Run to Earth by M. E. Braddon (page 11)

The engagement between Paulina and Douglas had lasted nearly two months, when a cloud overshadowed the horizon which had seemed so bright.

Madame Durski became somewhat alarmed by a change in her lover’s appearance, which struck her suddenly on one of his visits to the villa. For some weeks past she had seen him only by lamplight–that light which gives a delusive brightness to the countenance.

To-day she saw him with the cold northern sunlight shining full upon his face; and for the first time she perceived that he had altered much of late.

“Douglas,” she said, earnestly, “how ill you are looking!”

“Indeed!”

“Yes; I see it to-day for the first time, and I can only wonder that I never noticed it before. You have grown so much paler, so much thinner, within the last few weeks. I am sure you cannot be well.”

“My dearest Paulina, pray do not look at me with such alarm,” said Douglas, gently. “Believe me, there is nothing particular the matter. I have not been quite myself for the last few weeks, I admit–a touch of low fever, I think; but there is not the slightest occasion for fear on your part.”

“Oh, Douglas,” exclaimed Paulina, “how can you speak so carelessly of a subject so vital to me? I implore you to consult a physician immediately.”

“I assure you, my dearest, it is not necessary. There is nothing really the matter.”

“Douglas, I beg and entreat you to see a physician directly. I entreat it as a favour to me.”

“My dear Paulina, I am ready to do anything you wish.”

“You will promise me, then, to see a doctor you can trust, without an hour’s unnecessary delay?”

“I promise, with all my heart,” replied Douglas. “Ah, Paulina, what happiness to think that my life is of some slight value to her I love so fondly!”

No more was said upon the subject; but during dinner, and throughout the evening, Paulina’s eyes fixed themselves every now and then with an anxious, scrutinizing gaze upon her lover’s face.

When he had left her, she mentioned her fears to her _confidante_ and shadow, Miss Brewer.

“Do you not see a change in Mr. Dale?” she asked.

“A change! What kind of change?”

“Do you not perceive an alteration in his appearance? In plainer words, do you not think him looking very ill?”

Miss Brewer, generally so impassive, started, and looked at her patroness with a gaze in which alarm was plainly visible.

She had hazarded so much in order to bring about a marriage between Douglas and her patroness; and what if mortality’s dread enemy, Death, should forbid the banns?

“Ill!” she exclaimed; “do you think Mr. Dale is ill?”

“I do, indeed; and he confesses as much himself, though he makes light of the matter. He talks of low fever. I cannot tell you how much he has alarmed me.”

“There may be nothing serious in it,” answered Miss Brewer, with some hesitation. “One is so apt to take alarm about trifles which a doctor would laugh at. I dare say Mr. Dale only requires change of air. A London life is not calculated to improve any one’s health.”

“Perhaps that is the cause of his altered appearance,” replied Paulina, only too glad to be reassured as to her lover’s safety. “I will beg him to take change of air. But he has promised to see a doctor to-morrow: when he comes to me in the afternoon I shall hear what the doctor has said.”

Douglas Dale was very much inclined to make light of the slight symptoms of ill-health which had oppressed him for some time–a languor, a sense of thirst and fever, which were very wearing in their effect, but which he attributed to the alternations of excitement and agitation that he had undergone of late.

He was, however, too much a man of honour to break the promise made to Paulina.

He went early on the following morning to Savile Row, where he called upon Dr. Harley Westbrook, a physician of some eminence, to whom he carefully described the symptoms of which he had complained to Paulina.

“I do not consider myself really ill,” he said, in conclusion; “but I have come to you in obedience to the wish of a friend.”

“I am very glad that you have come to me,” answered Dr. Westbrook, gravely.

“Indeed! do you, then, consider the symptoms alarming?”

“Well, no, not at present; but I may go so far as to say that you have done very wisely in placing yourself under medical treatment. It is a most interesting case,” added the doctor with an air of satisfaction that was almost enjoyment.

He then asked his patient a great many questions, some of which Douglas Dale considered frivolous, or, indeed, absurd; questions about his diet, his habits: questions even about the people with whom he associated, the servants who waited upon him.

These latter inquiries might have seemed almost impertinent, if Dr. Westbrook’s elevated position had not precluded such an idea.

“You dine at your club, or in your chambers, eh, Mr. Dale?” he asked.

“Neither at my club, nor my chambers; I dine every day with a friend.”

“Indeed; always with the same friend?”

“Always the same.”

“And you breakfast?”

“At my chambers.”

Here followed several questions as to the nature of the breakfast.

“These sort of ailments depend so much on diet,” said the physician, as if to justify the closeness of his questioning. “Your servant prepares your breakfast, of course–is he a person whom you can trust?”

“Yes; he is an old servant of my father’s. I could trust him implicitly in far more important matters than the preparation of my breakfast.”

“Indeed! Will you pardon me if I ask rather a strange question?”

“Certainly, if it is a necessary one.”

“Answered like a lawyer, Mr. Dale,” replied Dr. Westbrook, with a smile. “I want to know whether this old and trusted servant of yours has any beneficial interest in your death?”

“Interest in my death–“

“In plainer words, has he reason to think that you have put him down in your will–supposing that you have made a will; which is far from probable?”

“Well, yes,” replied Douglas, thoughtfully; “I have made a will within the last few months, and Jarvis, my old servant knows that he is provided for, in the event of surviving me–not a very likely event, according to the ordinary hazards; but a man is bound to prepare for every contingency.”

“You told your servant that you had provided for him?”

“I did. He has been such an excellent creature, that it was only natural I should leave him comfortably situated in the event of my death.”

“No; to be sure,” answered the physician, with rather an absent manner. “And now I need trouble you with no further questions this morning. Come to me in a few days, and in the meantime take the medicine I prescribe for you.”

Dr. Westbrook wrote a prescription, and Mr. Dale departed, very much perplexed by his interview with the celebrated physician.

Douglas went to Fulham that evening as usual, and the first question Paulina asked related to his interview with the doctor.

“You have seen a medical man?” she asked.

“I have; and you may set your mind at rest, dearest. He assures me that there is nothing serious the matter.”

Paulina was entirely reassured, and throughout that evening she was brighter and happier than usual in the society of her lover–more lovely, more bewitching than ever, as it seemed to Douglas.

He waited a week before calling again on the physician; and he might, perhaps, have delayed his visit even longer, had he not felt that the fever and languor from which he suffered increased rather than abated.

This time Dr. Westbrook’s manner seemed graver and more perplexed than on the former visit. He asked even more questions, and at last, after a thoughtful examination of the patient, he said, very seriously–

“Mr. Dale, I must tell you frankly that I do not like your symptoms.”

“You consider them alarming?”

“I consider them perplexing, rather than alarming. And as you are not a nervous subject I think I may venture to trust you fully.”

“You may trust in the strength of my nerve, if that is what you mean.”

“I believe I may, and I shall have to test your moral courage and general force of character.”

“Pray be brief, then,” said Douglas with a faint smile. “I can almost guess what you have to say. You are going to tell me that I carry the seeds of a mortal disease; that the shadowy hand of death already holds me in its fatal grip.”

“I am going to tell you nothing of the kind,” answered Dr. Westbrook. “I can find no symptoms of disease. You have a very fair lease of life, Mr. Dale, and may enjoy a green old age, if other people would allow you to enjoy it.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean that if I can trust my own judgment in a matter which is sometimes almost beyond the reach of science, the symptoms from which you suffer are those of slow poisoning.”

“Slow poisoning!” replied Douglas, in almost inaudible accents. “It is impossible!” he exclaimed, after a pause, during which the physician waited quietly until his patient should have in some manner recovered his calmness of mind. “It is quite impossible. I have every confidence in your skill, your science; but in this instance, Dr. Westbrook, I feel assured that you are mistaken.”

“I would gladly think so, Mr. Dale,” replied the doctor, gravely; “but I cannot. I have given my best thought to your case. I can only form one conclusion–namely, that you are labouring under the effects of poison.”

“Do you know what the poison is?”

“I do not; but I do know that it must have been administered with a caution that is almost diabolical in its ingenuity–so slowly, by such imperceptible degrees, that you have scarcely been aware of the change which it has worked in your system. It was a most providential circumstance that you came to me when you did, as I have been able to discover the treachery to which you are subject while there is yet ample time for you to act against it. Forewarned is forearmed, you know, Mr. Dale. The hidden hand of the secret poisoner is about its fatal work; it is for you and me to discover to whom the hand belongs. Is there any one about you whom you can suspect of such hideous guilt?”

“No one–no one. I repeat that such a thing is impossible.”

“Who is the person most interested in your death?” asked Dr. Westbrook, calmly.

“My first cousin, Sir Reginald Eversleigh, who would succeed to a very handsome income in that event. But I have not met him, or, at any rate, broke bread with him, for the last two months. Nor can I for a moment believe him capable of such infamy.”

“If you have not been in intimate association with him for the last two months, you may absolve him from all suspicion,” answered Dr. Westbrook. “You spoke to me the other day of dining very frequently with one particular friend; forgive me if I ask an unpleasant question. Is that friend a person whom you can trust?”

“That friend I could trust with a hundred lives, if I had them to lose,” Douglas replied, warmly.

The doctor looked at his patient thoughtfully. He was a man of the world, and the warmth of Mr. Dale’s manner told him that the friend in question was a woman.

“Has the person whom you trust so implicitly any beneficial interest in your death?” he asked.

“To some amount; but that person would gain much more by my continuing to live.”

“Indeed; then we must needs fall back upon my original idea and painful as it may be to you, the old servant must become the object of your suspicion.”

“I cannot believe him capable–“

“Come, come, Mr. Dale,” interrupted the physician. “We must look at things as men of the world. It is your duty to ascertain by whom this poison has been administered, in order to protect yourself from the attacks of your insidious destroyer. If you will follow my advice, you will do this; if, on the other hand, you elect to shut your eyes to the danger that assails you, I can only tell you that you will most assuredly pay for your folly by the forfeit of your life.”

