Run to Earth by M. E. Braddon (page 9)

and it shall be the business of my future life to banish from your remembrance every sorrow and every humiliation that you have suffered in the past. Say that you will be my wife, Paulina. I love you as few women are loved. I am rich, and have the power to remove you far from every association that is painful to you. Tell me that I may be the guardian of your future existence.”

Paulina contemplated her lover for a few moments with singular earnestness. She was deeply impressed by his generous devotion, and she could not but compare this self-sacrificing love with the base selfishness of Reginald Eversleigh’s conduct.

“You do not ask me if I can return your affection,” she said, after that earnest look. “You offer to raise me from degradation and poverty, and you demand nothing in return.”

“No, Paulina,” replied Douglas; “I would not make a _bargain_ with the woman I love. I know that you have not yet learned to love me, and yet I do not fear for the future, if you consent to become my wife. True love, such as mine, rarely fails to win its reward, sooner or later. I am content to wait. It will be sufficient happiness to me to know that I have rescued you from a miserable and degrading position.”

“You are only too generous,” murmured Paulina, softly; “only too generous.”

“And now tell me the immediate object of this most welcome summons. I will not press you for a prompt reply to my suit; I will trust that time may be my friend. Tell me how I can serve you, and why you sent for me to-day?”

“I sent for you that I might ask you for the loan of two hundred pounds, to satisfy the claims of my most urgent creditors, and to prevent the necessity of an ignominious flight.”

“I will write you a cheque immediately for five hundred,” said Douglas. “You can drive to my banker’s, and get it cashed there. Or stay; it would not be so well for my banker to know that I lent you money. Let me come again to you this evening, and bring ink sum in bank-notes. That will give me an excuse for coming.”

“How can I ever thank you sufficiently?”

“Do not thank me at all. Only let me love you, looking forward hopefully to the day in-which you may learn to love me.” “That day must surely come ere long,” replied Paulina, thoughtfully. “Gratitude so profound as mine, esteem so sincere, must needs grow into a warmer feeling.”

“Yes, Paulina,” said Douglas, “if your heart is free. Forgive me if I approach a subject painful to you and to me. Reginald Eversleigh–my cousin–have you seen him often lately?”

“I have not seen him since he left London for Hallgrove. I am not likely to see him again.”

“I am very glad of that. There is but one fear in my mind when I think of our future, Paulina.”

“And that is?”

“The fear that Reginald Eversleigh may come between you and me.”

“You need no longer fear that,” replied Madame Durski. “You have been so noble, so devoted in your conduct to me, that I must be indeed a worthless wretch if I shrink from the painful duty of laying my heart bare before you. I have loved your cousin Reginald, foolishly, blindly; but there must come an end to all folly; there must come a day when the bandage falls from the eyes that have obstinately shunned the light. That day has come for me; and Sir Reginald Eversleigh is henceforward nothing more to me than the veriest stranger.”

“A thousand thanks, dearest, for that assurance,” exclaimed Douglas; “and now trust in me. Tour future shall be so bright and happy that the past will seem to you no more than a troubled dream.”

CHAPTER XXVIII.

PREPARING THE GROUND.

Black Milsom made his appearance in the little village of Raynham immediately after Lady Eversleigh’s departure from the castle. But on this occasion it would have been very difficult for those who had seen him at the date of Sir Oswald Eversleigh’s funeral to recognize, in the respectable-looking, well-dressed citizen of to-day, the ragged tramp of that period.

While Honoria Eversleigh was living under a false name in Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road, the man who called himself her father, established himself in a little river-side public-house, under the shadow of Raynham Castle. The house in question had never borne too good a character; and its reputation was in nowise improved when, on the death of its owner, it passed into the custody of Mr. Milsom, who came down to Raynham one November morning, almost immediately after Lady Eversleigh’s departure, saw the “Cat and Fiddle” public-house vacant, and went straight to the attorney who had the letting of it, to offer himself as a tenant, announcing himself to the lawyer as Thomas Maunders.

