Put Yourself in His Place by Charles Reade (page 12)

Here the reading of the letter was interrupted by an incident.

There was on the toilet-table a stiletto, with a pearl handle. It was a small thing, but the steel rather long, and very bright and pointed.

The unfortunate bride, without lifting her head from the table, had reached out her hand, and was fingering this stiletto. Jael Dence went and took it gently away, and put it out of reach. The bride went on fingering, as if she had still got hold of it.

Amboyne exchanged an approving glance with Jael, and Raby concluded the letter.

“I shall be home in a few days after this; and, if I find my darling well and happy, there’s no great harm done. I don’t mind my own trouble and anxiety, great as they are, but if any scoundrel has made her unhappy, or made her believe I am dead, or false to my darling, by God, I’ll kill him, though I hang for it next day!”

Crushed, benumbed, and broken as Grace Coventry was, this sentence seemed to act on her like an electric shock.

She started wildly up. “What! my Henry die like a felon–for a villain like him, and an idiot like me! You won’t allow that; nor you–nor I.”

A soft step came to the door, and a gentle tap.

“Who is that?” said Dr. Amboyne.

“The bridegroom,” replied a soft voice.

“You can’t come in here,” said Raby, roughly.

“Open the door,” said the bride.

Jael went to the door, but looked uncertain.

“Don’t keep the bridegroom out,” said Grace, reproachfully. Then, in a voice as sweet as his own, “I want to see him; I want to speak to him.”

Jael opened the door slowly, for she felt uneasy. Raby shrugged his shoulders contemptuously at Grace’s condescending to speak to the man, and in so amiable a tone.

Coventry entered, and began, “My dear Grace, the carriage is ready–“

No sooner had she got him fairly into the room, than the bride snatched up the stiletto, and flew at the bridegroom with gleaming eyes, uplifted weapon, the yell of a furious wild beast, and hair flying out behind her head like a lion’s mane.

CHAPTER XL.

Dr. Amboyne and Raby cried out, and tried to interfere; but Grace’s movement was too swift, furious, and sudden; she was upon the man, with her stiletto high in the air, before they could get to her, and indeed the blow descended, and, inspired as it was by love, and hate, and fury, would doubtless have buried the weapon in a rascal’s body; but Jael Dence caught Grace’s arm: that weakened, and also diverted the blow; yet the slight, keen weapon pierced Coventry’s cheek, and even inflicted a slight wound upon the tongue. That very moment Jael Dence dragged her away, and held her round the waist, writhing and striking the air; her white hand and bridal sleeve sprinkled with her bridegroom’s blood.

As for him, his love, criminal as it was, supplied the place of heroism: he never put up a finger in defense. “No,” said he, despairingly, “let me die by her hand; it is all I hope for now.” He even drew near her to enable her to carry out her wish: but, on that, Jael Dence wrenched her round directly, and Dr. Amboyne disarmed her, and Raby marched between the bride and the bridegroom, and kept them apart: then they all drew their breath, for the first time, and looked aghast at each other.

Not a face in that room had an atom of color left in it; yet it was not until the worst was over that they realized the savage scene.

The bridegroom leaned against the wardrobe, a picture of despair, with blood trickling from his cheek, and channeling his white waist- coat and linen; the bride, her white and bridal sleeve spotted with blood, writhed feebly in Jael Dence’s arms, and her teeth clicked together, and her eyes shone wildly. At that moment she was on the brink of frenzy.

Raby, a man by nature, and equal to great situations, was the first to recover self-possession and see his way. “Silence!” said he, sternly. “Amboyne, here’s a wounded man; attend to him.”

He had no need to say that twice; the doctor examined his patient zealously, and found him bleeding from the tongue as well as the cheek; he made him fill his mouth with a constant supply of cold water, and applied cold water to the nape of his neck.

And now there was a knock at the door, and a voice inquired rather impatiently, what they were about all this time. It was Mr. Carden’s voice.

They let him in, but instantly closed the door. “Now, hush!” said Raby, “and let me tell him.” He then, in a very few hurried words, told him the matter. Coventry hung his head lower and lower.

Mr. Carden was terribly shaken. He could hardly speak for some time. When he did, it was in the way of feeble expostulation. “Oh, my child! my child! what, would you commit murder?”

“Don’t you see I would,” cried she, contemptuously, “sooner than HE should do it, and suffer for it like a felon? You are all blind, and no friends of mine. I should have rid the earth of a monster, and they would never have hanged ME. I hate you all, you worst of all, that call yourself my father, and drove me to marry this villain. One thing–you won’t be always at hand to protect him.”

“I’ll give you every opportunity,” said Coventry, doggedly. “You shall kill me for loving you so madly.”

“She shall do no such thing,” said Mr. Carden. “Opportunity? do you know her so little as to think she will ever live with you. Get out of my house, and never presume to set foot in at again. My good friends, have pity on a miserable father and help me to hide this monstrous thing from the world.”

This appeal was not lost: the gentlemen put their heads together and led Coventry into another room. There Dr. Amboyne attended to him, while Mr. Carden went down and told his guests the bridegroom had been taken ill, so seriously indeed that anxiety and alarm had taken the place of joy.

The guests took the hint and dispersed, wondering and curious.

Meantime, on one side of a plaster wall Amboyne was attending the bridegroom, and stanching the effusion of blood; on the other, Raby and Jael Dence were bringing the bride to reason.

She listened to nothing they could say until they promised her most solemnly that she should never be compelled to pass a night under the same roof as Frederick Coventry. That pacified her not a little.

Dr. Amboyne had also great trouble with his patient: the wound in the cheek was not serious; but, by a sort of physical retribution– of which, by-the-bye, I have encountered many curious examples–the tongue, that guilty part of Frederick Coventry, though slightly punctured, bled so persistently that Amboyne was obliged to fill his mouth with ice, and at last support him with stimulants. He peremptorily refused to let him be moved from Woodbine Villa.

When this was communicated to Grace, she instantly exacted Raby’s promise; and as he was a man who never went from his word, he drove her and Jael to Raby Hall that very night, and they left Coventry in the villa, attended by a surgeon, under whose care Amboyne had left him with strict injunctions. Mr. Carden was secretly mortified at his daughter’s retreat, but raised no objection.

Next morning, however, he told Coventry; and then Coventry insisted on leaving the house. “I am unfortunate enough,” said he: “do not let me separate my only friend from his daughter.”

Mr. Carden sent a carriage off to Raby Hall, with a note, telling Grace Mr. Coventry was gone of his own accord, and appeared truly penitent, and much shocked at having inadvertently driven her out of the house. He promised also to protect her, should Coventry break his word and attempted to assume marital rights without her concurrence.

This letter found Grace in a most uncomfortable position. Mrs. Little had returned late to Raby Hall; but in the morning she heard from Jael Dence that Grace was in the house, and why.

The mother’s feathers were up, and she could neither pity nor excuse. She would not give the unhappy girl a word of comfort. Indeed, she sternly refused to see her. “No,” said she: “Mrs. Coventry is unhappy; so this is no time to show her how thoroughly Henry Little’s mother despises her.”

These bitter words never reached poor Grace, but the bare fact of Mrs. Little not coming down-stairs by one o’clock, nor sending a civil message, spoke volumes, and Grace was sighing over it when her father’s letter came. She went home directly, and so heartbroken, that Jael Dence pitied her deeply, and went with her, intending to stay a day or two only.

But every day something or other occurred, which combined with Grace’s prayers to keep her at Woodbine Villa.

Mr. Coventry remained quiet for some days, by which means he pacified Grace’s terrors.

On the fourth day Mr. Beresford called at Woodbine Villa, and Grace received him, he being the curate of the parish.

He spoke to her in a sympathetic tone, which let her know at once he was partly in the secret. He said he had just visited a very guilty, but penitent man; that we all need forgiveness, and that a woman, once married, has no chance of happiness but with her husband.

Grace maintained a dead silence, only her eye began to glitter.

Mr. Beresford, who had learned to watch the countenance of all those he spoke to changed his tone immediately, from a spiritual to a secular adviser.

“If I were you,” said he, in rather an offhand way, “I would either forgive this man the sin into which his love has betrayed him, or I would try to get a divorce. This would cost money: but, if you don’t mind expense, I think I could suggest a way–“

Grace interrupted him. “From whom did you learn my misery, and his villainy? I let you in, because I thought you came from God; but you come from a villain. Go back, sir, and say that an angel, sent by him, becomes a devil in my eyes.” And she rang the bell with a look that spoke volumes.

Mr. Beresford bowed, smiled bitterly, and went back to Coventry, with whom he had a curious interview, that ended in Coventry lending him two hundred pounds on his personal security. To dispose of Mr. Beresford for the present I will add that, soon after this, his zeal for the poor subjected him to an affront. He was a man of soup- kitchens and subscriptions. One of the old fogies, who disliked him, wrote letters to The Liberal, and demanded an account of his receipts and expenditure in these worthy objects, and repeated the demand with a pertinacity that implied suspicion. Then Mr. Beresford called upon Dr. Fynes, and showed him the letters, and confessed to him that he never kept any accounts, either of public or private expenditure. “I can construe Apollonius Rhodius–with your assistance, sir,” said he, “but I never could add up pounds, shillings, and pence; far less divide them except amongst the afflicted.” “Take no notice of the cads,” said Dr. Fynes. But Beresford represented meekly that a clergyman’s value and usefulness were gone when once a slur was thrown upon him. Then Dr. Fynes gave him high testimonials, and they parted with mutual regret.