“What am I to do?” asked Douglas.

“You say that your habits of life are almost rigid in their regularity. You always breakfast in your own chambers; you always dine and take your after-dinner coffee in the house of one particular friend. With the exception of a biscuit and a glass of sherry taken sometimes at your club, these two meals are all you take during the day. It is, therefore, an indisputable fact, that poison has bee a administered at one or other of these two meals. Your old butler serves one–the servants of your friend prepare the other. Either in your own chambers, or in your friend’s house, you have a hidden foe. It is for you to find out where that foe lurks.”

“Not in her house,” gasped Douglas, unconsciously betraying the depth of his feeling and the sex of his friend; “not in hers. It must be Jarvis whom I have to fear–and yet, no, I cannot believe it. My father’s old servant–a man who used to carry me in his arms when I was a boy!”

“You may easily set the question of his guilt or innocence at rest, Mr. Dale,” answered Dr. Westbrook. “Contrive to separate yourself from him for a time. If during that time you find your symptoms cease, you will have the strongest evidence of his guilt; if they still continue, you must look elsewhere.”

“I will take your advice,” replied Douglas, with a weary sigh; “anything is better than suspense.”

Little more was said.

As Douglas walked slowly from the physician’s house to the Phoenix Club, he meditated profoundly on the subject of his interview with Dr. Westbrook.

“Who is the traitor?” he asked himself. “Who? Unhappily there can be no doubt about it. Jarvis is the guilty wretch.”

It was with unspeakable pain that Douglas Dale contemplated the idea of his old servant’s guilt: his old servant, who had seemed a model of fidelity and devotion!

This very man had attended the deathbed of the rector–Douglas Dale’s father–had been recommended by that father to the care of his two sons, had exhibited every appearance of intense grief at the loss of his master.

What could he think, except that Jarvis was guilty? There was but one other direction in which he could look for guilt, and there surely it could not be found.

Who in Hilton House had any interest in his death, except that one person who was above the possibility of suspicion?

He sat by his solitary breakfast-table on the morning after his interview with the physician, and watched Jarvis as he moved to and fro, waiting on his master with what seemed affectionate attention.

Douglas ate little. A failing appetite had been one of the symptoms that accompanied the low fever from which he had lately suffered.

This morning, depression of spirits rendered him still less inclined to eat.

He was thinking of Jarvis and of the past–those careless, happy, childish days, in which this man had been second only to his own kindred in his boyish affection.

While he meditated gravely upon this most painful subject, deliberating as to the manner in which he should commence a conversation that was likely to be a very serious one, he happened to look up, and perceived that he was watched by the man he had been lately watching. His eyes met the gaze of his old servant, and he beheld a strange earnestness in that gaze.

The old man did not flinch on meeting his master’s glance.

“I beg your pardon for looking at you so hard, Mr. Douglas,” he said; “but I was thinking about you very serious, sir, when you looked up.”

“Indeed, Jarvis, and why?”

“Why you see, sir, it was about your appetite as I was thinking. It’s fallen off dreadful within the last few weeks. The poor breakfastes as you eats is enough to break a man’s heart. And you don’t know the pains as I take, sir, to tempt you in the way of breakfastes. That fish, sir, I fetched from Grove’s this morning with my own hands. They comes up in a salt-water tank in the bottom of their own boat, sir, as lively as if they was still in their natural eleming, Grove’s fish do. But they might be red herrings for any notice as you take of ’em. You’re not yourself, Mr. Douglas, that’s what it is. You’re ill, Mr. Douglas, and you ought to see a doctor. Excuse my presumption, sir, in making these remarks; but if an old family servant that has nursed you on his knees can’t speak free, who can?”

“True,” Douglas answered with a sigh; “I was a very small boy when you carried me on your shoulders to many a country fair, and you were very good to me, Jarvis.”

“Only my dooty, sir,” muttered the old man.

“You are right, Jarvis, as to my health–I am ill.”

“Then you’ll send for a doctor, surely, Mr. Douglas.”

“I have already seen a doctor.”

“And what do he say, sir?”

“He says my case is very serious.”

“Oh, Mr. Douglas, don’t ‘ee say that, don’t ‘ee say that,” cried the old man, in extreme distress.

“I can only tell you the truth, Jarvis,” answered Douglas: “but there is no occasion for despair. The physician tells me that my case is a grave one, but he does not say that it is hopeless.”

“Why don’t ‘ee consult another doctor, Mr. Douglas,” said Jarvis; “perhaps that one ain’t up to his work. If it’s such a difficult case, you ought to go to all the best doctors in London, till you find the one that can cure you. A fine, well-grown young gentleman like you oughtn’t to have much the matter with him. I don’t see as it can be very serious.”

“I don’t know about that, Jarvis; but in any case I have resolved upon doing something for you.”

“For me, sir! Lor’ bless your generous heart, I don’t want nothing in this mortal world.”

“But you may, Jarvis,” replied Douglas. “You have already been told that I have provided for you in case of my death.”

“Yes, sir, you was so good as to say you had left me an annuity, and it was very kind of you to think of such a thing, and I’m duly thankful. But still you see, sir, I can’t help looking at it in the light of a kind of joke, sir; for it ain’t in human nature that an old chap like me is going to outlive a young gentleman like you; and Lord forbid that it should be in human nature for such a thing to happen.”

“We never know what may happen, Jarvis. At any rate, I have provided against the worst. But as you are getting old, and have worked hard all your life, I think you must want rest; so, instead of putting you off till my death, I shall give you your annuity at once, and you may retire into a comfortable little house of your own, and live the life of an elderly gentleman, with a decent little income, as soon as you please.”

To the surprise of Douglas Dale, the old man’s countenance expressed only grief and mortification on hearing an announcement which his master had supposed would have been delightful to him.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” he faltered; “but have you seen a younger servant as you like better and as could serve you better, than poor old Jarvis?”

“No, indeed,” answered Douglas, “I have seen no such person. Nor do I believe that any one in the world could serve me as well as you.”

“Then why do you want to change, sir?”

“I don’t want to change. I only want to make you happy, Jarvis.”

“Then make me happy by letting me stay with you,” pleaded the old servant. “Let me stay, sir. Don’t talk about annuities. I want nothing from you but the pleasure of waiting on my dear old master’s son. It’s as much delight to me to wait upon you now as it was to me twenty years ago to carry you to the country fairs on my shoulder. Ah, we did have rare times of it then, didn’t we, sir? Let me stay, and when I die give me a grave somewhere hard by where you live; and if, once in a way, when you pass the churchyard where I lay, you should give a sigh, and say, ‘Poor old Jarvis!’ that will be a full reward to me for having loved you so dear ever since you was a baby.”

Was this acting? Was this the perfect simulation of an accomplished hypocrite? No, no, no; Douglas Dale could not believe it.

The tears came into his eyes; he extended his hand, and grasped that of his old servant.

“You _shall_ stay with me, Jarvis,” he said; “and I will trust you with all my heart.”

Douglas Dale left his chambers soon after that conversation, and went straight to Dr. Westbrook, to whom he gave a fall account of the interview.

“I have tested the old man thoroughly,” he said, in conclusion; “and I believe him to be fidelity itself.”

“You have tested him, Mr. Dale! stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed the practical physician. “You surely don’t call that sentimental conversation a test? If the man is capable of being a slow poisoner, he is, of course, capable of acting a part, and shedding crocodile’s tears in evidence of his devoted affection for the master whose biliary organs he is deranging by the administration of antimony, or aconite. If you want to test the man thoroughly, test him in my way. Contrive to eat your breakfast elsewhere for a week or two; touch nothing, not so much as a glass of water, in your own chambers; and if at the end of that time the symptoms have ceased, you will know what to think of that pattern of fidelity–Mr. Jarvis.”

Douglas promised to take the doctor’s advice. He was convinced of his servant’s innocence; but he wanted to put that question beyond doubt.

But if Jarvis was indeed innocent, where was the guilty wretch to be found?

Douglas Dale dined at Hilton House upon the evening after his interview with Dr. Westbrook, as he had done without intermission for several weeks. He found Paulina tender and affectionate, as she had ever been of late, since respect and esteem for her lover’s goodness had developed into a warmer feeling.

“Douglas,” she said, on this particular evening, when they were alone together for a few minutes after dinner, “your health has not improved as much as I had hoped it would under the treatment of your doctor. I wish you would consult some one else.”

She spoke lightly, for she feared to alarm the patient by any appearance of fear on her part. She knew how physical disease may be augmented by mental agitation. Her tone, therefore, was one of assumed carelessness.

To-night Douglas Dale’s mind was peculiarly sensitive to every impression. Something in that assumed tone struck strangely upon his ear. For the first time since he had known her, the voice of the woman he loved, seemed to him to have a false sound in its clear, ringing tones.

An icy terror suddenly took possession of his mind.

What if this woman–this woman, whom he loved with such intense affection–what if she were something other than she seemed! What if her heart had never been his–her love never withdrawn from the reprobate upon whom she had once bestowed it! What if her tender glances, her affectionate words, her graceful, caressing manner, were all a comedy, of which he was the dupe! What if–

“I am the victim of treachery,” he thought to himself; “but the traitor cannot be here. Oh, no, no! let me find the traitor anywhere rather than here.”

Paulina watched her lover as he sat with his eyes fixed on the ground, absorbed in gloomy meditation.

Presently he looked up suddenly, and addressed her.

“I am going on a journey, Paulina, on business,” he said; “business, which I can only transact myself. I shall, therefore, be compelled to be absent from you for a week; it may be even more. Perhaps we shall never meet again. Will that be very distressing to you?”

“Douglas,” exclaimed Paulina, “how strangely you speak to me to-night! If this is a jest, it is a very cruel one.”

“It is no jest, Paulina,” answered her lover. “Life is very precarious, and within the last week I have learnt to consider my existence in imminent peril.”

“You are ill, Douglas,” said Paulina; “and illness has unnerved you. Pray do not give way to these depressing thoughts. Consult some other physician than the man who is now your adviser.”