The attorney at first looked rather suspiciously at the gentleman who had earned for himself the ominous nickname of Black Milsom; but when the would-be tenant offered to pay a year’s rent in advance down on the nail, the man of law melted, and took the money.

Thomas Milsom lost no time in taking possession of his new abode. It was the haunt of the lower class of agricultural labourers, and of the bargemen, who moored their barges sometimes beneath the shadow of Raynham Bridge, while they dawdled away a few lazy hours in the village public-house.

Any one who had cared to study Mr. Milsom’s face and manners during his residence at Raynham, would have speedily perceived that the life did not suit him. He lounged at the door of the low-gabled cottage, looking out into the village street with a moody and sullen countenance.

He drank a great deal, and swore not a little, and led altogether as dissolute a life as it was possible to lead in that peaceful village.

No sooner had Mr. Milsom established himself at Raynham, than he made it his business to find out the exact state of affairs at the castle. He contrived to entice one of the under-servants into his bar-parlour, and entertained the man so liberally, with a smoking jorum of strong rum-punch, that a friendly acquaintance was established between the two on the spot.

“There’s nothing in my place you ain’t welcome to, James Harwood,” he said. “You’re uncommonly like a favourite brother of mine that died young of the measles; and I’ve taken a fancy to you on account of that likeness. Come when you like, and as often as you like, and call for what you like; and there shan’t be no talk of scores between you and me. I’m a bitter foe, and a firm friend. When I like a man there’s nothing I couldn’t do to prove my liking; when I hate him–“

Here Mr. Milsom’s speech died away into an ominous growl; and James Harwood, who was rather a timid young man, felt as if drops of cold water had been running down his back. But the rum-punch was very nice; and he saw no reason why he should refuse Mr. Milsom’s offer of friendship.

He did drop in very often, having plenty of leisure evenings in which to amuse himself; and through him Thomas Milsom was enabled to become familiar with every detail of the household at Raynham Castle.

“No news of your lady, I suppose, Mr. Harwood?” Milsom said to him one Sunday evening in January. “Not coming home yet, I suppose?”

“No, Mr. Maunders,” answered the groom; “not to my knowledge. And as to news, there ain’t anymore news of her than if she and Miss Payland had gone off to the very wildest part of Africa, where, if you feel lonesome, and want company, your only choice lies between tigers and rattlesnakes.”

“Never mind Africa! What was it that you were going to say about your lady?”

“Well, I was about to inform you,” replied the groom, with offended dignity, “when you took me up so uncommon short as to prevent me–I was about to observe that, although we haven’t received no news whatsoever from my lady direct, we have received a little bit of news promiscuous that is rather puzzling, in a manner of speaking.”

“What is it?”

“Well, you see, Mr. Maunders,” began James Harwood, with extreme solemnity, “it is given out that Lady Eversleigh is gone abroad to the Continent–wherever that place may be situated–and a very nice place I dare say it is, when you get there; and it is likewise given out that Miss Payland have gone with her.”

“Well, what then?”

“I really wish you hadn’t such a habit of taking people up short, Mr. Maunders,” remonstrated the groom. “I was on the point of telling you that our head-coachman had a holiday this Christmas; and where does he go but up to London, to see his friends, which live there; and while in London where does he go but to Drury Lane Theatre; and while coming out of Drury Lane Theatre who does he set his eyes on but Miss Payland, Lady Eversleigh’s own maid, as large as life, and hanging on the arm of a respectable elderly man, which might be her father. Our head-coachman warn’t near enough to her to speak to her; and though he tried to catch her eye he couldn’t catch it; but he’ll take his Bible oath that the young woman he saw was Jane Payland, Lady Eversleigh’s own maid. Now, that’s rather a curious circumstance, is it not, Mr. Maunders?”

“It is, rather,” answered the landlord; “but it seems to me your mistress, Lady Eversleigh, is rather a strange person altogether. It’s a strange thing for a mother to run away to foreign parts–if she has gone to foreign parts–and leave her only child behind her.”