It took Grace a day to get over her interview with Mr. Beresford; and when with Jael’s help she was calm again, she received a letter from Coventry, indited in tones of the deepest penitence, but reminding her that he had offered her his life, had made no resistance when she offered to take it, and never would.

There was nothing in the letter that irritated her, but she saw in it an attempt to open a correspondence. She wrote back:

“If you really repent your crimes, and have any true pity for the poor creature whose happiness you have wrecked, show it by leaving this place, and ceasing all communication with her.”

This galled Coventry, and he wrote back:

“What! leave the coast clear to Mr. Little? No, Mrs. Coventry; no.”

Grace made no reply, but a great terror seized her, and from that hour preyed constantly on her mind–the fear that Coventry and Little would meet, and the man she loved would do some rash act, and perhaps perish on the scaffold for it.

This was the dominant sentiment of her distracted heart, when one day, at eleven A.M., came a telegram from Liverpool:

“Just landed. Will be with you by four.

“HENRY LITTLE.”

Jael found her shaking all over, with this telegram in her hand.

“Thank God you are with me!” she gasped. “Let me see him once more, and die.”

This was her first thought; but all that day she was never in the same mind for long together. She would burst out into joy that he was really alive, and she should see his face once more. Then she would cower with terror, and say she dared not look him in the face; she was not worthy. Then she would ask wildly, who was to tell him? What would become of him?

“It would break his heart, or destroy his reason. After all he had done and suffered for her!”

Oh! why could she not die before he came? Seeing her dead body he would forgive her. She should tell him she loved him still, should always love him. She would withhold no comfort. Perhaps he would kill her, if so, Jael must manage so that he should not be taken up or tormented any more, for such a wretch as she was.

But I might as well try to dissect a storm, and write the gusts of a tempest, as to describe all the waves of passion in that fluctuating and agonized heart: the feelings and the agitation of a life were crowded into those few hours, during which she awaited the lover she had lost.

At last, Jael Dence, though she was also much agitated and perplexed, decided on a course of action. Just before four o’clock she took Grace upstairs and told her she might see him arrive, but she must not come down until she was sent for. “I shall see him first, and tell him all; and, when he is fit to see you, I will let you know.”

Grace submitted, and even consented to lie down for half an hour. She was now, in truth, scarcely able to stand, being worn out with the mental struggle. She lay passive, with Jael Dence’s hand in hers.

When she had lain so about an hour, she started up suddenly, and the next moment a fly stopped at the door. Henry Little got out at the gate, and walked up the gravel to the house.

Grace looked at him from behind the curtain, gazed at him till he disappeared, and then turned round, with seraphic joy on her countenance. “My darling!” she murmured; “more beautiful than ever! Oh misery! misery!”

One moment her heart was warm with rapture, the next it was cold with despair. But the joy was blind love; the despair was reason.

She waited, and waited, but no summons came.

She could not deny herself the sound of his voice. She crept down the stairs, and into her father’s library, separated only by thin folding-doors from the room where Henry Little was with Jael Dence.

Meantime Jael Dence opened the door to Henry Little, and, putting her fingers to her lips, led him into the dining-room and shut the door.

Now, as his suspicions were already excited, this reception alarmed him seriously. As soon as ever they were alone, he seized both Jael’s hands, and, looking her full in the face, said:

“One word–is she alive?”

“She is.”

“Thank god! Bless the tongue that tells me that. My good Jael! my best friend!” And, with that, kissed her heartily on both cheeks.

She received this embrace like a woman of wood; a faint color rose, but retired directly, and left her cheek as pale as before.

He noticed her strange coldness, and his heart began to quake.

“There is something the matter?” he whispered.

“There is.”

“Something you don’t like to tell me?”

“Like to tell you! I need all my courage, and you yours.”

Say she is alive, once more.”

“She is alive, and not likely to die; but she does not care to live now. They told her you were dead; they told her you were false; appearances were such she had no chance not to be deceived. She held out for a long time; but they got the better of her–her father is much to blame–she is–married.”

“Married!”

“Yes!”

“Married!” He leaned, sick as death, against the mantel-piece, and gasped so terribly that Jael’s fortitude gave way, and she began to cry.

After a long time he got a word or two out in a broken voice.

“The false–inconstant–wretch! Oh Heaven! what I have done and suffered for her–and now married!–married! And the earth doesn’t swallow her, nor the thunder strike her! Curse her, curse her husband, curse her children! may her name be a by-word for shame and misery–“

“Hush! hush! or you will curse your own mad tongue. Hear all, before you judge her.”

“I have heard all; she is a wife; she shall soon be a widow. Thought I was false! What business had she to think I was false? It is only false hearts that suspect true ones. She thought me dead? Why? Because I was out of sight. She heard there was a dead hand found in the river. Why didn’t she go and see it? Could all creation pass another hand off on me for hers? No; for I loved her. She never loved me.”

“She loved you, and loves you still. When that dead hand was found, she fell swooning, and lay at death’s door for you, and now she has stained her hands with blood for you. She tried to kill her husband, the moment she found you were alive and true, and he had made a fool of her.”

“TRIED to kill him! Why didn’t she do it? I should not have failed at such work. I love her.”

“Blame me for that; I stopped her arm, and I am stronger than she is. I say she is no more to blame than you. You have acted like a madman, and she suffers for it. Why did you slip away at night like that, and not tell me?”

“I left letters to you and her, and other people besides.”

“Yes, left them, and hadn’t the sense to post them. Why didn’t you TELL me? Had ever any young man as faithful and true a friend in any young woman as you had in me? Many a man has saved a woman’s life, but it isn’t often that a woman fights for a man, and gets the upper hand: yet you gave me nothing in return; not even your confidence. Look the truth in the face, my lad; all your trouble, and all hers, comes of your sneaking out of Hillsborough in that daft way, without a word to me, the true friend, that was next door to you; which I nearly lost my life by your fault; for, if you had told me, I should have seen you off, and so escaped a month’s hospital, and other troubles that almost drove me crazy. Don’t you abuse that poor young lady before me, or I sha’n’t spare you. She is more to be pitied than you are. Folk should look at home for the cause of their troubles; her misery, and yours, it is all owing to your own folly and ingratitude; ay, you may look; I mean what I say– ingratitude.”

The attack was so sudden and powerful that Henry Little was staggered and silenced; but an unexpected defender appeared on the scene; one of the folding-doors was torn open, and Grace darted in.

“How dare you say it is his fault, poor ill-used angel! No, no, no, no, I am the only one to blame. I didn’t love you as you deserved. I tried to die for you, and FAILED. I tried to kill that monster for you, and FAILED. I am too weak and silly; I shall only make you more unhapppy. Give me one kiss, my own darling, and then kill me out of the way.” With this she was over his knees and round his neck in a moment, weeping, and clutching him with a passionate despair that melted all his anger away, and soon his own tears tell on her like rain.

“Ah, Grace! Grace!” he sobbed, “how could you? how could you?”

“Don’t speak unkindly to her,” cried Jael, “or she won’t be alive a day. She is worse off than you are; and so is he too.”

“You mock me; he is her husband. He can make her live with him. He can–” Here he broke out cursing and blaspheming, and called Grace a viper, and half thrust her away from him with horror, and his face filled with jealous anguish: he looked like a man dying of poison.

Then he rose to his feet, and said, with a sort of deadly calm, “Where can I find the man?”

“Not in this house, you may be sure,” said Jael; “nor in any house where she is.”

Henry sank into his seat again, and looked amazed.

“Tell him all,” said Grace. “Don’t let him think I do not love him at all.”

“I will,” said Jael. “Well, the wedding was at eleven; your letter came at half-past twelve, and I took it her. Soon after that the villain came to her, and she stabbed him directly with this stiletto. Look at it; there’s his blood up on it; I kept it to show you. I caught her arm, or she would have killed him, I believe. He lost so much blood, the doctor would not let him be moved. Then she thought of you still, and would not pass a night under the same roof with him; at two o’clock she was on the way to Raby; but Mr. Coventry was too much of a man to stay in the house and drive her out; so he went off next morning, and, as soon as she heard that, she came home. She is wife and no wife, as the saying is, and how it is all to end Heaven only knows.”

“It will end the moment I meet the man; and that won’t be long.”

“There! there!” cried Grace, “that is what I feared. Ah, Jael! Jael! why did you hold my hand? They would not have hung ME. I told you so at the time: I knew what I was about.”

“Jael,” said the young man, “of all the kind things you have done for me, that was the kindest. You saved my poor girl from worse trouble than she is now in. No, Grace; you shall not dirty your hand with such scum as that: it is my business, and mine only.”