“Yes, yes; I will do so,” answered Douglas, with, a sudden change of tone; “you are right, Paulina. I will not be so weak as to become the prey of these distressing fancies, these dark forebodings. What have I to fear? Death is no terrible evil. It is but the common fate of all. I can face that common doom as calmly as a Christian should face it. But deceit, treachery, falsehood from those we love–those are evils far more terrible than death. Oh, Paulina! tell me that I have no need to fear those?”

“From whom should you fear them, Douglas!”

“Aye, from whom, that is the question! Not from you, Paulina?”

“From me!” she echoed, with a look of wonder. “Are you mad?”

“Swear–swear to me that there is no falsehood in your heart, Paulina; that you love me as truly as you have taught me to believe; that you have not beguiled me with false words, as false as they are sweet!” cried the young man, in wild excitement.

“My dear Douglas, this is madness!” exclaimed Madame Durski; “folly too wild for reproof. This passionate excitement must be surely the effect of fever. What can I say to you except that I love you truly and dearly; that my heart has been purified, my mind elevated by your influence; that I have now no thought which is not known to you–no hope that does not rest itself upon your love. You ought to believe this, Douglas, for my every word, my every look, should speak the truth, which I do not care to reiterate in protestations such as these. It is too painful to me to be doubted by you.”

“And if I have wronged you, I am a base wretch,” said Douglas, in a low voice.

Early the following morning he paid another visit to Dr. Westbrook.

“I will not trespass on your time this morning,” he said, after shaking hands with the physician. “I have only come here in order to ask one question. If the poison were discontinued for a week, would there be any cessation of the symptoms?”

“There would,” replied the doctor. “Nature is quick to reassert herself. But if you are about to test your butler, I should recommend you to remain away longer than a week–say a fortnight.”

But it was not to test his old servant that Douglas Dale absented himself from London, though he had allowed the physician to believe that such was his intention. He started for Paris that night; but he took Jarvis with him.

His health improved day by day, hour by hour, from the day of his parting from Paulina Durski. The low fever had left him before he had been ten days in Paris; the perpetual thirst, the wearisome debility, left him also. He began to be his old self again; and to him this recovery was far more terrible than the worst possible symptoms of disease could have been, for it told him that the hidden foe who had robbed him of health and strength, was to be found at Hilton House.

In that house there was but one person who would profit by Douglas Dale’s death, and she would profit largely.

“She has never loved me,” he thought to himself. “She still loves Reginald Eversleigh. My death will give her both fortune and liberty; it will leave her free to wed the man she really loves.”

He no longer trusted his own love. He believed that he had been made the dupe of a woman’s treachery; and that the hand which had so often been pressed passionately to his lips, was the hand which, day by day, had mingled poison with his cup, sapping his life by slow degrees. Against the worldly wisdom of his friends he had opposed the blind instinct of his love; and now that events conspired to condemn this woman, he wondered that he could ever have trusted her.

At the end of a fortnight Douglas Dale returned from Paris, and went immediately to Paulina. He believed that he had been the dupe of an accomplished actress–the vilest and most heartless of women–and he was now acting a part, in order to fathom the depth of her iniquity.

“Let me know her–let me know her in all her baseness,” he said to himself. “Let me tax the murderess with her crime! and then, surely, this mad love will be plucked for ever from my heart, and I shall find peace far from the false syren whose sorcery has embittered my life.”

Douglas had received several letters from Paulina during his visit to Paris–letters breathing the most devoted and disinterested love; but to him every word seemed studied, every expression false. Those very letters would, a few short weeks ago, have seemed to Douglas the perfection of truth and artlessness.

He returned to England wondrously restored to health. Jarvis had been his constant attendant in Paris, and had brought him every morning a cup of coffee made by his own hands.

At the Temple, he found a note from Paulina, telling him that he was expected hourly at Hilton House.

He lost no time in presenting himself. He endeavoured to stifle all emotion–to conquer the impatience that possessed him; but he could not.

Madame Durski was seated by one of the windows in the drawing-room when Mr. Dale was announced.

She received her lover with every appearance of affection, and with an emotion which she seemed only anxious to conceal.

But to the jaundiced mind of Douglas Dale this suppressed emotion appeared only a superior piece of acting; and yet, as he looked at his betrothed, while she stood before him, perfect, peerless, in her refined loveliness, his heart was divided by love and hate. He hated the guilt which he believed was hers. He loved her even yet, despite that guilt.

“You are very pale, Douglas,” she said after the first greetings were over. “But, thank heaven, there is a wonderful improvement. I can see restored health in your face. The fever has gone–the unnatural brightness has left your eyes. Oh, dearest, how happy it makes me to see this change! You can never know what I suffered when I saw you drooping, day by day.”

“Yes, day by day, Paulina,” answered the young man, gravely. “It was a gradual decay of health and strength–my life ebbing slowly–almost imperceptibly–but not the less surely.”

“And you are better, Douglas? You feel and know yourself that there is a change?”

“Yes, Paulina. My recovery began in the hour in which I left London. My health has improved from that time.”

“You required change of air, no doubt. How foolish your doctor must have been not to recommend that in the first instance! And now that you have returned, may I hope to see you as often as of old? Shall we renew all our old habits, and go back to our delightful evenings?”

“Were those evenings really pleasant to you, Paulina?” asked Mr. Dale, earnestly.

“Ah, Douglas, you must know they were!”

“I cannot know the secrets of your heart, Paulina,” he replied, with unspeakable sadness in his tone. “You have seemed to me all that is bright, and pure, and true. But how do I know that it is not all seeming? How do I know that Reginald Eversleigh’s image may not still hold a place in your heart?”

“You insult me, Douglas!” exclaimed Madame Durski, with dignity. “But I will not suffer myself to be angry with you on the day of your return. I see your health is not entirely restored, since you still harbour these gloomy thoughts and unjust suspicions.”

His most searching scrutiny could perceive no traces of guilt in the lovely face he looked at so anxiously. For a while his suspicions were almost lulled to rest. That soft white hand, which glittered with gems that had been his gift, could not be the hand of an assassin.

He began to feel the soothing influence of hope. Night and day he prayed that he might discover the innocence of her he so fondly loved. But just as he had begun to abandon himself to that sweet influence, despair again took possession of him. All the old symptoms–the fever, the weakness, the unnatural thirst, the dry, burning sensation in his throat–returned; and this time Jarvis was far away. His master had sent him to pay a visit to a married daughter, comfortably settled in the depths of Devonshire.

Douglas Dale went to one of the most distinguished physicians in London. He was determined to consult a new adviser, in order to discover whether the opinion of that other adviser would agree with the opinion of Dr. Harley Westbrook.

Dr. Chippendale, the new physician, asked all the questions previously asked by Dr. Westbrook, and, after much deliberation, he informed his patient, with all proper delicacy and caution, that he was suffering from the influence of slow poison.

“Is my life in danger, Dr. Chippendale?” he asked.

“Not in immediate danger. The poison has evidently been administered in infinitesimal doses. But you cannot too soon withdraw yourself from all those who now surround you. Life is not to be tampered with. The poisoner may take it into his head to increase the doses.”

Douglas Dale left his adviser after a long conversation. He then went to take his farewell of Paulina Durski.

There was no longer the shadow of doubt in his mind. The horrible certainty seemed painfully clear to him. Love must be plucked for ever from his breast, and only contempt and loathing must remain where that divine sentiment had been enthroned.

Since his interview with the physician, he had carefully recalled to memory all the details of his life in Paulina’s society.

She had given him day by day an allotted portion of poison.

How had she administered it?

This was the question which he now sought to solve, for he no longer asked himself whether she was guilty or innocent. He remembered that every evening after dinner he had, in Continental fashion, taken a single glass of liqueur; and this he had received from Paulina’s own hand. It had pleased him to take the tiny, fragile glass from those taper fingers. The delicate liqueur had seemed sweeter to him because it was given by Paulina.

He now felt convinced that it was in this glass of liqueur the poison had been administered to him.

On more than one occasion he had at first declined taking it; but Paulina had always persuaded him, with some pretty speech, some half coquettish, half caressing action.

He found her waiting him as usual: her toilet perfection itself; her beauty enhanced by the care with which she always strove to render herself charming in his eyes. She said playfully that it was a tribute which she offered to her benefactor.

They dined together, with Miss Brewer for their sole companion. She seemed self-contained and emotionless as ever; but if Douglas had not been so entirely absorbed by his thoughts of Paulina, he might have perceived that she looked at him ever and anon with furtive, but searching glances.

There was little conversation, little gaiety at that dinner. Douglas was absent-minded and gloomy. He scarcely ate anything; but the constant thirst from which he suffered obliged him to drink long draughts of water.

After dinner, Miss Brewer brought the glasses and the liqueur to Madame Durski, after her customary manner.

Paulina filled the ruby-stemmed glass with curacoa, and handed it to her lover.

“No, Paulina, I shall take no liqueur to-night.”

“Why not, Douglas?”

“I am not well,” he replied, “and I am growing rather tired of curacoa.”

“As you please,” said Paulina, as she replaced the delicate glass in the stand from which she had just taken it.

Miss Brewer had left the room, and the lovers were alone together. They were seated face to face at the prettily decorated table–one with utter despair in his heart.

“Shall I tell you why I would not take that glass from your hands just now, Paulina Durski?” asked Douglas, after a brief pause, rising to leave the table as he spoke. “Or will you spare me the anguish of speaking words that must cover you with shame?”

“I do not understand you,” murmured Paulina, looking at her lover with a gaze of mingled terror and bewilderment.

“Oh, Paulina!” cried Douglas; “why still endeavour to sustain a deception which I have unmasked? I know all.”

“All what?” gasped the bewildered woman.

“All your guilt–all your baseness. Oh, Paulina, confess the treachery which would have robbed me of life; and which, failing that, has for ever destroyed my peace. If you are human, let some word of remorse, some tardy expression of regret, attest your womanhood.”