“Yes; and a child she was so fond of too; that’s the strangest part of the whole business,” said the groom. “I’m sure to see that mother and child together, you’d have thought there was no power on earth would part them; and yet, all of a sudden, my lady goes off, and leaves Miss Gertrude behind her. But if Miss Gertrude was a royal princess, she couldn’t be more watched over, or taken more care of, than she is. To see Mrs. Morden, the governess, with her, you’d think as the little girl was made of barley-sugar, and would melt away with a drop of rain; and to see Captain Copplestone with her, you’d think as she was the crown-jewels of England, and that everybody was on the watch to get the chance of stealing her.”

Black Milsom smiled as the groom said this. It was a grim smile, not by any means pleasant to see; but James Harwood was not an observer, and he was looking tenderly at his last spoonful of rum-punch, and wondering within himself whether Mr. Milsom was likely to offer him another glass of that delicious beverage.

“And pray what sort of a customer is Captain Copplestone?” asked Milsom, thoughtfully.

“An uncommonly tough customer,” replied James Harwood; “that’s what he is. If it wasn’t for his rheumatic gout, he’s a man that would be ready to fight the champion of England any day in the week. There’s very few things the captain wouldn’t do in the way of downright pluck; but, you see, whatever pluck a man may have, it can’t help him much when he’s laid by the heels with the rheumatic gout, as the captain is very often.”

“Ha! and who takes care of little missy then?”

“Why, the captain. He’s like a watch-dog, and his kennel is at little missy’s door. That’s what he says himself, in his queer way. Miss Gertrude and her governess live in three handsome rooms in the south wing–my lady’s own rooms–and the principal way to these rooms is along a wide corridor. So what does the captain do when my lady goes away, but order a great iron door down from London, and has the corridor shut off with this iron door, bolted, and locked, and barred, so that the cleverest burglar that ever were couldn’t get it open.”

“But how do people get to the little girl’s rooms, then?” asked Thomas Milsom.

“Why, through a small bed-room, intended for Lady Eversleigh’s maid; and a little bit of a dressing-room, that poor Sir Oswald used to keep his boots, and hat-boxes, and such like in. These rooms open on to the second staircase; and what does the captain do but have these two small rooms fitted up for hisself and his servant, Solomon Grundy, with a thin wooden partition, with little glass spy-holes in it, put across the two rooms, to make a kind of passage to the rooms beyond; so that night and day he can hear every footstep that goes by to Miss Gertrude’s rooms. Now, what do you think of such whims and fancies?”

“I think the captain must be stark staring mad,” answered Milsom; but it was to be observed that he said this in rather an absent manner, and appeared to be thinking deeply.

“Oh no, he ain’t,” said James Harwood; “there ain’t a sharper customer going.”

And then, finding that the landlord of the “Cat and Fiddle” did not offer anything more in the way of refreshment, Mr. Harwood departed.

There was a full moon that January night, and when Mr. Milsom had attended to the wants of his customers, seen the last of them to the door a little before twelve o’clock, shut his shutters, and extinguished the lights, he stole quietly out of his house, went forth into the deserted street, and made his way towards the summit of the hill on which the castle stood, like an ancient fortress, frowning darkly upon the humble habitations beneath it.

He passed the archway and the noble gothic gates, and crept along by the fine old wall that enclosed the park, where the interlaced branches of giant oaks and beeches were white under the snow that had fallen upon them, and formed a picture that was almost like a scene in Fairyland.

He climbed the wall at a spot where a thick curtain of ivy afforded him a safe footing, and dropped softly upon the ground beneath, where the snow had drifted into a heap, and made a soft bed for him to fall on.

“There will be more snow before daylight to-morrow,” he muttered to himself, “if I’m any judge of the weather; and there’ll be no trace of my footsteps to give the hint of mischief.” He ran across the park, leaped the light, invisible fence dividing the park from the gardens, and crept cautiously along a shrubberied pathway, where the evergreens afforded him an impenetrable screen.