In vain did Jael expostulate, and Grace implore. In vain did Jael assure him that Coventry was in a worse position than himself, and try to make him see that any rash act of his would make Grace even more miserable than she was at present. He replied that he had no intention of running his neck into a halter; he should act warily, like the Hillsborough Trades, and strike his blow so cunningly that the criminal should never know whence it came. “I’ve been in a good school for homicide,” said he; “and I am an inventor. No man has ever played the executioner so ingeniously as I will play it. Think of all this scoundrel has done to me: he owes me a dozen lives, and I’ll take one. Man shall never detect me: God knows all, and will forgive me, I hope. If He doesn’t, I can’t help it.”

He kissed Grace again and again, and comforted her; said she was not to blame; honest people were no match for villains: if she had been twice as simple, he would have forgiven her at sight of the stiletto; that cleared her, in his mind, better than words.

He was now soft and gentle as a lamb. He begged Jael’s pardon humbly for leaving Hillsborough without telling her. He said he had gone up to her room; but all was still; and he was a working man, and the sleep of a working-woman was sacred to him–(he would have awakened a fine lady without ceremony). Be assured her he had left a note for her in his box, thanking and blessing her for all her goodness. He said that he hoped he might yet live to prove by acts, and not by idle words, how deeply he felt all she had done and suffered for him.

Jael received these excuses in hard silence. “That is enough about me,” said she, coldly. “If you are grateful to me, show it by taking my advice. Leave vengeance to Him who has said that vengeance is His.”

The man’s whole manner changed directly, and he said doggedly:

“Well, I will be His instrument.”

“He will choose His own.”

“I’ll lend my humble co-operation.”

“Oh, do not argue with him,” said Grace, piteously. “When did a man ever yield to our arguments? Dearest, I can’t argue: but I am full of misery, and full of fears. You see my love; you forgive my folly. Have pity on me; think of my condition: do not doom me to live in terror by night and day: have I not enough to endure, my own darling? There, promise me you will do nothing rash to-night, and that you will come to me the first thing to-morrow. Why, you have not seen your mother yet; she is at Raby Hall.”

“My dear mother!” said he: “it would be a poor return for all your love if I couldn’t put off looking for that scum till I have taken you in my arms.”

And so Grace got a reprieve.

They parted in deep sorrow, but almost as lovingly as ever, and Little went at once to Raby Hall, and Grace, exhausted by so many emotions, lay helpless on a couch in her own room all the rest of the day.

For some time she lay in utter prostration, and only the tears that trickled at intervals down her pale cheeks showed that she was conscious of her miserable situation.

Jael begged and coaxed her to take some nourishment: but she shook her head with disgust at the very idea.

For all that at nine o’clock, her faithful friend almost forced a few spoonfuls of tea down her throat, feeding her like a child: and, when she had taken it, she tried to thank her, but choked in the middle, and, flinging her arm round Jael’s neck, burst into a passion of weeping, and incoherent cries of love, and pity, and despair. “Oh, my darling! so great! so noble! so brave! so gentle! And I have destroyed us both! he forgave me as soon as he SAW me! So terrible, so gentle! What will be the next calamity? Ah, Jael! save him from that rash act, and I shall never complain; for he was dead, and is alive again.”

“We will find some way to do that between us–you, and I, and his mother.”

“Ah, yes: she will be on my side in that. But she will be hard upon me. She will point out all my faults, my execrable folly. Ah, if I could but live my time over again, I’d pray night and day for selfishness. They teach us girls to pray for this and that virtue, which we have too much of already; and what we ought to pray for is selfishness. But no! I must think of my father, and think of that hypocrite: but the one person whose feelings I was too mean, and base, and silly to consult, was myself. I always abhorred this marriage. I feared it, and loathed it; yet I yielded step by step, for want of a little selfishness; we are slaves without it–mean, pitiful, contemptible slaves. O God, in mercy give me selfishness! Ah me, it is too late now. I am a lost creature; nothing is left me but to die.”

Jael got her to bed, and sleep came at last to her exhausted body; but, even when her eyes were closed, tears found their way through the lids, and wetted her pillow.

So can great hearts and loving natures suffer.

Can they enjoy in proportion?

Let us hope so. But I have my doubts.

Henry Little kept his word, and came early next morning. He looked hopeful and excited: he said he had thought the matter over, and was quite content to let that scoundrel live, and even to dismiss all thought of him, if Grace really loved him.

“If I love you!” said Grace. “Oh, Henry, why did I ask you to do nothing rash, but that I love you? Why did I attempt his life myself? because you said in your letter– It was not to revenge myself, but to save you from more calamity. Cruel, cruel! Do I love him?”

“I know you love me, Grace: but do you love me enough? Will you give up the world for me, and let us be happy together, the only way we can? My darling Grace, I have made our fortune; all the world lies before us; I left England alone, for you; now leave it with me, and let us roam the world together.”

“Henry!–what!–when I can not be your wife!”

“You can be my wife; my wife in reality, as you are his in name and nothing else. It is idle to talk as if we were in some ordinary situation. There are plenty of countries that would disown such a marriage as yours, a mere ceremony obtained by fraud, and canceled by a stroke with a dagger and instant separation. Oh, my darling, don’t sacrifice both our lives to a scruple that is out of place here. Don’t hesitate; don’t delay. I have a carriage waiting outside; end all our misery by one act of courage, and trust yourself to me; did I ever fail you?”

“For shame, Henry! for shame!”

“It is the only way to happiness. You were quite right; if I kill that wretch we shall be parted in another way, always parted; now we can be together for life. Remember, dearest, how I begged you in this very room to go to the United States with me: you refused: well, have you never been sorry you refused? Now I once more implore you to be wise and brave, and love me as I love you. What is the world to us? You are all the world to me.”

“Answer him, Jael; oh, answer him!”

“Nay, these are things every woman must answer for herself.”

“And I’ll take no answer but yours.” Then he threw himself at her feet, and clasping her in his arms implored her, with all the sighs and tears and eloquence of passion, to have pity on them both, and fly at once with him.

She writhed and struggled faintly, and turned away from him, and fell tenderly toward him, by turns, and still he held her tight, and grew stronger, more passionate, more persuasive, as she got weaker and almost faint. Her body seemed on the point of sinking, and her mind of yielding.

But all of a sudden she made a desperate effort. “Let me go!” she cried. “So this is your love! With all my faults and follies, I am truer than you. Shame on your love, that would dishonor the creature you love! Let me go, sir, I say, or I shall hate you worse than I do the wretch whose name I bear.”

He let her go directly, and then her fiery glance turned to one long lingering look of deep but tender reproach, and she fled sobbing.

He sank into a chair, and buried his face in his hands.

After a while he raised his head, and saw Jael Dence looking gravely at him.

“Oh, speak your mind,” said he, bitterly.

“You are like the world. You think only of yourself; that’s all I have to say.”

“You are very unkind to say so. I think for us both: and she will think with me, in time. I shall come again to-morrow.”

He said this with an iron resolution that promised a long and steady struggle, to which Grace, even in this first encounter, had shown herself hardly equal.

Jael went to her room, expecting to find her as much broken down as she was by Henry’s first visit; but, instead of that, the young lady was walking rapidly to and fro.

At sight of Jael, she caught her by the hand, and said, “Well!”

“He is coming again to-morrow.”

“Is he sorry?”

“Not he.”

“Who would have thought he was so wicked?”

This seemed rather exaggerated to Jael; for with all Mrs. Little’s teaching she was not quite a lady yet in all respects, though in many things she was always one by nature. “Let it pass,” said she.

“‘It is a man’s part to try,
And a woman’s to deny.'”

“And how often shall I have to deny him I love so dearly?”

“As often as he asks you to be his mistress; for, call it what you like, that is all he has to offer you.”

Grace hid her face in her hands.

Jael colored. “Excuse my blunt speaking; but sometimes the worst word is the best; fine words are just words with a veil on.”

“Will he dare to tempt me again, after what I said?”

“Of course he will: don’t you know him? he never gives in. But, suppose he does, you have your answer ready.”

“Jael,” said Grace, “you are so strong, it blinds you to my weakness. I resist him, day after day! I, who pity him so, and blame myself! Why, his very look, his touch, his voice, overpower me so that my whole frame seems dissolving: feel how I tremble at him, even now. No, no; let those resist who are sure of their strength. Virtue, weakened by love and pity, has but one resource– to fly. Jael Dence, if you are a woman, help me to save the one thing I have got left to save.”

“I will,” said Jael Dence.

In one hour from that time they had packed a box and a carpetbag, and were on their way to a railway station. They left Hillsborough.

In three days Jael returned, but Grace Coventry did not come back with her.

The day after that trying scene, Henry Little called, not to urge Grace again, as she presumed he would, but to ask pardon: at the same time we may be sure of this–that, after a day or two spent in obtaining pardon, the temptation would have been renewed, and so on forever. Of this, however, Little was not conscious: he came to ask pardon, and offer a pure and patient love, till such time as Heaven should have pity on them both. He was informed that Mrs. Coventry had quitted Hillsborough, and left a letter for him. It was offered him; he snatched it and read it.