“I can only think that he is mad,” murmured Paulina to herself, as she gazed on her accuser with wondering eyes.

“Paulina, at least do not pretend to misunderstand me.”

“Your words,” replied Madame Durski, “seem to me the utterances of a madman. For pity’s sake, calm yourself, and speak plainly.”

“I think that I have spoken, very plainly.”

“I can discover no meaning in your words. What is it you would have me regret? Of what crime do you accuse me?”

“The worst and darkest of all crimes,” replied Douglas; “the crime of murder.”

“Murder?”

“Yes; the crime of the secret poisoner!”

“Douglas!” cried Paulina, with a stifled shriek of terror; and then, recoiling from him suddenly, she fell half fainting into a chair. “Oh, why do I try to reason with him?” she murmured, piteously; “he is mad– he is mad! My poor Douglas!” continued Paulina, sobbing hysterically, “you are mad yourself, and you will drive me mad. Do not speak to me. Leave me to myself. You have terrified me by your wild denunciations. Leave me, Douglas: for pity’s sake, leave me.”

“I will leave you, Paulina,” answered her lover, in a grave, sad voice; “and our parting will be for ever. You cannot deny your guilt, and you can no longer deceive me.”

“Do as you please,” replied Madame Durski, her passionate indignation changing suddenly to an icy calmness. “You have wronged me so deeply, you have insulted me so shamefully, that it matters little what further wrong or insult I suffer at your hands. In my own justification, I will say but this–I am as incapable of the guilt you talk of as I am of understanding how such a wild and groundless accusation can come from you, Douglas Dale, my affianced husband–the man I have loved and trusted, the man whom I have believed the very model of honour and generosity. But this must be madness, and I am not bound to endure the ravings of a lunatic. You have said our farewell was to be spoken to- night. Let it be so. I could not endure a repetition of the scene with which you have just favoured me. I regret most deeply that your generosity has burthened me with, pecuniary obligations which I may never be able to repay, and has, in some measure, deprived me of independence. But even at the hazard of being considered ungrateful, I must tell you that I trust we may meet no more.”

No one can tell the anguish which Paulina Durski endured as she uttered these words in cold, measured accents. It was the supreme effort of a proud, but generous-minded woman, and there was a kind of heroism in that subjugation of a stricken and loving heart.

“Let it be so, Paulina,” answered Douglas, with emotion. “I have no wish to see your fair, false face again. My heart has been broken by your treachery; and my best hope lies in the chance that your hand may have already done its wicked work, and that my life may be forfeited to my confidence in your affection. Let no thought of my gifts trouble you. The fortune which was to have been shared with you is henceforth powerless to purchase one blessing for me. And of the law which you have outraged you need have no few; your secret will never be revealed to mortal ears by me. No investigation will drag to light the details of your crime.”

“_You_ may seek no investigation, Douglas Dale,” cried Paulina, with sudden passion; “but I shall do so, and without delay. You have accused me of a foul and treacherous crime–on what proof I know not. It is for me to prove myself innocent of that black iniquity; and if human ingenuity can fathom the mystery, it shall be fathomed. I will bring you to my feet–yes, to my feet; and you shall beseech my pardon for the wicked wrong you have done me. But even then this breach of your own making shall for ever separate us. I may learn to forgive you, Douglas, but I can never trust you again. And now go.”

She pointed to the door with an imperious gesture. There was a quiet dignity in her manner and her bearing which impressed her accuser in spite of himself.

He bowed, and without another word left the presence of the woman who for so long had been the idol of his heart.

He went from her presence bowed to the very dust by a sorrow which was too deep for tears.

“She is an accomplished actress,” he said to himself; “and to the very last her policy has been defiance. And now my dream is ended, and I awake to a blank, joyless life. A strange fatality seems to have attended Sir Oswald Eversleigh and the inheritors of his wealth. He died broken-hearted by a woman’s falsehood; my brother Lionel bestowed his best affections on the mercenary, fashionable coquette, Lydia Graham, who was ready to accept another lover within a few weeks of her pretended devotion to him; and lastly comes my misery at the hands of a wicked adventuress.”

Douglas Dale resolved to leave London early next day. He returned to his Temple chambers, intending to start for the Continent the next morning.

But when the next day came he did not carry out his intention. He found himself disinclined to seek change of scene, which he felt could bring him no relief of mind. Go where he would, he could not separate himself from the bitter memories of the past few months.

He determined to remain in London; for, to the man who wishes to avoid the companionship of his fellow-men, there is no hermitage more secure than a lodging in the heart of busy, selfish London. He determined to remain, for in London he could obtain information as to the conduct of Paulina.

What would she do now that the stage-play was ended, and deception could no longer avail? Would she once more resume her old habits–open her saloons to the patrician gamblers of West-end London, and steep her weary, guilt-burdened soul in the mad intoxication of the gaming-table?

Would Sir Reginald Eversleigh again assume his old position in her household?–again become her friend and flatterer? She had affected to despise him; but that might have been only a part of the great deception of which Douglas had been the victim.

These were the questions the lonely, heartbroken man asked himself that night, as he sat brooding by his solitary hearth, no longer able to find pleasure in the nightly studies which had once been so delightful to him.

Ah! how deeply he must have loved that woman, when the memory of her guilt poisoned his existence! How madly he still clung to the thought of her!–how intensely he desired to penetrate the secrets of her life!

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

“THY DAY IS COME!”

“What is it, Jane?” asked Lady Eversleigh, rather impatiently, of her maid, when her knock at the door of her sitting-room in Percy Street interrupted the conversation between herself and the detective officer, a conversation intensely and painfully interesting.

“A person, ma’am, who wants to see Mr. Andrews, and will take no denial.”

“Indeed,” said Mr. Larkspur; “that’s very odd: I know of nothing up at present for which they should send any one to me here. However,” and he rose as he spoke, “I suppose I had better see this person. Where is he?”

“In the hall,” replied Jane.

But Lady Eversleigh interposed to prevent Mr. Larkspur’s departure. “Pray do not go,” she said, “unless it concerns this business, unless it is news of my child. This may be something to rob me of your time and attention; and remember I alone have a right to your services.”

“Lor’ bless you, my lady,” said Mr. Larkspur, “I haven’t forgot that; and that’s just what puzzles me. There’s only one man who knows the lay I’m on, and the name I go by, and he knows I would not take anything else till I have reckoned up this; and it would be no good sending anybody after me, unless it were something in some way concerning this business.”

In an instant Lady Eversleigh was as anxious that Mr. Larkspur should see the unknown man as she had been unwilling he should do so. “Pray go to him at once,” she urged; “don’t lose a moment.”

Mr. Larkspur left the room, and Lady Eversleigh dismissed Jane Payland, and awaited his return in an agony of impatience. After the lapse of half an hour, Mr. Larkspur appeared. There were actually some slight traces of emotion in his face, and the colour had lessened considerably in his vulture-like beak. He was followed by a tall, stalwart, fine- looking man, with the unmistakeable gait and air of a sailor. As Lady Eversleigh looked at him in astonishment, Mr. Larkspur said:–

“I ain’t much of a believer in Fate in general, but there’s surely a Fate in this. My lady, this is Captain George Jernam!”

* * * * *

The time had passed slowly and wearily for Rosamond Jernam, and all the efforts conscientiously made by her husband’s aunt, who liked the girl better the more she saw of her, and entirely acquitted her of blame in the mysterious estrangement of the young couple, failed to make her cheerful. She was wont to roam disconsolately for hours about the secluded coast, giving free course to her sadness, and cherishing one dear secret. Rosamond was so much changed in appearance of late that Susan Jernam began to feel seriously uneasy about her. She had lost her pretty fresh colour, and her face wore a haggard, weary look; it was plain to every eye that some hidden grief was preying on her mind. Mrs. Jernam, though a quiet person, and given to the minding of her own affairs, was not quite without “cronies,” and to one of these she confided her anxiety about her niece. The _confidante_ was a certain Mrs. Miller, a respectable person, but lower in the social scale than Mrs. Jernam. She was a widow, and lived in a tiny cottage, close to the beach at Allanbay; she kept no servant, but her trim little dwelling was always the very pink and pattern of neatness. She was of a silent, though not a morose temperament. It was generally understood that Mrs. Miller’s husband had been a seafaring man, and had been drowned many years before she went to live at Allanbay. She had no relatives, and no previous acquaintances in that quiet nook; and if she had been a little higher in the social scale, belonging to that class which requires introductions, she might have lived a life of unbroken solitude. As it was, the neighbours made friends with her by degrees, and the poor widow’s life was not an unhappy or solitary one. Mrs. Jernam had early learned the particulars of her case, and a friendship had grown up between them, of which Mrs. Miller duly acknowledged the condescension on Mrs. Jernam’s part.

Mrs. Jernam called on her humble friend one day, to bestow some small favour, and, to her surprise, found her, not alone as usual, but in the act of taking leave of a man whose appearance was by no means prepossessing, and who was apparently very much disconcerted by Mrs. Jernam’s arrival. Mrs. Jernam immediately proposed to go away and return on another occasion, but the man, who did not hear her name mentioned, said, gruffly:

“No call, ma’am, no call; I’m going away. Good-bye, Polly. Remember what you’ve got to do, and do it.” Then he turned off from the cottage- door, and was out of sight in a few moments.

Mrs. Miller stood looking at her guest, rather awkwardly, but said at length:

“Pray sit down, ma’am. That’s my brother; the only creature I have belonging to me in the world.” And here Mrs. Miller sighed, and looked as if the possession were not an unqualified advantage.

“Has he been here long?” asked Mrs. Jernam.

“No, ma’am; he only came last night, and is gone again. He came to bring me a child to take care of, and a great tax it is.”

“A child!” said Mrs. Jernam, “whose child?”