Thus concealed from the eyes of any chance watcher, he contrived to approach one end of the terraced slope which formed the garden front of the castle. Each terrace was adorned with stone balustrades, surmounted by large vases, also of stone; and, sheltered by these vases, Milsom ascended to the southern angle of the great pile of building.

Seven lighted windows at this southern end of the castle indicated the apartments occupied by the heiress of Raynham and her eccentric guardian. The lights burned but dimly, like the night-lamps left burning during the hours of rest; and Milsom had ascertained from Mr. Harwood that the household retired before eleven o’clock, at the latest.

The apartments occupied by the little girl were on the first floor. The massive stone walls here were unadorned with ivy, nor were there any of those elaborate decorations in stonework which might have afforded a hold for the foot of the climber. The bare stone wall frowned down upon Thomas Milsom, impregnable as the walls of Newgate itself.

“No,” he muttered to himself, after a long and thoughtful scrutiny; “no man will ever get at those rooms from the outside; no, not if he had the power of changing himself into a cat or a monkey. Whoever wants to have a peep at the heiress of Raynham must go through this valiant captain’s chamber. Well, well, I’ve heard of tricks played upon faithful watch-dogs before to-day. There’s very few things a man can’t do, if he only tries hard enough; and I mean to be revenged upon my Lady Eversleigh!” He paused for a few moments, standing close against the wall of the castle, sheltered by its black shadow, and looking down upon the broad domain beneath.

“And this is all hers, is it P–lands and houses; horses and carriages; powdered footmen to fetch and carry for her; jewels to wear; plates and dishes of solid gold to eat her dinner off, if she likes! All hers! And she refuses me a few hundred pounds, and defies me, does she? We’ll see whether that’s a safe game. I’ve sworn to have my revenge, and I’ll have it,” he muttered, shaking his brawny fist, as if some phantom figure were standing before him in the wintry moonlight. “I can afford to wait; I wouldn’t mind waiting years to get it; but I’ll have it, if I grow old and gray while I’m watching and plotting for it. I’ll be patient as Time, but I’ll have it. She has refused me a few hundreds, has she? I’ll see her there, on the ground at my feet, grovelling like a beaten dog, offering me half her fortune–all her fortune–her very life itself! I’ll humble her proud spirit! I’ll bring her grandeur down to the the dust. She won’t own me for a father, won’t she! Why, if I choose, she shall tramp barefoot through the mud after me, singing street-ballads in every town in England, and going round with my battered old hat to beg for halfpence afterwards. I’ll humble her! I’ll do it–I’ll do it–as sure as there’s a moon in the sky!”

CHAPTER XXIX.

AT WATCH.

Sanguine as Victor Carrington had been, confidently as he had calculated upon the fascination which Paulina had exerted over Douglas Dale, he was not prepared for the news contained in Miss Brewer’s promised letter, which reached him punctually, a few hours after Paulina had become the affianced wife of Douglas Dale. This was indeed success beyond his hopes. He had not expected this result for some days, at the very earliest, and the surprise and pleasure with which he learned it were almost equal. Carrington did not believe in good; he absolutely distrusted and despised human nature, and he never dreamed of imputing Madame Durski’s conduct to anything but coquetry and fickleness. “She’s on with the new love, beyond a doubt,” said he to himself, as he read Miss Brewer’s letter; “whether she’s off with the old is quite another question, and rests with him rather than with her, I fancy.”

Victor Carrington’s first move was to present himself before Madame Durski on the following day, at the hour at which she habitually received visitors. He took up the confidential conversation which they had had on the last occasion of their meeting, as if it had not been dropped in the interval, and came at once to the subject of Douglas Dale. This plan answered admirably; Paulina was naturally full of the subject, and the ice of formalism had been sufficiently broken between her and Victor Carrington, to enable her to refer to the interview which had taken place between herself and Douglas Dale without any impropriety. When she had done so, Carrington began to play his part. He assured Paulina of his warm interest in her, of the influence which he possessed over Sir Reginald Eversleigh, and the fears which he entertained of some treacherous proceeding on Reginald’s part which might place her in a most unpleasant position.