“MY OWN DEAR HENRY,–You have given me something to forgive, and I forgive you without asking, as I hope you will one day forgive me. I have left Hillsborough to avoid a situation that was intolerable and solicitations which I blushed to hear, and for which you would one day have blushed too. This parting is not forever, I hope; but that rests with yourself. Forego your idea of vengeance on that man, whose chastisement you would best alleviate by ending his miserable existence; and learn to love me honorably and patiently, as I love you. Should you obtain this great victory over yourself, you will see me again. Meantime, think of her who loves you to distraction, and whose soul hovers about you unseen. Pray for me, dear one, at midnight, and at eight o’clock every morning; for those are two of the hours I shall pray for you. Do you remember the old church, and how you cried over me? I can write no more: my tears blind me so. Farewell. Your unhappy

“GRACE.”

Little read this piteous letter, and it was a heavy blow to him; a blow that all the tenderness shown in it could not at first soften. She had fled from him; she shunned him. It was not from Coventry she fled; it was from him.

He went home cold and sick at heart, and gave himself up to grief and deep regrets for several days.

But soon his powerful and elastic mind, impatient of impotent sorrow, and burning for some kind of action, seized upon vengeance as the only thing left to do.

At this period he looked on Coventry as a beast in human shape, whom he had a moral right to extinguish; only, as he had not a legal right, it must be done with consummate art. He trusted nobody; spoke to nobody; but set himself quietly to find out where Coventry lived, and what were his habits. He did this with little difficulty. Coventry lodged in a principal street, but always dined at a club, and returned home late, walking through a retired street or two; one of these passed by the mouth of a narrow court that was little used.

Little, disguised as a workman, made a complete reconnaissance of this locality, and soon saw that his enemy was at his mercy.

But, while he debated within himself what measure of vengeance he should take, and what noiseless weapon he should use, an unseen antagonist baffled him. That antagonist was Grace Carden. Still foreboding mischief, she wrote to Mr. Coventry, from a town two hundred miles distant:

“Whatever you are now, you were born a gentleman, and will, I think, respect a request from a lady you have wronged. Mr. Little has returned, and I have left Hillsborough; if he encounters you in his despair, he will do you some mortal injury. This will only make matters worse, and I dread the scandal that will follow, and to hear my sad story in a court of law as a justification for his violence. Oblige me, then, by leaving Hillsborough for a time, as I have done.”

On receipt of this, Coventry packed up his portmanteau directly, and, leaving Lally behind to watch the town, and see whether this was a ruse, he went directly to the town whence Grace’s letter was dated, and to the very hotel.

This she had foreseen and intended.

He found she had been there, and had left for a neighboring watering-place: he followed her thither, and there she withdrew the clew; she left word she was gone to Stirling; but doubled on him, and soon put hundreds of miles between them. He remained in Scotland, hunting her.

Thus she played the gray plover with him she hated, and kept the beloved hands from crime.

When Little found that Coventry had left Hillsborough, he pretended to himself that he was glad of it. “My darling is right,” said he. “I will obey her, and do nothing contrary to law. I will throw him into prison, that is all.” With these moderated views, he called upon his friend Ransome, whom of course he had, as yet, carefully avoided, to ask his aid in collecting the materials for an indictment. He felt sure that Coventry had earned penal servitude, if the facts could only be put in evidence. He found Ransome in low spirits, and that excellent public servant being informed what he was wanted for, said dryly, “Well, but this will require some ability: don’t you think your friend Silly Billy would be more likely to do it effectually than John Ransome?”

“Why, Ransome, are you mad?”

“No, I merely do myself justice. Silly Billy smelt that faulty grindstone; and I can’t smell a rat a yard from my nose, it seems. You shall judge for yourself. There have been several burglaries in this town of late, and planned by a master. This put me on my mettle, and I have done all I could, with my small force, and even pryed about in person, night after night, and that is not exactly my business, but I felt it my duty. Well, sir, two nights ago, no more, I had the luck to come round a corner right upon a job: Alderman Dick’s house, full of valuables, and the windows well guarded; but one of his cellars is only covered with a heavy wooden shutter, bolted within. I found this open, and a board wedged in, to keep it ajar: down I went on my knees, saw a light inside, and heard two words of thieves’ latin; that was enough, you know; I whipped out the board, jumped on the heavy shutter, and called for the police.”

“Did you expect them to come?”

“Not much. These jobs are timed so as not to secure the attendance of the police. But assistance of another kind came; a gentleman full dressed, in a white tie and gloves, ran up, and asked me what it was. ‘Thieves in the cellar,’ said I, and shouted police, and gave my whistle. The gentleman jumped on the shutter. ‘I can keep that down,’ said he. ‘I’m sure I saw two policemen in acorn Street: run quick!’ and he showed me his sword-cane, and seemed so hearty in it, and confident, I ran round the corner, and gave my whistle. Two policemen came up; but, in that moment, the swell accomplice had pulled all his pals out of the cellar, and all I saw of the lot, when I came back, was the swell’s swallow-tail coat flying like the wind toward a back slum, where I and my bobbies should have been knocked on the head, if we had tried to follow him; but indeed he was too fleet to give us the chance.”

“Well,” said Henry, “that was provoking: but who can foresee every thing all in a moment? I have been worse duped than that a good many times.”

Ransome shook his head. “An old officer of police, like me, not to smell a swell accomplice. I had only to handcuff that man, and set him down with me on the shutter, till, in the dispensation of Providence, a bobby came by.”

He added by way of corollary, “You should send to London for a detective.”

“Not I,” said Henry. “I know you for a sagacious man, and a worthy man, and my friend. I’ll have no one to help me in it but you.”

“Won’t you?” said Ransome. “Then I’ll go in. You have done me good, Mr. Little, by sticking to a defeated friend like this. Now for your case; tell me all you know, and how you know it.”

Henry complied, and Ransome took his notes. Then he said, he had got some old memoranda by him, that might prove valuable: he would call in two days.

He did call, and showed Henry Coventry’s card, and told him he had picked it up close by his letter-box, on the very night of the explosion. “Mark my words, this will expand into something,” said the experienced officer.

Before he left, he told Henry that he had now every reason to believe the swell accomplice was Shifty Dick, the most successful and distinguished criminal in England. “I have just got word from London that he has been working here, and has collared a heavy swag; he says he will go into trade: one of his old pals let that out in jail. Trade! then heaven help his customers, that is all.”

“You may catch him yet.”

“When I catch Jack-a-lantern. He is not so green as to stay a day in Hillsborough, now his face has been close to mine; they all know I never forget a face. No, no; I shall never see him again, till I am telegraphed for, to inspect his mug and his wild-cat eyes in some jail or other. I must try and not think of him; it disturbs my mind, and takes off my attention from my duties.”

Ransome adhered to this resolution for more than a month, during which time he followed out every indication with the patience of a beagle; and, at last, he called one day and told Little Hill had forfeited his bail, and gone to Canada at the expense of the trade; but had let out strange things before he left. There was a swell concerned in his attempt with the bow and arrow: there was a swell concerned in the explosion, with some workman, whose name he concealed; he had seen them on the bridge, and had seen the workman receive a bag of gold, and had collared him, and demanded his share; this had been given him, but not until he threatened to call the bobbies. “Now, if we could find Hill, and get him to turn Queen’s evidence, this, coupled with what you and I could furnish, would secure your man ten years of penal servitude. I know an able officer at Quebec. Is it worth while going to the expense?”

Little, who had received the whole communication in a sort of despondent, apathetic way, replied that he didn’t think it was worth while. “My good friend,” said he, “I am miserable. Vengeance, I find, will not fill a yearning heart. And the truth is, that all this time I have been secretly hoping she would return, and that has enabled me to bear up, and chatter about revenge. Who could believe a young creature like that would leave her father and all her friends for good? I made sure she would come back in a week or two. And to think that it is I who have driven her away, and darkened my own life. I thought I had sounded the depths of misery. I was a fool to think so. No, no; life would be endurable if I could only see her face once a day, and hear her voice, though it was not even speaking to me. Oh! oh!”

Now this was the first time Little had broken down before Ransome. Hitherto he had spoken of Coventry, but not of Grace; he had avoided speaking of her, partly from manly delicacy, partly because he foresaw his fortitude would give way if he mentioned her.

But now the strong man’s breast seemed as if it would burst, and his gasping breath, and restless body, betrayed what a price he must have paid for the dogged fortitude he had displayed for several weeks, love-sick all the time.

Ransome was affected: he rose and walked about the room, ashamed to look at a Spartan broken down.

When he had given Little time to recover some little composure, he said, “Mr. Little, you were always too much of a gentleman to gossip about the lady you love; and it was not my business to intrude upon that subject; it was too delicate. But, of course, with what I have picked up here and there, and what you have let drop, without the least intending it, I know pretty well how the land lies. And, sir, a man does not come to my time of life without a sore and heavy heart; if I was to tell you how I came to be a bachelor–but, no; even after ten years I could not answer for myself. All I can say is that, if you should do me the honor to consult me on something that is nearer your heart than revenge, you would have all my sympathy and all my zeal.”

“Give me your hand, old fellow,” said Little, and broke down again.

But, this time, he shook it off quickly, and, to encourage him, Mr. Ransome said, “To begin, you may take my word Mr. Carden knows, by this time, where his daughter is. Why not sound him on the matter?”

Henry acted on this advice, and called on Mr. Carden.

He was received very coldly by that gentleman.

After some hesitation, he asked Mr. Carden if he had any news of his daughter.

“I have.”