“That’s more than I can tell you, ma’am,” replied Mrs. Miller; “and more than he told me. She’s an orphan, he says, and her father was a seafaring man, like your nephew, as I’ve heard you speak of. And I’m to have the charge of her for a year, and thirty pounds–it’s handsome, I don’t deny, but he knows that I’d take good care of any child–and she’s a pretty dear, to tell the truth, as sweet a little creature as ever walked. She don’t talk very plain yet, and she says, as well as I can make it out, as her name is Gerty.”

And then Mrs. Miller asked Mrs. Jernam to walk into her little bedroom, and showed her, lying on a neat humble bed, carefully covered with a white coverlet, and in the deep sleep of childhood, the infant heiress of Raynham! If either of the women had only known at whom she was looking, as they scrutinized the child’s fair face and talked of her beauty and her innocence in tearful whispers, looking away from the sleeping form, pitifully, at a little heap of black clothes on a chair by the bed!

“I suppose she’s the child of one of my brother’s old shipmates, as rose to be better off,” said Mrs. Miller, “for she’s fretted about a captain, and cried bitter to go to him when I put her to bed.” Then the two returned to the little parlour, and talked long and earnestly about the child, about the necessity for Mrs. Miller’s now employing the services of “a girl,” and about Rosamond Jernam.

Rosamond was greatly delighted with the child left in Mrs. Miller’s care. The little girl interested her deeply, and every day she passed many hours with her, either at Mrs. Miller’s house or her own. The grace and beauty of the child were remarkable; and as, with the happy facility of childhood, she began to recover from the first feeling of strangeness and fear, the little creature was soon happy in her new, humble home. She was too young to appreciate and lament the change in her lot; and, as she was well fed, well cared for, and treated with the most caressing affection, she was perfectly happy. Rosamond began to feel hopeful under the influence of the child’s smiles and playful talk. The time must pass, she told herself, her husband must return to her, and soon there would be for them a household angel like this one, to bring peace and happiness permanently to their home.

Susan Jernam and Rosamond were much puzzled about this lovely child, Gerty Smith, as she was called. Not only her looks, but certain little ways she had, contradicted Mrs. Miller’s theory of her birth, and though they fully credited the good woman’s statement, and believed her as ignorant of the truth as themselves, they became convinced that there was some mystery about this child. Mrs. Miller had never spoken of her brother until he made his sudden and brief appearance at Allanbay; and unsuspicious and unlearned in the ways of the world as Mrs. Jernam was, she had perceived that he belonged to the doubtful classes. The truth was, that Mrs. Miller could have told them nothing about her brother beyond the general fact of his being “a bad lot.” She had heard of him only at rare intervals since he had left his father’s honest home, in his scampish, incorrigible boyhood, and ran away to sea. She had heard little good of him, and years had sometimes passed over during which she knew nothing of his fate. But even in Black Milsom–thief, murderer, villain, though he was–there was one little trace of good left. He did care a little for his sister; he did “look her up” at intervals in his career of crime; he did send her small sums of money–whence derived she had, happily, no suspicion–when he was “flush;” and he did hope “Old Polly” would never find out how bad a fellow he had been. Mrs. Miller’s nature was a very simple and confiding one, and she never speculated much upon her brother’s doings. She was pleased to have the charge of the child, and she fulfilled it to the best of her ability; but those signs and tokens of a higher station, which Susan Jernam and Rosamond recognized, were quite beyond her ken.

One morning the little household at Susan Jernam’s cottage, consisting only of the mistress and her maid, was roused by a violent knocking at the door. Mrs. Jernam was the first to open it, and to her surprise and alarm, she found Mrs. Miller standing at the door, her face expressing alarm and grief, and little Gerty, wrapped in a large woollen shawl, in her arms. Her explanation of what had occurred thus to upset her was at first incoherent enough, but by degrees Mrs. Jernam learned that Mrs. Miller had come to entreat her to take care of the child for a day or two as she was obliged to go to Plymouth at once.

“To Plymouth!” said Mrs. Jernam–“how’s that?–but come in, come in”– and they went into Mrs. Jernam’s spotlessly neat parlour, that parlour in which Valentine Jernam had been permitted to smoke, and had told his aunt all his adventures, little recking of the final one then so close upon him. In the parlour, Mrs. Miller set little Gerty down, and the child, giddy and confused with her sudden waking, and being thus carried through the chill morning air, climbed up on the trim little sofa, and curling herself into a corner of it, sat quite motionless. Then, her agitation finding vent in tears, Mrs. Miller told Susan Jernam what had befallen. It was this:–

Just as day was dawning, a dog-cart, driven by a gentleman’s servant, had come to her door–the dog-cart was now standing at a little distance from Mrs. Jernam’s house–and she had been called out by the servant, and told that he had been sent to bring her over to Plymouth, with as little delay as possible. It appeared that her brother, who had gone to Plymouth after depositing the child with her, had been run over in the street by a heavy coal-waggon, and severely injured. He had been carried to a hospital, and was for some time insensible. When he recovered his speech he was delirious, and the surgeons pronounced his case hopeless. He was now in a dying state, but conscious; and had been visited by a clergyman named Colburne, the man’s master, who had induced him to express contrition for his past life, and to make such reparation as now lay in his power. The first step towards this, as he informed Mr. Colburne, was seeing his sister. There was no time to be lost; the man’s life was fast ebbing; it was only a matter of hours; and the good clergyman, who had been with the dying man far into the night before he had succeeded in inducing him to consent to this step, hurried home, and sent his servant off to Allanbay before daybreak.

There was little delay. A few words of earnest sympathy from Mrs. Jernam, an assurance that the child should be well cared for, and Mrs. Miller left the house, ran down the road to the dog-cart, climbed into it, and was driven away.

Rosamond came in from her own little dwelling to her aunt’s, at an early hour that day, and when the first surprise and pleasure of finding the child there had passed away, the two women fell to speculating on what kind of revelation it might be which awaited Mrs. Miller.

“Depend upon it, aunt,” said Susan, “we shall hear the truth about little Gerty now.”

* * * * *

The hours wore solemnly away in the great building, consecrated to suffering and its relief, in which Black Milsom lay dying, with his sister kneeling by his bed, while the good clergyman, who had had pity on the soul of the sinner, sat on the other side, gravely and compassionately looking at them both. The meeting between the brother and sister had been very distressing, and the agony exhibited by the poor woman when she was made aware that her brother had acknowledged himself a criminal of the deepest dye, was intense. Calm–almost stupor–had succeeded to her wild grief, and the clergyman had spoken words of consolation and hope to the dying and the living. The surgeons had seen the man for the last time; there was nothing more to be done for him now–nothing to do but to wait for the equal foot approaching with remorseless tread.

It was indeed a fearful catalogue of crime to which the Rev. Philip Colburne had listened, and had written with his own hand at the dying man’s dictation. Not often has such a revelation been made to mortal ears, and the two who heard it–the Christian minister and the trembling, horrified sister–felt that the scene could never be effaced from their memories.

With only two items in that awful list this story has to do.

The first is, the murder of Valentine Jernam. As Mrs. Miller heard her brother, with gasping breath and feeble utterance, tell that horrible story, her heart died within her. She knew it well. Who at Allanbay had not heard of the murder of Mrs. Jernam’s darling nephew, the bright, popular, kind-hearted seaman, whose coming had been a jubilee in the little port; whose disappearance had made so painful a sensation? She had heard the story from his aunt, and Rosamond had told her how her husband lived in the hope of finding out and punishing his brother’s murderer. And now he was found, this murderer, this thief, this guilt- burdened criminal: and he was her only brother, and dying. Ah, well, Valentine Jernam was avenged. Providence had exacted George Jernam’s vengeance: the wrath of man was not needed here.

The second crime with which this story has to do was one of old date, one of the earliest in Black Milsom’s dreadful career. The dying wretch told Mr. Colburne how he had headed a gang of thieves, chiefly composed of sailors who had deserted their ships, some twenty-one or two years before this time, when retribution had come upon him, and in their company had robbed the villa of an English lady at Florence. This crime had been committed with the connivance and assistance of the Italian woman who was nurse to the English lady’s child. Milsom, then a handsome young fellow, had offered marriage to the woman, which offer was accepted; and she had made his taking her and the child with him– for nothing would induce her to leave the infant–a condition of her aid. He did so; but the hardship of her new life soon killed the Italian woman; and the child was left to the mercy of Milsom and an old hag who acted as his drudge and accomplice. What mercy she met with at those hands the reader knows, for that child was the future wife of Sir Oswald Eversleigh. Mr. Colburne listened to this portion of Milsom’s confession with intense interest.

“The name?” he asked; “the name of the lady who lived at Florence, the mother of the child? Tell me the name!”

“Verner,” said the dying man, in a hoarse whisper, “Lady Verner; the child’s name was Anna.”

He was very near his end when he finished his terrible story. While Mr. Colburne was trying to speak peace to the poor darkened, frightened, guilty soul, Mrs. Miller knelt by the bedside, sobbing convulsively. Suddenly she remembered the child she had the care of. Had his account of her been true? Was she also the victim of a crime? She waited, with desperate impatience, but with the habitual respect of her class, until Mr. Colburne had ceased to speak. Then she put her lips close to the dying man’s ear, and said–

“Thomas, Thomas, for God’s sake tell me about the child–who is she? Is what you told me true? If not, set it right–oh, brother, brother, set it right–before it is too late.”

The imploring tone of her voice reached her brother’s dull ear; a faint spasm, as though he strove in vain to speak, crossed his white drawn lips. But the disfigured head in its ghastly bandages was motionless; the shattered arm in its wrappings made no gesture. In terror, in despair, his sister started to her feet, and looked eagerly, closely, into his face. In vain the white lips parted, the eyelids quivered, a shiver shook the broad, brawny chest–then all was still, and Black Milsom was dead!

On the following morning Mr. Colburne took Mrs. Miller back to Allanbay, after giving her a night’s rest in his own hospitable home. He left her at her own cottage, and went to Mrs. Jernam’s house, as he had promised the afflicted woman he would save her the pain of telling the terrible story which was to clear up the mystery surrounding the merchant captain’s fate. When the clergyman reached the house, and lifted his hand to the bright knocker, he heard a sound of many and gleeful voices within–a sound which died away as he knocked for admittance.