“Reginald has no real love for you,” said Carrington; “he would not hesitate to sacrifice you to the meanest of his interests, but his vanity and his temper are such that it is impossible to calculate upon what sort of folly he may be guilty.”

Paulina Durski was a thorough woman; and, therefore, having utterly discarded Reginald from her heart, having learned to substitute utter contempt for love, she was not averse to receiving any information, to learning any opinion, which tended to justify her change of feeling.

“What harm can he do me with Douglas?” asked Paulina, in alarm.

“Who can tell that, Madame Durski?” replied Carrington. “But this is not to the purpose. I don’t pretend to be wholly disinterested in this matter. I tell you plainly I am not so; it is very important to me that Sir Reginald should marry a woman of fortune, and should not marry you.”

“He never had any intention of marrying me,” said Paulina, hastily and bitterly.

“No, I don’t believe he had; but he would have liked very well to have compromised you in the eyes of society, so that no other man would have married you, to have bragged of relations existing between you which never did exist, and to have effectually ruined your fortunes in any other direction than the gaming-table. Now this I am determined he shall not do, and as I have more power over him than any one else, it lies with me to prevent it. What that power springs from, or how I have hitherto exercised it, you need not inquire, Madame Durski; I only wish you to believe that I exercise it in this instance for your good, for your protection.”

Paulina murmured some vague words of acknowledgment. He continued–

“If Reginald Eversleigh knows I am here, constantly cognizant of the state of affairs, and prepared to act for your advantage, he will not dare to come here and compromise you by his violent and unreasonable jealousy; he will be forced–it is needless to explain how–to keep his envy and rage to himself, and to suppress the enmity with which he regards Douglas Dale. Let me tell you, Madame Durski, Reginald’s enmity is no trifling rock ahead in life, and your engaged lover has that rock to dread.”

Paulina turned very pale.

“Save him from it, Mr. Carrington,” she said, appealingly. “Save him from it, and let me have a little happiness in this weary world, if such a thing there be.”

“I will, Madame Durski,” replied Victor. “You have already done as I have counselled you, and you have no reason to regret the result.”

The soft, dreamy smile of happy love stole over Paulina’s face as she listened to him.

“Let me be here with you as much as possible, and you will have no reason to fear Reginald. He is capable of anything, but he is afraid of me, and if he knows that I am determined to advance the marriage of yourself and Douglas Dale, he will not venture to oppose it openly. But there is one condition which I must append to my frequent presence here”–he spoke as though he were conferring the greatest favour on her–“Mr. Dale must not know me as Victor Carrington.”

With an expression in which there was something of the suspicious quickness which Miss Brewer had manifested when Carrington made a similar statement to her, Paulina asked him why.

Then Victor told her his version of the story of Honoria Eversleigh, the “unfortunate woman,” whom Douglas Dale’s unhappy and misguided uncle had raised to such undoubted rank and fortune, and the wild and absurd accusations the wretched woman had made against him.

“Mr. Dale never saw me,” said Victor, “and I know not whether he was thoroughly aware of the absurdity, the insanity of this woman’s accusations. At all events, I don’t wish to recall any unpleasantness to his mind, and therefore I venture to propose that I should visit here, and be introduced to him as Mr. Carton. The fraud is a very harmless one; what do you say, Madame Durski?”

Paulina had her full share of the feminine love of mystery and intrigue, and she consented at once. “What can the name matter,” she thought, “if it is really necessary for this man to be here?”

“And there is another consideration which we must take into account,” said Victor; “it is this. Mr. Dale may not like to find any man established here, in the degree of intimacy to which (in your interests) I aspire; and therefore I propose, with your leave, to pass as a relation of Miss Brewer’s–say, her cousin. This will thoroughly account for my intimacy here. What do you say, Madame Durski?”

“As you please,” said Paulina, carelessly. “I am sure you are right, Mr. Carrington–Carton, I mean, and I am sure you mean kindly and well by me. But how odd it will seem to Charlotte and me, lonely creatures, waifs and derelicts as we have been so long, to have any one with whom we can claim even a pretended kinship!”