The young man’s face was irradiated with joy directly.

“Is she well, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Is she happier than she was?”

“She is content.”

“Has she friends about her? Kind, good people; any persons of her own sex, whom she can love?”

“She is among people she takes for angels, at present. She will find them to be petty, mean, malicious devils. She is in a Protestant convent.”

“In a convent? Where?”

“Where? Where neither the fool nor the villain, who have wrecked her happiness between them, and robbed me of her, will ever find her. I expected this visit, sir; the only thing I doubted was which would come first, the villain or the fool. The fool has come first, and being a fool, expects ME to tell him where to find his victim, and torture her again. Begone, fool, from the house you have made desolate by your execrable folly in slipping away by night like a thief, or rather like that far more dangerous animal, a fool.”

The old man delivered these insults with a purple face, and a loud fury, that in former days would have awakened corresponding rage in the fiery young fellow. But affliction had tempered him, and his insulter’s hairs were gray.

He said, quietly, “You are her father. I forgive you these cruel words.” Then he took his hat and went away.

Mr. Carden followed him to the passage, and cried after him, “The villain will meet a worse reception than the fool. I promise you that much.”

Little went home despondent, and found a long letter from his mother, telling him he must dine and sleep at Raby Hall that day.

She gave him such potent reasons, and showed him so plainly his refusal would infuriate his uncle, and make her miserable, that he had no choice. He packed up his dress suit, and drove to Raby Hall, with a heavy heart and bitter reluctance.

O caeca mens hominum.

CHAPTER XLI.

It was the great anniversary. On that day Sir Richard Raby had lost for the Stuarts all the head he possessed. His faithful descendent seized the present opportunity to celebrate the event with more pomp than ever. A month before the fatal day he came in from Hillsborough with sixty yards of violet-colored velvet, the richest that could be got from Lyons; he put this down on a table, and told his sister that was for her and Jael to wear on the coming anniversary. “Don’t tell me there’s not enough,” said he; “for I inquired how much it would take to carpet two small rooms, and bought it; now what will carpet two little libraries will clothe two large ladies; and you are neither of you shrimps.”

While he was thus doing the cynical, nobody heeded him; quick and skillful fingers were undoing the parcel, and the ladies’ cheeks flushed and their eyes glistened, and their fingers felt the stuff inside and out: in which occupation Raby left them, saying, “Full dress, mind! We Rabys are not beheaded every day.”

Mrs. Little undertook to cut both dresses, and Jael was to help sew them.

But, when they came to be tried on, Jael was dismayed. “Why, I shall be half naked,” said she. “Oh, Mrs. Little, I couldn’t: I should sink with shame.”

Mrs. Little pooh-poohed that, and an amusing dialogue followed between these two women, both of them equally modest, but one hardened, and perhaps a little blinded, by custom.

Neither could convince the other, but Mrs. Little overpowered Jael by saying, “I shall wear mine low, and you will mortally offend my brother if you don’t.”

Then Jael succumbed, but looked forward to the day with a simple terror one would hardly have expected from the general strength of her character.

Little arrived, and saw his mother for a minute or two before dinner. She seemed happy and excited, and said, “Cheer up, darling; we will find a way to make you happy. Mark my words, a new era in your life dates from to-day: I mean to open your eyes tonight. There, don’t question me, but give me one kiss, and let us go and make ourselves splendid for poor Sir Richard.”

When Little came down-stairs he found his uncle and a distinguished- looking young gentleman standing before the fire; both were in full dress. Raby had the Stuart orders on his breast and looked a prince. He introduced Little to Mr. Richard Raby with high formality; but, before they had time to make acquaintance, two ladies glided into the room, and literally dazzled the young men, especially Dissolute Dick, who knew neither of them.

Mrs. Little, with her oval face, black brow and hair, and stately but supple form, was a picture of matronly beauty and grace; her rich brunette skin, still glossy and firm, showed no signs of age, but under her glorious eyes were the marks of trouble; and though her face was still striking and lovely, yet it revealed what her person concealed, that she was no longer young. That night she looked about eight-and-thirty.

The other lady was blonde, and had a face less perfect in contour, but beautiful in its way, and exquisite in color and peach-like bloom; but the marvel was her form; her comely head, dignified on this occasion with a coronet of pearls, perched on a throat long yet white and massive, and smooth as alabaster; and that majestic throat sat enthroned on a snowy bust and shoulders of magnificent breadth, depth, grandeur, and beauty. Altogether it approached the gigantic; but so lovely was the swell of the broad white bosom, and so exquisite the white and polished skin of the mighty shoulders adorned with two deep dimples, that the awe this grand physique excited was mingled with profound admiration.

Raby and Henry Little both started at the sudden grandeur and brilliance of the woman they thought they knew, but in reality had never seen; and Raby, dazzled himself, presented her, quite respectfully, to Dissolute Dick.

“This is Miss Dence, a lady descended, like the rest of us, from poor Sir Richard; Miss Dence; Mr. Richard Raby.”

Jael blushed more deeply than ladies with white and antique busts are in the habit of doing, and it was curious to see the rosy tint come on her white neck, and then die quietly away again. Yet she courtesied with grace and composure. (Mrs. Little had trained her at all points; and grace comes pretty readily, where nature has given perfect symmetry.)

Dinner was announced, and Raby placed the Dissolute between his sister and the magnificent Beauty dead Sir Richard had developed. He even gave a reason for this arrangement.

“All you ladies like a rake: you PRAISE sober fellows like me; but what you PREFER is a Rake.”

As they were rustling into their places, Mrs. Little said to Dick, with a delicious air of indifference, “ARE you a rake, Mr. Raby?”

“I am anything you like,” replied the shameless fellow.

All the old plate was out, and blazing in the light of candles innumerable.

There was one vacant chair.

Dick asked if there was anybody expected.

“Not much,” said Raby dryly. “That is Sir Richard’s chair, on these occasions. However, he may be sitting in it now, for aught I know. I sincerely hope he is.”

“If I thought that, I’d soon leave mine,” said Jael, in a tremulous whisper.

“Then stay where you are, Sir Richard,” said the Rake, making an affected motion with his handkerchief, as if to keep the good Knight down.

In short, this personage, being young, audacious, witty, and animated by the vicinity of the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, soon deprived the anniversary of that solemn character Mr. Raby desired to give it. Yet his volubility, his gayety, and his chaff were combined with a certain gentlemanlike tact and dexterity; and he made Raby laugh in spite of himself, and often made the ladies smile. But Henry Little sat opposite, and wondered at them all, and his sad heart became very bitter.

When they joined the ladies in the drawing-room, Henry made an effort to speak to Jael Dence. He was most anxious to know whether she had heard from Grace Carden. But Jael did not meet him very promptly, and while he was faltering out his inquiries, up came Richard Raby and resumed his attentions to her–attentions that very soon took the form of downright love-making. In fact he stayed an hour after his carriage was announced, and being a young man of great resolution, and accustomed to please himself, he fell over head and ears in love with Miss Dence, and showed it then and thereafter.

It did not disturb her composure. She had often been made love to, and could parry as well as Dick could fence.

She behaved with admirable good sense; treated it all as a polite jest, but not a disagreeable one.

Mrs. Little lost patience with them both. She drew Henry aside, and asked him why he allowed Mr. Richard Raby to monopolize her.

“How can I help it?” said Henry. “He is in love with her; and no wonder: see how beautiful she is, and her skin like white satin. She is ever so much bigger than I thought. But her heart is bigger than all. Who’d think she had ever condescended to grind saws with me?”

“Who indeed? And with those superb arms!”

“Why, that is it, mother; they are up to anything; it was one of those superb arms she flung round a blackguard’s neck for me, and threw him like a sack, or I should not be here. Poor girl! Do you think that chatterbox would make her happy?”

“Heaven forbid! He is not worthy of her. No man is worthy of her, except the one I mean her to have, and that is yourself.”

“Me, mother! are you mad?”

“No; you are mad, if you reject her. Where can you hope to find her equal? In what does she fail? In face? why it is comeliness, goodness, and modesty personified. In person? why she is the only perfect figure I ever saw. Such an arm, hand, foot, neck, and bust I never saw all in the same woman. Is it sense? why she is wise beyond her years, and beyond her sex. Think of her great self- denial; she always loved you, yet aided you, and advised you to get that mad young thing you preferred to her–men are so blind in choosing women! Then think of her saving your life: and then how nearly she lost her own, through her love for you. Oh, Henry, if you cling to a married woman, and still turn away from that angelic creature there, and disappoint your poor mother again, whose life has been one long disappointment, I shall begin to fear you were born without a heart.”

CHAPTER XLII.

“Better for me if I had; then I could chop and change from one to another as you would have me. No, mother; I dare say if I had never seen Grace I should have loved Jael. As it is, I have a great affection and respect for her, but that is all.”

“And those would ripen into love if once you were married.”

“They might. If it came to her flinging that great arm round my neck in kindness she once saved my life with by brute force, I suppose a man’s heart could not resist her. But it will never come to that while my darling lives. She is my lover, and Jael my sister and my dear friend. God bless her, and may she be as happy as she deserves. I wish I could get a word with her, but that seems out of the question to-night. I shall slip away to bed and my own sad thoughts.”

