preachers hadraised such questions? There is a soldier's courage--is there not apriest's?"

George made no answer, but, with abstracted eye, gathered brow, and slow, meditative step, quitted the room, and sought Guy Darrell.