Presently the door was opened by Mrs. Jernam’s trim maid, who replied, when Mr. Colburne asked if he could see Mrs. Jernam, and if she were alone–as a hint that he did not wish to see any one beside–

“Please, sir, missus is in, but she ain’t alone; Captain George and Mrs. George’s father have just come–not half an hour ago.”

* * * * *

And so Joyce Harker’s self-imposed task was at an end, and George Jernam’s long brooding upon his brother’s fate was over. A solemn stillness came upon the happy party at Allanbay, and Rosamond’s tears fell upon little Gerty, as she slept upon her bosom–slept where George’s child was soon to slumber. Mr. Colburne asked no questions about the child. Mrs. Miller had said nothing to him respecting her charge, and Milsom’s death, ensuing immediately on her question, had caused it to pass unnoticed. George Jernam, his wife, and Captain Duncombe started for London early the next day. They had come to a unanimous conclusion, on consultation with Mrs. Miller, that there was a mystery about the child, and that the best thing to be done was to communicate with the police at once. “Besides,” said George, “I must see Mr. Larkspur, and tell him he need not trouble himself farther; now that accident, or, as I believe Providence, has done for us what all his skill failed to do.”

When George Jernam presented himself at Mr. Larkspur’s office he underwent a rigid inspection by that gentleman’s “deputy,” and having, by a few hints as to the nature of his business, led that astute person to think that it bore on his principal’s present quest, he was entrusted with the address of Mr. Andrews, in Percy Street.

* * * * *

“So, you see, I don’t get my five hundred, because I didn’t find out Captain Jernam’s murderer,” said Mr. Larkspur, after a long and agitating explanation had put Lady Eversleigh in possession of all the foregoing circumstances. “And here’s Captain Jernam’s brother comes and takes the job of finding little missy out of my hands–does my work for me as clean as a whistle.”

“But I did not know I was doing it, Mr. Larkspur,” said George. “I did not know the little Gerty that my Rosamond is so sorry to part with, was Miss Eversleigh; you found it out, from what I told you.”

“As if any fool could fail to find out that,” said Mr. Larkspur good- humouredly. He had a strong conviction that neither the relinquishment of Lady Eversleigh’s designs of punishing her enemies, nor the finding of the heiress by other than his agency, would inflict any injury upon him–a conviction which was amply justified by his future experience.

“My good friend,” said Lady Eversleigh, “if I do not need your aid to restore my child to me, I need it to restore me to my mother. I cannot realize the truth that I have a mother, I can only feel it. I can only feel how she must have suffered by remembering my own anguish. And hers, how much more cruel, how prolonged, how hopeless! You will see to this at once, Mr. Larkspur, while I go to my child.”

“Lord bless you, my lady,” said Mr. Larkspur, cheerily, “there’s no occasion to look very far. You have not forgotten the lady, she that lives so quiet, yet so stylish, near Richmond, and that Sir Reginald Eversleigh pays such attention to? You remember all I told you about her, and how I found out that she was Mr. Dale’s aunt, and he know nothing about her?”

“Yes, yes,” said Lady Eversleigh, breathlessly, “I remember.”

“Well, my lady, that party near Richmond is Lady Verner, your ladyship’s mother.”

Lady Eversleigh was well nigh overwhelmed by the throng of feelings which pressed upon her. She, the despised outcast, the first-cousin of the man who had scorned her, a connection of the great family into which she had married, her husband’s equal in rank, and in fortune! She, the woman whose beauty had been used to lure Valentine Jernam to his death, she who had almost witnessed his murder; she owed to Valentine’s brother the discovery of her parentage, the defeat of her calumniators, her restoration to a high place in society, and to family ties, the destruction of Reginald Eversleigh’s designs on Lady Verner’s property, and–greatest, best boon of all–the recovery of her child. Her own devices, her own wilfulness had but led her into deeper danger, into more bitter sorrow; but Providence had done great things for her by the hands of this stranger, between whom and herself there existed so sinister a link.

“Can you ever forgive me, Captain Jernam,” she said, “for my share in your brother’s fate? Must I always be hateful in your sight? Will Mrs. Jernam ever permit me to thank her for her goodness to my child?”

For the answer, George Jernam stooped and kissed her hand, with all the natural grace inspired by natural good-feeling, and Lady Eversleigh felt that she had gained a friend where she had feared to meet a relentless foe. The little party remained long in consultation, and it was decided that nothing was to be done about Lady Verner until Lady Eversleigh had reclaimed her child. George Jernam entreated her to permit him to go to Allanbay and bring the little girl to her mother, but she would not consent. She insisted upon George’s bringing his wife to see her immediately, as the preparations for departure did not admit of her calling upon Mrs. Jernam. The gentle, happy Rosamond complied willingly, and so thoroughly had the beautiful lady won the girl’s heart before they were long together, that Rosamond herself proposed that George should accompany Lady Eversleigh to Allanbay. With pretty imperiousness she bore down Lady Eversleigh’s grateful scruples, and the result was, that the two started that same evening, travelled as fast as post-horses could carry them, and arrived at Allanbay before even Lady Eversleigh’s impatience could find the journey long. Susan Jernam had kept the child with her, and she it was who put little Gerty into her mother’s arms. Rarely in her life had Lady Eversleigh lain down to rest with do tranquil a heart as that with which she slept under the humble roof of Captain Jernam’s aunt.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

“CONFUSION WORSE THAN DEATH.”

Sir Reginald Eversleigh had paid Victor Carrington a long visit, at the cottage at Maida Hill, on the day which had witnessed the distressing interview and angry parting between Douglas Dale and Madame Durski. They had talked a great deal, and Reginald had been struck by the strange excitement–the almost feverish exultation–in Carrington’s tone and manner. He was not more openly communicative as to his plans than usual, but he expressed his expectation of triumph in a way which Eversleigh had never heard him do before.

“You seem quite sanguine, Victor,” said Sir Reginald. “Mind, I don’t ask questions, but you really are sure all is going well?”

“Our affairs march, _mon ami_. And you are making your game with the old lady at Richmond admirably, are you not?”

“Nothing could be better, and indeed I ought to succeed, for it’s dull work, I can tell you, especially when she begins talking resignedly about the child that was stolen a few centuries ago, and her hopes of meeting it in a better world. Horrid bore–dreadful bosh; but anything is worth bearing if money is to be made of it–good, sure, sterling money. I think it will do me good to see some real money–bank-notes and gold, and that sort of thing–for an accommodation bill is the only form of cash I’ve handled since I came of age. How happy we shall be when it all comes right–your game and mine!” continued the baronet. “My plans are very simple. I shall only exchange my shabby lodgings in the Strand for apartments in Piccadilly, overlooking the Park, of course. I shall resume my old position among my own set, and enjoy life after my own fashion; and when once I am possessor of a handsome fortune, I dare say I shall have no difficulty in getting a rich wife. And you, Victor, how shall you employ our wealth?”

“In the restoration of my name,” replied the Frenchman, with suppressed intensity. “Yes, Sir Reginald, the one purpose of my life is told in those words. I have been an outcast and an adventurer, friendless, penniless; but I am the last scion of a noble house, and to restore to that house some small portion of its long-lost splendour has been the one dream of my manhood. I am not given to talk much of that which lies nearest my heart, and never until to-night have I spoken to you of my single ambition; but you, who have watched me toiling upon a weary road, wading through a morass of guilt, must surely have guessed that the pole-star must needs be a bright one which could lure me onward upon so hideous a pathway. The end has come at last, and I now speak freely. My name is not Carrington. I am Viscomte Champfontaine, of Champfontaine, in the department of Charente, and my name was once the grandest in western France; but the Revolution robbed us of lands and wealth, and there remain now but four rugged stone towers of that splendid chateau which once rose proudly above the woods of Champfontaine, like a picture by Gustave Dore. The fountain in the field still flows, limpid as in those days when the soldier-Gaul pitched his tent beside its waters, and took for himself the name of Champfontaine. To restore that name, to rebuild that chateau–that is the dream which I have cherished.”

Excited by this unwonted revelation of his feelings, and by the anticipation of the realization of all his hopes, the Frenchman rose, and paced rapidly up and down the room.

“I will go to Champfontaine,” he said. “I will look once more upon the crumbling towers, so soon to be restored to their primitive strength and grandeur.”

Reginald watched him wonderingly. This enthusiasm about an ancient name was beyond his comprehension. He too, bore a name that had been honourable for centuries, and he had recklessly degraded that name. He had begun life with all the best gifts of fortune in his hands, and had squandered all.

“I hear your cousin Douglas is very ill,” said Carrington, checking his excited manner, and speaking with a sudden change of tone, which produced a strange thrill of Sir Reginald’s somewhat weak nerves. “I should recommend you to go and call upon him at his chambers. Never mind any coolness there may have been between you. You needn’t see him, you know; in fact it will be much better for you to avoid doing so. But just call and make the inquiry. I am really anxious to know if there is anything the matter with him.”

Sir Reginald Eversleigh looked at the Frenchman with a half doubtful, half horror-stricken look–such a look as Faust may have cast at Mephistopheles, when Gretchen’s soldier-brother fell, stricken by the invisible sword of the demon.

“I’ll tell you what it is, Victor,” he said, after a pause, “unless our luck changes pretty quickly, I shall throw up the sponge some fine morning, and blow my brains out. Affairs have been desperate with me for a long time, and your fine schemes have not made me a halfpenny richer. I begin to think that, in spite of all your cleverness, you’re no better than a bungler.”

“I shall begin to think so myself,” answered Victor, between his set teeth, “unless success comes to us speedily. We have been working underground, and the work has been slow and wearisome; but the end cannot be far distant,” he added, with a heavy sigh. “Go and inquire after your cousin’s health.”