With this he retired unobserved.

In the morning he asked Jael if she would speak to him alone.

“Why not?” said she calmly.

They took a walk in the shrubbery.

“I tried hard to get a word with you yesterday, but you were so taken up with that puppy.”

“He is very good company.”

“I have seen the time when I was as good; but it is not so easy to chatter with a broken heart.”

“That is true. Please come to the point, and tell me what you want of me now.”

This was said in such a curious tone, that Henry felt quite discouraged.

He hesitated a moment and then said, “What is the matter with you? You are a changed girl to me. There’s something about you so cold and severe; it makes me fear I have worn out my friend as well as lost my love; if it is so, tell me, and I will not intrude my sorrow any more on you.”

There was a noble and manly sadness in the way he said this, and Jael seemed touched a little by it.

“Mr. Henry,” said she, “I’ll be frank with you. I can’t forgive you leaving the factory that night without saying a word to me; and if you consider what I had done before you used me so, and what I suffered in consequence of your using me so–not that you will ever know all I suffered, at least I hope not–no, I have tried to forgive you; for, if you are a sinner, you are a sufferer–but it is no use, I can’t. I never shall forgive you to my dying day.”

Henry Little hung his head dejectedly. “That is bad news,” he faltered. “I told you why I did not bid you good-by except by letter: it was out of kindness. I have begged your pardon for it all the same. I thought you were an angel; but I see you are only a woman; you think the time to hit a man is when he is down. Well, I can but submit. Good-by. Stay one moment, let me take your hand, you won’t refuse me that.” She did not deign a word; he took her hand and held it. “This is the hand and arm that worked with me like a good master: this is the hand and arm that overpowered a blackguard and saved me: this is the hand and arm that saved my Grace from a prison and public shame. I must give them both one kiss, if they knock me down for it. There–there–good-by, dear Jael, good-by! I seem to be letting go the last thing I have to cling to in the deep waters of trouble.”

Melted by this sad thought, he held his best friend’s hand till a warm tear dropped on it. That softened her; the hand to which he owed so much closed on his and detained him.

“Stay where you are. I have told you my mind, but I shall ACT just as I used to do. I’m not proud of this spite I have taken against you, don’t you fancy that. There–there, don’t let us fret about what can’t be helped; but just tell me what I can DO for you.”

Young Little felt rather humiliated at assistance being offered on these terms. He did not disguise his mortification.

“Well,” said he, rather sullenly, “beggars must not be choosers. Of course I wanted you to tell me where I am likely to find her.”

“I don’t know.”

“But you left Hillsborough with her?”

“Yes, and went to York. But there I left her, and she told me she should travel hundreds of miles from York. I have no notion where she is.”

Little sighed. “She could not trust even you.”

“The fewer one trusts with a secret the better.”

“Will she never return? Will she give up her father as well as me? Did she fix no time? Did she give you no hint?”

“No, not that I remember. She said that depended on you.”

“On me?”

“Yes.”

Here was an enigma.

They puzzled over it a long time. At last Jael said, “She wrote a letter to you before she left: did she say nothing in that? Have you got the letter?”

“Have I got it?–the last letter my darling ever wrote to me! Do you think it ever leaves me night or day?”

He undid one of his studs, put his hand inside, and drew the letter out warm from his breast. He kissed it and gave it to Jael. She read it carefully and looked surprised. “Why, you are making your own difficulties. You have only got to do what you are told. Promise not to fall foul of that Coventry, and not to tempt her again, and you will hear of her. You have her own word for it.”

“But how am I to let her know I promise?”

“I don’t know; how does everybody let everybody know things nowadays? They advertise.”

“Of course they do–in the second column of ‘The Times.'”

“You know best.” Then, after a moment’s reflection, “Wherever she is, she takes in the Hillsborough papers to see if there’s anything about you in them.”

“Oh, do you think so?”

“Think so? I am sure of it. I put myself in her place.”

“Then I will advertise in ‘The Times’ and the Hillsborough papers.”

He went into the library and wrote several advertisements. This is the one Jael preferred:

“H. L. to G. C. I see you are right. There shall be no vengeance except what the law may give me, nor will I ever renew that request which offended you so justly. I will be patient.”

He had added an entreaty that she would communicate with him, but this Jael made him strike out. She thought that might make Grace suspect his sincerity. “Time enough to put that in a month hence, if you don’t hear from her.”

This was all I think worth recording in the interview between Jael and Henry, except that at parting he thanked her warmly, and said, “May I give you one piece of advice in return? Mr. Richard Raby has fallen in love with you, and no wonder. If my heart was not full of Grace I should have fallen in love with you myself, you are so good and so beautiful; but he bears a bad character. You are wise in other people’s affairs, pray don’t be foolish in your own.”

“Thank you,” said Jael, a little dryly. “I shall think twice before I give my affections to any young man.”

Henry had a word with his mother before he went, and begged her not to prepare disappointment for herself by trying to bring Jael and him together. “Besides, she has taken a spite against me. To be sure it is not very deep; for she gave me good advice; and I advised her not to throw herself away on Dissolute Dick.”

Mrs. Little smiled knowingly and looked very much pleased, but she said nothing more just then. Henry Little returned to Hillsborough, and put his advertisement in “The Times” and the Hillsborough journals.

Two days afterward Ransome called on him with the “Hillsborough Liberal.” “Is this yours?” said Ransome.

“Yes. I have reason to think she will write to me, if she sees it.”

“Would you mind giving me your reason?”

Little gave it, but with so much reticence, that no other man in Hillsborough but Ransome would have understood.

“Hum!” said he, “I think I can do something with this.” A period of expectation succeeded, hopeful at first, and full of excitement; but weeks rolled on without a word from the fugitive, and Little’s heart sickened with hope deferred. He often wished to consult Jael Dence again; he had a superstitious belief in her sagacity. But the recollection of her cold manner deterred him. At last, however, impatience and the sense of desolation conquered, and he rode over to Raby Hall.

He found his uncle and his mother in the dining-room. Mr. Raby was walking about looking vexed, and even irritable.

The cause soon transpired. Dissolute Dick was at that moment in the drawing-room, making hot love to Jael Dence. He had wooed her ever since that fatal evening when she burst on society full-blown. Raby, too proud and generous to forbid his addresses, had nevertheless been always bitterly averse to them, and was now in a downright rage; for Mrs. Little had just told him she felt sure he was actually proposing.

“Confound him!” said Henry, “and I wanted so to speak to her.”

Raby gave him a most singular look, that struck him as odd at the time, and recurred to him afterward.

At last steps were heard overhead, and Dissolute Dick came down- stairs.

Mrs. Little slipped out, and soon after put her head into the dining-room to the gentlemen, and whispered to them “YES.” Then she retired to talk it all over with Jael.

At that monosyllable Mr. Raby was very much discomposed.

“There goes a friend out of this house; more fools we. You have lost her by your confounded folly. What is the use spooning all your days after another man’s wife? I wouldn’t have had this happen for ten thousand pounds. Dissolute Dick! he will break her heart in a twelvemouth.”

“Then why, in heaven’s name, didn’t you marry her yourself?”

“Me! at my age? No; why didn’t YOU marry her? You know she fancies you. The moment you found Grace married, you ought to have secured this girl, and lived with me; the house is big enough for you all.”

“It is not so big as your heart, sir,” said Henry. “But pray don’t speak to me of love or marriage either.”

“Why should I? The milk is spilt; it is no use crying now. Let us go and dress for dinner. Curse the world–it is one disappointment.”

Little himself was vexed, but he determined to put a good face on it, and to be very kind to his good friend Jael.

She did not appear at dinner, and when the servants had retired, he said, “Come now, let us make the best of it. Mother, if you don’t mind, I will settle five thousand pounds upon her and her children. He is a spendthrift, I hear, and as poor as Job.”

Mrs. Little stared at her son. “Why, she has refused him!”

Loud exclamations of surprise and satisfaction.

“A fine fright you have given us. You said ‘Yes.'”

“Well, that meant he had proposed. You know, Guy, I had told you he would: I saw it in his eye. So I observed, in a moment, he HAD, and I said ‘Yes.'”

“Then why doesn’t she come down to dinner?”

“He has upset her. It is the old story: he cried to her, and told her he had been wild, and misconducted himself, all because he had never met a woman he could really love and respect; and then he begged her, and implored her, and said his fate depended on her.”

“But she was not caught with that chaff; so why does she not come and receive the congratulations of the company on her escape?”

“Because she is far too delicate;” then, turning to her son, “and perhaps, because she can’t help comparing the manly warmth and loving appreciation of Mr. Richard Raby, with the cold indifference and ingratitude of others.”

“Oh,” said Henry, coloring, “if that is her feeling, she will accept him next time.”

“Next time!” roared Raby. “There shall be no next time. I have given the scamp fair play, quite against my own judgment. He has got his answer now, and I won’t have the girl tormented with him any more. I trust that to you, Edith.”

Mrs. Little promised him Dick and Jael should not meet again, in Raby Hall at least.

That evening she drew her son apart and made an earnest appeal to him.