She spoke with a mingled bitterness and levity which have been painful to any man of right feelings, but which was pleasant to Victor Carrington, because it showed him how helpless and ignorant she was, how her mind had been warped, how ready a tool he had found in her. When the interview between them came to an end, it had been arranged that Mr. Dale was to be introduced on the following day at Hilton House to Miss Brewer’s cousin, Mr. Carton.

The introduction took place. A very short time, well employed in close observation, sufficed to assure Victor that Douglas Dale was as much in love as any man need be to be certain of committing any number of follies, and that Paulina was a changed woman under the influence of the same soul-subduing sentiment which, though not so strong in her case, was assuming strength and intensity as each day taught her more and more of her lover’s moral and intellectual excellence. Douglas Dale was much pleased with Mr. Carton; and that gentleman did all in his power to render himself agreeable, and so far succeeded that, before the close of the evening, he had made a considerable advance towards establishing a very pleasant intimacy with Sir Reginald Eversleigh’s cousin.

Victor Carrington, always an observant man, had peculiarly the air of being on the watch that day during dinner. He noticed everything that Paulina ate and drank, and he took equal note of Miss Brewer’s and Douglas Dale’s choice of meats and wines. Miss Brewer drank no wine, Paulina very little, and Douglas Dale exclusively claret. When the dinner had reached its conclusion, a stand of liqueurs was placed upon the table, one of the few art-treasures left to the impoverished adventuress, rare and fragile Venetian flacons, and tiny goblets of opal and ruby glass. These glasses were the especial admiration of Douglas Dale, and Paulina filled the ruby goblet with curacoa. She touched the edge of the glass playfully with her lips as she handed it to her lover; but Victor observed that she did not taste the liqueur.

“You do not affect curacoa, madame?” he asked, carelessly.

“No; I never take that, or indeed, any other liqueur.”

“And yet you drink scarcely any wine?”

“No,” replied Paulina, indifferently; “I take very little wine.”

“Indeed!”

There was the faintest possible significance in Carrington’s tone as he said this. He had watched Madame Durski closely during dinner, and he had noted an excitement in her manner, a nervous vivacity, such as are generally inspired by something stronger than water. And yet this woman had taken little else than water during the dinner. And it was to be observed that the almost febrile gaiety which distinguished her manner this evening had been as apparent when she first entered the drawing- room as it was now. This was a physiological or psychological enigma, extremely interesting to Mr. Carrington. He was not slow to find a solution that was, in his opinion, sufficiently satisfactory. “That woman takes opium in some form or other,” he said to himself.

Miss Brewer did not touch the liqueur in question, and her cousin took Maraschino. After a very short interval, Douglas Dale and his new friend rose to join the ladies. They crossed the hall together, but as they reached the drawing-room door, Mr. Carrington discovered that he had dropped a letter in the dining-room, and returned to find it, first opening the drawing-room door that Dale might pass through it.

All was undisturbed in the dining-room; the table was just as they had left it. Victor approached the table, took up the carafon containing curacoa, and, holding it up to the light with one hand, poured the contents of a small phial into it with the other. He watched the one liquid mingling with the other until no further traces of the operation were visible; and then setting the carafon softly down where he had found it, went smiling across the hall and joined the ladies.

CHAPTER XXX.

FOUND WANTING.

Reginald Eversleigh was in complete ignorance of Victor Carrington’s proceedings, when he received the letter summoning him to an interview with his friend at a stated time. Carrington’s estimate of Reginald’s character was quite correct. All this time his vanity had been chafing under Paulina’s silence and apparent oblivion of him.

He had not received any letter from Paulina, fond as she had been of writing to him long, half-despairing letters, full of complaint against destiny, and breathing in every line that hopeless love which the beautiful Austrian woman had so long wasted on the egotist and coward, whose baseness she had half suspected even while she still clung to him.