And so Reginald Eversleigh strove to dismiss the subject from his mind. So powerful is self-deception, that he almost succeeded in persuading himself that he had no part in Carrington’s plots–that he did not know at what he was aiming and that he was, personally, absolved from any share in the crime that was being perpetrated, if crime there was; but that there was, he even affected himself to doubt.

After Sir Reginald left him, Victor Carrington threw himself into a chair in a fit of deep despondency. After a time that mood passed away, and he roused himself, and thought of what he had to do that day. He had seen Miss Brewer only the previous day. He had learned how much alarmed Paulina was about her lover’s health, and with what good reason. Victor Carrington came to a resolution that this day should be the last of waiting–of suspense. He took a phial from the press where he kept all deadly drugs, placed it in his breast-pocket, and went to his mother’s sitting-room. The widow was sitting, as usual, at her embroidery-frame. She counted some stitches before she raised her head to look at her son. But when she did look up, her own face changed, and she said,–

“Victor, you are ill. I know you are. You look very ill–not like yourself. What ails you?”

“Nothing, mother,” replied Victor; “nothing that a little fresh air and exercise will not remove. I have been a little over-excited, that is all. I have been thinking of the old home that sheltered my grandfather before the sequestrations of ’93–the home that could be bought back to-day for an old song, and which a few thousands, judiciously invested, might restore to something of its old grandeur. One of the Champfontaines received Francis I. and his sister Marguerite in the old chateau which they burnt during the Terror. Mother, I will tell you a secret to-day: ever since I can remember having a wish, the one great desire of my life has been the desire to restore the place and the name; and I hope to accomplish that desire soon, mother–very soon.”

“Victor, this is the talk of a madman!” exclaimed the Frenchwoman, alarmed by her son’s unwonted vehemence.

“No, mother, it is the talk of a man who feels himself on the verge of a great success–or–a stupendous failure.”

“I cannot understand–“

“There is no need for you to understand any more than this: I have been playing a bold game, and I believe it will prove a winning one.”

“Is this game an honest one, Victor?”

“Honest? oh, yes!” answered the surgeon, with an ominous laugh, “why should I be not honest? Does not the world teach a man to be honest? See what noble rewards it offers for honesty.”

He took a crumpled letter from his pocket as he spoke, and threw it across the table to his mother.

“Read that, mother,” he said; “that is my reward for ten years’ honest toil in a laborious profession. Captain Halkard, the inaugurator of an Arctic expedition for scientific purposes, writes to invite me to join his ship as surgeon. He has heard of my conscientious devotion to my profession–my exceptional talents–see, those are his exact words, and he offers me the post of ship’s surgeon, with a honorarium of fifty pounds. The voyage is supposed to last six months; it is much more likely to last a year; it is most likely to last for ever–for, from the place to which these men are going, the chances are against any man’s return. And for unutterable hardship, for the hazard of my life, for my exceptional talents, my conscientious devotion, he offers me fifty pounds. That, mother, is the price which honesty commands in the great market of life.”

“But it might lead to something, Victor,” murmured the mother, as she put down the letter, pleased by the writer’s praises of her son.

“Oh, yes, it might lead to a few words of commendation in a scientific journal; possibly a degree of F.R.G.S.; or very probably a grave under the ice, with a grizzly bear for sexton.”

“You will not accept the offer?”

“Not unless my great scheme fails at the last moment–as it cannot fail–as it cannot!” he repeated, with the air of a man who tries to realize a possibility too horrible for imagination.

* * * * *

It was very late that night before Paulina Durski, worn out by the emotion she had undergone, could be persuaded to retire to rest. After Douglas had left her, all the firmness forsook her, all her pride was overthrown. Despair unutterable took possession of her. With him went her last hope–her one only chance of happiness. She flung herself, face downwards, on her sofa, and gave way to the wildest, most agonizing grief. Thus Miss Brewer found her, and eagerly questioned her concerning the cause of her distress. But she could obtain no explanation from Paulina, who only answered, in a voice broken by convulsive sobs, “Some other time, some other time; don’t ask me now.” So Miss Brewer was forced to be silent, if not content, and at length she persuaded Paulina to go to bed.

The faithful friend arranged everything with her own hands for Madame Durski’s comfort, and would not consent to leave her till she had lain down to rest. The broken-hearted woman bade her friend good night calmly enough, but before Miss Brewer reached the door, she heard Paulina’s sobs burst forth again, and saw that she had covered her face with her hands, and buried it in the pillow.

* * * * *

It was late on the following morning when Miss Brewer entered Paulina’s room, and having softly opened the shutters, drew near the bed with a noiseless step. The bed-clothes, which were wont to be tossed and tumbled by the restless sleeper, were smooth and undisturbed. Never had Miss Brewer seen her mistress in an attitude so expressive of complete repose.

“Poor thing! she has had a good night after all,” thought the companion.

She bent over the quiet figure, the pale face, so statuesque in that calm sleep, and gently touched the white, listless hand.

Yes–this indeed was perfect repose; but it was the repose of death. The bottle from which Paulina had habitually taken a daily modicum of opium, lay on the ground by the bedside, empty.

Whether the luckless, hopeless, heart-broken woman, overwhelmed by the sense of an inscrutable Fate that forbade her every chance of peace or happiness, had, in her supreme despair, committed the sin of the suicide, who shall say? It is possible that she had only taken an over- dose of the perilous compound unconsciously, in the dull apathy of her despair.

She was dead. Life for her had been one long humiliation, one long struggle. And at last, when the cup of happiness had been offered to her lips, a cruel hand had snatched it away from her.

* * * * *

When Miss Brewer recovered her senses and her power of action, she sent for Douglas Dale. News of the awful event had got abroad by that time, through the terrified servants; and two doctors and a policeman were on the premises. A messenger was easily procured, who tore off in a hansom to the Temple. As the man ran up the steps leading to Dr. Johnson’s Buildings, where Dale’s new chambers were situated, he encountered two ladies on the first landing.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, pushing them, however, very decidedly aside as he spoke, “I must see Mr. Dale; please do not detain him. It is most important.” The ladies stood aside exchanging frightened and curious looks, but made no attempt to make their presence known to Mr. Dale, who came out of his rooms in a few minutes, attended by the messenger, and passed them without seeming in the least aware of their presence, and wearing the ghastliest face that ever was seen on mortal man. That face struck them dumb and motionless, and it was not until Jarvis had twice asked them their names and business, that the elder lady replied. “They would call again,” she told him, and handed him cards bearing the names of “Lady Verner,” “Lady Eversleigh.”

* * * * *

Victor Carrington appeared at Hilton House early in the afternoon. He had calculated that his work must needs be very near its completion, and he came prepared to hear of Douglas Dale’s mortal illness.

The blow that awaited him was a death-blow. Miss Brewer had told Douglas all: the lies, the artifices, by which the man Carton had contrived to make himself a constant visitor in that house. In a moment, without the mention of the schemer’s real name, Heaven’s light was let in upon the mystery; the dark enigma was solved, and the woman, so tenderly loved and so cruelly wronged, was exonerated.

Too late–too late! _That_ was the agonizing reflection which smote the heart of Douglas Dale, with a pain more terrible than the sharpest death-pang. “I have broken her heart!” he cried. “I have broken that true, devoted heart!”

The appearance of Victor Carrington was the signal for such a burst of rage as even his iron nature could scarcely brook unshaken.

“Miscreant! devil! incarnate iniquity!” cried Douglas, as he grasped and grappled with the baffled plotter. “You have tried to murder me– and you have tried to murder her! I might have forgiven you the first crime–I will drag you to the halter for the second, and think myself poorly revenged when I hear the rabble yelling beneath your scaffold!”

Happily for Carrington, the effects of the poison had reduced his victim to extreme weakness. The convulsive grasp loosened, the hoarse voice died into a whisper, and Douglas Dale swooned as helplessly as a woman.

“What does it mean?” asked Victor. “Is this man mad?”

“We have all been mad!” returned Miss Brewer, passionately. “The blind, besotted dupes of your demoniac wickedness! Paulina Durski is dead!”

“Dead!”

“Yes. There was a quarrel, yesterday, between these two–and he left her. I found her this morning–dead! I have told him all–the part I have played at your bidding. I shall tell it again in a court of justice, I pray God!”

“You can tell it when and where you please,” replied Victor, with horrible calmness. “I shall not be there to hear it.”

He walked out of the house. Douglas Dale had not yet recovered consciousness, and there was no one to hinder Carrington’s departure.

For some time he walked on, unconscious whither he went, unable to grasp or realize the events that had befallen. But at last-dimly, darkly, grim shapes arose out of the chaos of his brain.

There would be a trial–some kind of trial!–Douglas Dale would not be baffled of vengeance if the law could give it him. His crime–what was it, if it could be proved? An attempt to murder–an attempt the basest, the most hideous, and revolting. What hope could he have of mercy–he, utterly merciless himself, expected no such weakness from his fellow- men.

But in this supreme hour of utter defeat, his thoughts did not dwell on the hazards of the future. The chief bitterness of his soul was the agony of disappointment–of baffled hope–of humiliation, degradation unspeakable. He had thought himself invincible, the master of his fellow-men, by the supremacy of intellectual power, and remorseless cruelty. And he was what? A baffled trickster, whose every move upon the great chessboard had been a separate mistake, leading step by step to the irrevocable sentence–checkmate!

The ruined towers of Champfontaine arose before him, as in a vision, black against a blood-red sky.

“I can understand those mad devils of ’93–I can understand the roll- call of the guillotine–the noyades–the conflagrations–the foul orgies of murderous drunkards, drunken with blood. Those men had schemed as I have schemed, and worked as I have worked, and waited as I have waited–to fail like me!”

He had walked far from the West-end, into some dreary road eastward of the City, choosing by some instinct the quietest streets, before he was calm enough to contemplate the perils of his position, or to decide upon the course he should take.

A few minutes’ reflection told him that he must fly–Douglas Dale would doubtless hunt him as a wild beast is hunted. Where was he to go? Was there any lair, or covert, in all that wide city where he might be safely hidden from the vengeance of the man he had wronged so deeply?