“So much for her spite against you, Henry. You told her to decline Richard Raby, and so she declined him. Spite, indeed! The gentle pique of a lovely, good girl, who knows her value, though she is too modest to show it openly. Well, Henry, you have lost her a husband, and she has given you one more proof of affection. Don’t build the mountain of ingratitude any higher: do pray take the cure that offers, and make your mother happy, as well as yourself, my son.” In this strain she continued, and used all her art, her influence, her affection, till at last, with a weary, heart-broken sigh, he yielded as far as this: he said that, if it could once be made clear to him there was no hope of his ever marrying Grace Carden he would wed Jael Dence at once.

Then he ordered his trap, and drove sullenly home, while Mrs. Little, full of delight, communicated her triumph to Jael Dence, and told her about the five thousand pounds, and was as enthusiastic in praise of Henry to Jael, as she had been of Jael to Henry.

Meantime he drove back to Hillsborough, more unhappy than ever, and bitter against himself for yielding, even so far, to gratitude and maternal influence.

It was late when he reached home. He let himself in with a latch- key, and went into his room for a moment.

A letter lay on the table, with no stamp on it: he took it up. It contained but one line; that line made his heart leap:

“News of G. C. RANSOME.”

CHAPTER XLIII.

Late as it was, Little went to the Town-hall directly. But there, to his bitter disappointment, he learned that Mr. Ransome had been called to Manchester by telegram. Little had nothing to do but to wait, and eat his heart with impatience. However, next day, toward afternoon, Ransome called on him at the works, in considerable excitement, and told him a new firm had rented large business premises in Manchester, obtained goods, insured them in the “Gosshawk,” and then the premises had caught fire and the goods been burned to ashes; suspicions had been excited; Mr. Carden had gone to the spot and telegraphed for him. He had met a London detective there, and, between them, they had soon discovered that full cases had come in by day, but full sacks gone out by night: the ashes also revealed no trace of certain goods the firm had insured. “And now comes the clew to it all. Amongst the few things that survived the fire was a photograph–of whom do you think? Shifty Dick. The dog had kept his word, and gone into trade.”

“Confound him!” said Little; “he is always crossing my path, that fellow. You seem quite to forget that all this time I am in agonies of suspense. What do I care about Shifty Dick? He is nothing to me.”

“Of course not. I am full of the fellow; a little more, and he’ll make a monomaniac of me. Mr. Carden offers L200 for his capture; and we got an inkling he was coming this way again. There, there, I won’t mention his name to you again. Let us talk of what WILL interest you. Well, sir, have you observed that you are followed and watched?”

“No.”

“I am glad of it; then it has been done skillfully. You have been closely watched this month past by my orders.”

This made young Little feel queer. Suppose he had attempted anything unlawful, his good friend here would have collared him.

“You’ll wonder that a good citizen like you should be put under surveillance; but I thought it likely your advertisement would either make the lady write to you, or else draw her back to the town. She didn’t write, so I had you watched, to see if any body took a sly peep at you. Well, this went on for weeks, and nothing turned up. But the other night a young woman walked several times by your house, and went away with a sigh. She had a sort of Protestant nun’s dress on, and a thick veil. Now you know Mr Carden told you she was gone into a convent. I am almost sure it is the lady.”

Little thanked him with all his soul, and then inquired eagerly where the nun lived.

“Ah, my man didn’t know that. Unfortunately, he was on duty in the street, and had no authority to follow anybody. However, if you can keep yourself calm, and obey orders–“

“I will do anything you tell me.”

“Well, then, this evening, as soon as it is quite dark, you do what I have seen you do in happier times. Light your reading-lamp, and sit reading close to the window; only you must not pull down the blind. Lower the venetians, but don’t turn them so as to hide your face from the outside. You must promise me faithfully not to move under any circumstances, or you would be sure to spoil all.”

Little gave the promise, and performed it to the letter. He lighted his lamp, and tried to read book after book; but, of course, he was too agitated to fix his attention on them. He got all Grace’s letters, and read them; and it was only by a stern effort he kept still at all.

The night wore on, and heart-sickness was beginning to succeed to feverish impatience, when there was a loud knock at the door. Little ran to it himself, and found a sergeant of police, who told him in a low voice he brought a message from the chief-constable.

“I was to tell you it is all right; he is following the party himself. He will call on you at twelve to-morrow morning.”

“Not before that?” said Little. However, he gave the sergeant a sovereign for good news, and then, taking his hat, walked twenty miles out of Hillsborough, and back, for he knew it was useless his going to bed, or trying to settle to any thing.

He got back at ten o’clock, washed, breakfasted, and dozed on two chairs, till Ransome came, with a carpet-bag in his hand.

“Tell me all about it: don’t omit any thing.” This was Little’s greeting.

“Well, sir, she passed the house about nine o’clock, walking quickly; and took just one glance in at your window, but did not stop. She came back in half an hour, and stood on the opposite side of the way, and then passed on. I hid in a court, where she couldn’t see me. By-and-by she comes back, on your side the way this time, gliding like a cat, and she crouched and curled round the angle of the house, and took a good look at you. Then she went slowly away, and I passed her. She was crying bitterly, poor girl! I never lost sight of her, and she led me a dance, I can tell you. I’ll take you to the place; but you had better let me disguise you; for I can see she is very timid, and would fly away in a moment if she knew she was detected.”

Little acquiesced, and Ransome disguised him in a beard and a loose set of clothes, and a billy-cock hat, and said that would do, as long as he kept at a prudent distance from the lady’s eye. They then took a cab and drove out of Hillsborough. When they had proceeded about two miles up the valley, Ransome stopped the cab, and directed the driver to wait for them.

He then walked on, and soon came to a row of houses, in two blocks of four houses each.

The last house of the first block had a bill in the window, “To be let furnished.”

He then knocked at the door, and a woman in charge of the house opened it.

“I am the chief-constable of Hillsborough; and this is my friend Mr. Park; he is looking out for a furnished house. Can he see this one?”

The woman said, “Certainly, gentlemen,” and showed them over the house.

Ransome opened the second-story window, and looked out on the back garden.

“Ah,” said he, “these houses have nice long gardens in the rear, where one can walk and be private.”

He then nudged Henry, and asked the woman who lived in the first house of the next block–“the house that garden belongs to?”

“Why, the bill was in the window the other day; but it is just took. She is a kind of a nun, I suppose: keeps no servant: only a girl comes in and does for her, and goes home at night. I saw her yesterday, walking in the garden there. She seems rather young to be all alone like that; but perhaps there’s some more of ’em coming. They sort o’ cattle mostly goes in bands.”

Henry asked what was the rent of the house. The woman did not know, but told him the proprietor lived a few doors off. “I shall take this house,” said Little. “I think you are right,” observed Ransome: “it will just answer your purpose.” They went together, and took the house directly; and Henry, by advice of Ransome, engaged a woman to come into the house in the morning, and go away at dusk. Ransome also advised him to make arrangements for watching Grace’s garden unseen. “That will be a great comfort to you,” said he: “I know by experience. Above all things,” said this sagacious officer, “don’t you let her know she is discovered. Remember this: when she wants you to know she is here, she’ll be sure to let you know. At present she is here on the sly: so if you thwart her, she’ll be off again, as sure as fate.”

Little was forced to see the truth of this, and promised to restrain himself, hard as the task was. He took the house; and used to let himself into it with a latch-key at about ten o clock every night.

There he used to stay and watch till past noon; and nearly every day he was rewarded by seeing the Protestant nun walk in her garden.

He was restless and miserable till she came out; when she appeared his heart bounded and thrilled; and when once he had feasted his eyes upon her, he would go about the vulgar affairs of life pretty contentedly.

By advice of Ransome, he used to sit in his other house from seven till nine, and read at the window, to afford his beloved a joy similar to that he stole himself.

And such is the power of true love that these furtive glances soothed two lives. Little’s spirits revived, and some color came back to Grace’s cheek.

One night there was a house broken into in the row.

Instantly Little took the alarm on Grace’s account, and bought powder and bullets, and a double-barreled rifle, and a revolver; and now at the slightest sound he would be out of bed in a moment ready to defend her, if necessary.

Thus they both kept their hearts above water, and Grace visited the sick, and employed her days in charity; and then, for a reward, crept, with soft foot, to Henry’s window, and devoured him with her eyes, and fed on that look for hours afterward.

When this had gone on for nearly a month, Lally, who had orders to keep his eye on Mr. Little, happened to come and see Grace looking in at him.

He watched her at a distance, but had not the intelligence to follow her home. He had no idea it was Grace Carden.

However, in his next letter to his master, who was then in London, he told him Little always read at night by the window, and, one night, a kind of nun had come and taken a very long look at him, and gone away crying. “I suspect,” said Lally, “she has played the fool with him some time or other, before she was a nun.”

He was not a little surprised when his master telegraphed in reply that he would be down by the first train; but the fact is, that Coventry had already called on Mr. Carden, and been told that his wife was in a convent, and he would never see her again. I must add that Mr. Carden received him as roughly as he had Little, but the interview terminated differently. Coventry, with his winning tongue, and penitence and plausibility, softened the indignant father, and then, appealing to his good sense, extorted from him the admission that his daughter’s only chance of happiness lay in forgiving him, and allowing him to atone his faults by a long life of humble devotion. But when Coventry, presuming on this, implored him to reveal where she was, the old man stood stanch, and said that was told him under a solemn assurance of secrecy, and nothing should induce him to deceive his daughter. “I will not lose her love and confidence for any of you,” said he.

So now Coventry put that word “convent” and this word “nun” together, and came to Hillsborough full of suspicions.

He took lodgings nearly opposite Little’s house, and watched in a dark room so persistently, that, at last, he saw the nun appear, saw her stealthy, cat-like approaches, her affected retreat, her cunning advance, her long lingering look.

A close observer of women, he saw in every movement of her supple body that she was animated by love.

He raged and sickened with jealousy, and when, at last, she retired, he followed her, with hell in his heart, and never lost sight of her till she entered her house in the valley.

If there had been a house to let in the terrace, he would certainly have taken it; but Little had anticipated him.

He took a very humble lodging in the neighborhood; and by dint of watching, he at last saw the nun speaking to a poor woman with her veil up. It revealed to him nothing but what he knew already. It was the woman he loved, and she hated him; the woman who had married him under a delusion, and stabbed him on his bridal day. He loved her all the more passionately for that.

Until he received Lally’s note, he had been content to wait patiently until his rival should lose hope, and carry himself and his affections elsewhere; he felt sure that must be the end of it.

But now jealousy stung him, wild passion became too strong for reason, and he resolved to play a bold and lawless game to possess his lawful wife. Should it fail, what could they do to him? A man may take his own by force. Not only his passions, but the circumstances tempted him. She was actually living alone, in a thinly-peopled district, and close to a road. It was only to cover her head and stifle her cries, and fly with her to some place beforehand prepared, where she would be brought to submission by kindness of manner combined with firmness of purpose.

Coventry possessed every qualification to carry out such a scheme as this. He was not very courageous; yet he was not a coward: and no great courage was required. Cunning, forethought, and unscrupulousness were the principal things, and these he had to perfection.

He provided a place to keep her; it was a shooting-box of his own, on a heathery hill, that nobody visited except for shooting, and the season for shooting was past.

He armed himself with false certificates of lunacy, to show on an emergency, and also a copy of his marriage certificate: he knew how unwilling strangers are to interfere between man and wife.

The only great difficulty was to get resolute men to help him in this act.

He sounded Cole; but that worthy objected to it, as being out of his line.

Coventry talked him over, and offered a sum that made him tremble with cupidity. He assented on one condition–that he should not be expected to break into the house, nor do any act that should be “construed burglarious.” He actually used that phrase, which I should hardly have expected from him.

Coventry assented to this condition. He undertook to get into the house, and open the door to Cole and his myrmidons: he stipulated, however, that Cole should make a short iron ladder with four sharp prongs. By means of this he could enter Grace’s house at a certain unguarded part and then run down and unbar the front door. He had thoroughly reconnoitered the premises, and was sure of success.

First one day was appointed for the enterprise, then another, and, at last, it was their luck to settle on a certain night, of which I will only say at present, that it was a night Hillsborough and its suburbs will not soon forget.

Midnight was the hour agreed on.

Now at nine o’clock of this very night the chief-constable of Hillsborough was drinking tea with Little scarcely twenty yards from the scene of the proposed abduction. Not that either he or Little had the least notion of the conspiracy. The fact is, Hillsborough had lately been deluged with false coin, neatly executed, and passed with great dexterity. The police had received many complaints, but had been unable to trace it. Lately, however, an old bachelor, living in this suburban valley, had complained to the police that his neighbors kept such enormous fires all night, as to make his wall red-hot and blister his paint.

This, and one or two other indications, made Ransome suspect the existence of a furnace, and he had got a search-warrant in his pocket, on which, however, he did not think it safe to act till he had watched the suspected house late at night, and made certain observations for himself. So he had invited himself to tea with his friend Little–for he was sure of a hearty welcome at any hour–and, over their tea, he now told him his suspicions, and invited him to come in and take a look at the suspected house with him.

Little consented. But there was no hurry; the later they went to the house in question the better. So they talked of other matters, and the conversation soon fell on that which was far more interesting to Little than the capture of all the coiners in creation.

He asked Ransome how long he was to go on like this, contenting himself with the mere sight of her.

“Why;” said Ransome, “even that has made another man of you. Your eye is twice as bright as it was a month ago, and your color is coming back. That is a wise proverb, ‘Let well alone.’ I hear she visits the sick, and some of them swear by her. If think I’d give her time to take root here; and then she will not be so ready to fly off in a tangent.”

Little objected that it was more than flesh and blood could bear.

“Well, then,” said Ransome, “promise me just one thing: that, if you speak to her, it shall be in Hillsborough, and not down here.”

Little saw the wisdom of this, and consented, but said he was resolved to catch her at his own window the next time she came.

He was about to give his reasons, but they were interrupted by a man and horse clattering up to the door.

“That will be for me,” said Ransome. “I thought I should not get leave to drink my tea in peace.”

He was right; a mounted policeman brought him a note from the mayor, telling him word had come into the town that there was something wrong with Ousely dam. He was to take the mayor’s horse, and ride up at once to the reservoir, and, if there was any danger, to warn the valley.

“This looks serious,” said Ransome. “I must wish you good-by.”

“Take a piece of advice with you. I hear that dam is too full; if so, don’t listen to advice from anybody, but open the sluices of the waste-pipes, and relieve the pressure; but if you find a flaw in the embankment, don’t trifle, blow up the waste-wear at once with gunpowder. I wish I had a horse, I’d go with you. By the way, if there is the least danger of that dam bursting, of course you will give me warning in time, and I’ll get her out of the house at once.”

“What, do you think the water would get as far as this, to do any harm? It is six miles.”

“It might. Look at the form of the ground; it is a regular trough from that dam to Hillsborough. My opinion is, it would sweep everything before it, and flood Hillsborough itself–the lower town. I shall not go to bed, old fellow, till you come back and tell me it is all right.”

With this understanding Ransome galloped off. On his way he passed by the house where he suspected coining. The shutters were closed, but his experienced eye detected a bright light behind one of them, and a peculiar smoke from the chimney.

Adding this to his other evidence, he now felt sure the inmates were coiners, and he felt annoyed. “Fine I look,” said he, “walking tamely past criminals at work, and going to a mayor’s nest six miles off.”

However he touched the horse with his heel, and cantered forward on his errand.

John Ransome rode up to the Ousely Reservoir, and down again in less than an hour and a half; and every incident of those two rides is imprinted on his memory for life.

He first crossed the water at Poma bridge. The village of that name lay on his right, toward Hillsborough, and all the lights were out except in the two public houses. One of these, “The Reindeer,” was near the bridge, and from it a ruddy glare shot across the road, and some boon companions were singing, in very good harmony, a trite Scotch chorus:

“We are no that fou, we are no that fou, But just a drappie in our ee;
The cock may craw, the day may daw, But still we’ll taste the barley bree.”

Ransome could hear the very words; he listened, he laughed, and then rode up the valley till he got opposite a crinoline-wire factory called the “Kildare Wheel.” Here he observed a single candle burning; a watcher, no doubt.

The next place he saw was also on the other side the stream; Dolman’s farm-house, the prettiest residence in the valley. It was built of stone, and beautifully situated on a promontory between two streams. It had a lawn in front, which went down to the very edge of the water, and was much admired for its close turf and flowers. The farm buildings lay behind the house.

There was no light whatever in Dolman’s; but they were early people. The house and lawn slept peacefully in the night: the windows were now shining, now dark, for small fleecy clouds kept drifting at short intervals across the crescent moon.

Ransome pushed on across the open ground, and for a mile or two saw few signs of life, except here and there a flickering light in some water-wheel, for now one picturesque dam and wheel succeeded another as rapidly as Nature permitted; and indeed the size of these dams, now shining in the fitful moonlight, seemed remarkable, compared with the mere thread of water which fed them, and connected them together for miles like pearls on a silver string.

Ransome pushed rapidly on, up hill and down dale, till he reached the high hill, at whose foot lay the hamlet of Damflask, distant two miles from Ousely Reservoir.

He looked down and saw a few lights in this hamlet, some stationary, but two moving.

“Hum,” thought Ransome, “they don’t seem to be quite so easy in their minds up here.”

He dashed into the place, and drew up at the house where several persons were collected.

As he came up, a singular group issued forth: a man with a pig-whip, driving four children–the eldest not above seven years old–and carrying an infant in his arms. The little imps were clad in shoes, night-gowns, night-caps, and a blanket apiece, and were shivering and whining at being turned out of bed into the night air.

Ransome asked the man what was the matter

One of the by-standers laughed, and said, satirically, Ousely dam was to burst that night, so all the pigs and children were making for the hill.

The man himself, whose name was Joseph Galton, explained more fully.

“Sir,” said he, “my wife is groaning, and I am bound to obey her. She had a dream last night she was in a flood, and had to cross a plank or summut. I quieted her till supper; but then landlord came round and warned all of us of a crack or summut up at dam. And so now I am taking this little lot up to my brother’s. It’s the foolishest job I ever done: but needs must when the devil drives, and it is better so than to have my old gal sour her milk, and pine her suckling, and maybe fret herself to death into the bargain.”