He remembered Captain Halkard’s letter. He dragged the crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket, and read a few lines. Yes: it was as he had thought. The “Pandion” was to leave Gravesend at five o’clock next morning.

“I will go to the ice-graves and the bears!” he exclaimed. “Let them track me there!”

Energetic always, no less energetic even in this hour of desperation, he made his way down to the sailors’ quarter, and spent his few last pounds in the purchase of a scanty outfit. After doing this, he dined frugally at a quiet tavern, and then took the steamer for Gravesend.

He slept on board the “Pandion.” The place offered him had not been filled by any one else. It was not a very tempting post, or a very tempting expedition. The men who had organized it were enthusiasts, imbued with that fever-thirst of the explorer which has made many martyrs, from the age of the Cabots to the days of Franklin.

The “Pandion” sailed in that gray cheerless morning, her white sails gleaming ghastly athwart the chill mists of the river, and so vanished for ever Victor Carrington from the eyes of all men, save those who went with him. The fate of that expedition was never known. Beneath what iceberg the “Pandion” found her grave none can tell. Brave and noble hearts perished with her, and to die with those good men was too honourable a doom for such a wretch as Victor Carrington.

CHAPTER XL.

“SO SHALL YE REAP.”

Little now remains to be told of this tale of crime and retribution, of suffering and compensation. Miss Brewer told her dreadful story, as far as she knew it, with perfect truth; and her evidence, together with the evidence of the chemist who had supplied Madame Durski from time to time with the fatal consoler of all her pains and sorrows, made it clear that the luckless woman, lying quietly in the darkened room at Hilton House, had died from an over-dose of opium.

Douglas Dale could not attend that inquest. He was stricken down with fever; the fate of the woman he had so loved, so unjustly suspected, nearly cost him his life, and when he recovered sufficiently, he left England, not to return for three years. Before his departure he saw Lady Eversleigh and her mother, and established with them a bond of friendship as close as that of their kin. He provided liberally for Miss Brewer, but her rescue from poverty brought her no happiness: she was a broken-hearted woman.

Victor Carrington’s mother retired into a convent, and was probably as happy as she had ever been. She had loved him but little, whose only virtue was that he had loved her much.

Captain Copplestone’s rapture knew no bounds when he clasped little Gertrude in his arms once more. He was almost jealous of Rosamond Jernam, when he found how great a hold she had obtained on the heart of her charge; but his jealousy was mingled with gratitude, and he joined Lady Eversleigh in testifying his friendship for the tender-hearted woman who had protected and cherished the heiress of Raynham in the hour of her desolation.

It is not to be supposed that the world remained long in ignorance of this romantic episode in the common-place story of every-day life.

Paragraphs found their way into the newspapers, no one knew how, and society marvelled at the good fortune of Sir Oswald’s widow.

“That woman’s wealth must be boundless,” exclaimed aristocratic dowagers, for whom the grip of poverty’s bony fingers had been tight and cruel. “Her husband left her magnificent estates, and an enormous amount of funded property; and now a mother drops down from the skies for her benefit–a mother who is reported to be almost as rich as herself.”

* * * * *

Amongst those who envied Lady Eversleigh’s good fortune, there was none whose envy was so bitter as that of her husband’s disappointed nephew, Sir Reginald.

This woman had stood between him and fortune, and it would have been happiness to him to see her grovelling in the dust, a beggar and an outcast. Instead of this, he heard of her exaltation, and he hated her with an intense hatred which was almost childish in its purposeless fury.

He speedily found, however, that life was miserable without his evil counsellor. The Frenchman’s unabating confidence in ultimate success had sustained the penniless idler in the darkest day of misfortune. But now he found himself quite alone; and there was no voice to promise future triumph. He knew that the game of life had been played to the last card, and that it was lost.

His feeble character was not equal to support the burden of poverty and despair.

He dared not show his face at any of the clubs where he had once been so distinguished a member; for he knew that the voice of society was against him.

Thus hopeless, friendless, and abandoned by his kind, Sir Reginald Eversleigh had recourse to the commonest form of consolation. He fled from a country in which his name had become odious, and took up his abode in Paris, where he found a miserable lodging in one of the narrowest alleys in the neighbourhood of the Luxembourg, which was then a labyrinth of narrow streets and lanes.

Here he could afford to buy brandy, for at that date brandy was much cheaper in France than it is now. Here he could indulge his growing propensity for strong drink to the uttermost extent of his means, and could drown his sorrows, and drink destruction to his enemies, in fiery draughts of cognac.

For some years he inhabited the same dirty garret, keeping the key of his wretched chamber, going up and down the crumbling old staircase uncared for and unnoticed. Few who had known him in the past would have recognized the once elegant young man in this latter stage of his existence. Form and features, complexion and expression, were alike degraded. The garments worn by him, who had once been the boasted patron of crack West-end tailors, were now shapeless and hideous. The dandy of the clubs had become a perambulating mass of rags.

Every day when the sun shone he buttoned his greasy, threadbare overcoat across his breast, and crawled to the public garden of the Luxembourg, where he might be seen shuffling slipshod along the sunniest walk, an object of contempt and aversion in the eyes of nursery-maids and _grisettes_–a butt for the dare-devil students of the quarter.

Had he any consciousness of his degradation?

Yes; that was the undying vulture which preyed upon his entrails–the consuming fire that was never quenched.

During the brief interval of each day in which he was sober, Sir Reginald Eversleigh was wont to reflect upon the past. He knew himself to be the wretch and outcast he was; and, looking back at his start in life, he could but remember how different his career might have been had he so chosen.

In those hours the slow tears made furrows in his haggard cheeks–the tears of remorse, vain repentance, that came too late for earth; but not, perhaps, utterly too late for heaven, since, even for this last and worst of sinners, there might be mercy.

Thus his life passed–a changeless routine, unbroken by one bright interval, one friendly visit, one sign or token to show that there was any link between this lonely wretch and the rest of humanity.

One day the porter, who lived in a little den at the bottom of the lodging-house staircase, suddenly missed the familiar figure which had gone by his rabbit-hutch every day for the last six years; the besotted face that had stared at him morning and evening with the blank, unseeing gaze of the habitual drunkard.

“What has become of the old toper who lives up yonder among the chimney-pots?” cried the porter, suddenly, to the wife of his bosom. “I have not seen him to-day nor yesterday, nor for many days. He must be ill. I will go upstairs and make inquiries by-and-by, when I have leisure.”

The porter waited for a leisure half-hour after dark, and then tramped wearily up the steep old staircase with a lighted candle to see after the missing lodger. He might have waited even longer without detriment to Sir Reginald Eversleigh.

The baronet had been dead many days, suffocated by the fumes of his poor little charcoal stove. A trap-door in the roof, which he had been accustomed to open for the ventilation of his garret, had been closed by the wind, and the baronet had passed unconsciously from sleep to death.

He had died, and no one had been aware of his death. The people of the house did not know either his name or his country. His burial was that of an unknown pauper; and the bones of the last male scion of the house of Eversleigh were mingled with the bones of Parisian paupers in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise.

While Sir Reginald Eversleigh dragged out the wretched remnant of his existence in a dingy Parisian alley, there was perfect peace and tranquil happiness for the woman against whose fair fame he and Victor Carrington had so basely conspired.

Yes, Anna was at peace; surrounded by friends; delighted day by day to watch the budding loveliness, the sportive grace of Gertrude Eversleigh, the idolized heiress of Raynham. As Lady Eversleigh paced the terraces of an Italian garden, her mother by her side, with Gertrude clinging to her side; as she looked out over the vast domain which owned her as mistress–it might seem that fortune had lavished her fairest gifts into the lap of her who had been once a friendless stranger, singing in the taverns of Wapping.

Wonderful indeed had been the transitions which had befallen her; but even now, when the horizon seemed so fair before her, there were dark shadows upon the past which, in some measure, clouded the brightness of the present, and dimmed the radiance of the future.

She could not forget her night of agony in the house amongst the marshes beyond Ratcliff Highway; she could not cease to lament the loss of that noble friend who had rescued her in the hour of her despair.

The world wondered at the prolonged widowhood of the mistress of Raynham. People were surprised to find that a woman in the golden prime of womanhood and beauty could be constant to the memory of a husband old enough to have been her father. But in due time society learned to accept the fact as a matter of course, and Lady Eversleigh was no longer the subject of hopes and speculations.

Her constant gratitude and friendship for the Jernams suffered no diminution as time went on. The difference in their social position made no difference to her; and no more frequent or more welcome guests were seen at Raynham than Captain Duncombe, his daughter and son-in- law, and honest Joyce Harker. Lady Eversleigh had a particular regard for the man who had so true and faithful a heart, and she would often talk to him; but she never mentioned the subject of that miserable night on which he had seen her down at Wapping. That subject was tacitly avoided by both. There was a pain too intense, a memory too dark, associated with the events of that period.

And so the story ends. There is no sound of pleasant wedding bells to close my record with their merry, jangling chorus. Is it not the fate of the innocent to suffer in this life for the sins of the wicked? Lady Eversleigh’s widowhood, Douglas Dale’s lonely life, are the work of Victor Carrington–a work not to be undone upon this earth. If he has failed in all else, he has succeeded at least in this: he has ruined the happiness of two lives. For both his victims time brings peace–a sober gladness that is not without its charm. For one a child’s affection–a child’s growing grace of mind and form, bring a happiness on, clouded at intervals by the dark shadows of past sorrow. But in the heart of Douglas Dale there is an empty place which can never be filled upon earth.

“Will the Eternal and all-seeing One forgive her for her reckless, useless life, and shall I meet her among the blest in heaven?” he asks himself sometimes, and then he remembers the holy words of comfort unspeakable: “Come unto me, ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Had not Paulina been “weary, and heavy laden,” bowed down by the burden of a false accusation, friendless, hopeless, from her very cradle?

He thought of the illimitable Mercy, and he dared to hope for the day in which he should meet her he loved “Beyond the Veil.”

THE END.