Sir Reginald had been in the habit of receiving these letters as coolly as if they had been but the fitting tribute to his transcendant merits.

“Poor Paulina!” he murmured sometimes, as he folded the perfumed pages, after running his eyes carelessly over their contents; “poor Paulina! how devotedly she loves me. And what a pity she hasn’t a penny she can call her own. If she were a great heiress, now, what could be more delightful than this devotion? But, under existing circumstances, it is nothing but an embarrassment–a bore. Unfortunately, I cannot be brutal enough to tell her this plainly: and so matters go on. And I fear, in spite of all my hints, she may believe in the possibility of my ultimately making a sacrifice of my prospects For her sake.”

This was how Reginald Eversleigh felt, while Paulina was scattering at his feet the treasures of a disinterested affection.

He had been vain and selfish from boyhood, and his vices grew stronger with increasing years. His nature was hardened, and not chastened, by the trials and disappointments which had befallen him.

In the hour of his poverty and degradation it had been a triumph for him to win the devotion of a woman whom many men–men better than himself–had loved in vain.

It was a rich tribute to the graces of him who had once been the irresistible Reginald Eversleigh, the favourite of fashionable drawing- rooms.

Thus it was that, when Paulina’s letters suddenly ceased, Sir Reginald was at once mortified and indignant. He had made up his mind to obey Victor’s suggestion, or rather, command, by abstaining from either visiting or writing to Paulina; but he had not been prepared for a similar line of proceeding on her part, and it hurt his vanity much. She had ceased to write. Could she have ceased to care for him? Could any one else, richer–more disinterested–have usurped his place in her heart?

The baronet remembered what Victor Carrington had said about Douglas Dale; but he could not for one moment believe that his cousin–a man whom he considered infinitely beneath him–had the power to win Paulina Durski’s affection.

“She may perhaps encourage him,” he said to himself, “especially now that his income is doubled. She might even accept him as a husband– women are so mercenary. But her heart will never cease to be mine.”

Sir Reginald waited a week, a fortnight, but there came no letter from Paulina. He called on Carrington, according to appointment, but his friend had changed his mind, or his tactics, and gave him no explanation.

Victor had been a daily visitor at Hilton House during the week which had intervened since the day he had dined there and been introduced to Douglas Dale. His observation had enabled him to decide upon accelerating the progress of his designs. The hold which Paulina had obtained upon Douglas Dale’s affection was secure; he had proposed to her much sooner than Victor had anticipated; the perfect understanding and confidence subsisting between them rendered the cautious game which he had intended to play unnecessary, and he did not now care how soon a final rupture between Paulina and Reginald should take place. Indeed, for two of his purposes–the establishment of an avowed quarrel between Douglas Dale and his cousin, Sir Reginald, and the infliction of ever- growing injury on Paulina’s reputation,–the sooner such a rupture could be brought about the better. Therefore Victor Carrington assumed a tone of reserve and mystery, which did not fail to exasperate Sir Reginald.

“Do not question me, Reginald,” he said. “You are afflicted with a lack of moral courage, and your want of nerve would only enfeeble my hand. Know nothing–expect nothing. Those who are at work for you know how to do their work quietly. Oh, by the way, I want you to sign a little document–very much the style of thing you gave me at Raynham Castle.”

Nothing could be more careless than the Frenchman’s tone and manner as he said this; but the document in question was a deed of gift, by which Reginald Eversleigh bestowed upon Victor Carrington the clear half of whatever income should arise to him, from real or personal property, from the date of the first day of June following.

“I am to give you half my income?”

“Yes, my dear Reginald, after the first of next June. You know that I am working laboriously to bring about good fortune for you. You cannot suppose that I am working for nothing. If you do not choose to sign this document, neither do I choose to devote myself any longer to your interest.”

“And what if you fail?”

“If I fail, the document in question is so much waste paper, since you have no income at present, nor are likely to have any income between this and next June, unless by my agency.”

The result was the same as usual. Reginald signed the deed, without even taking the trouble to study its full bearing.

“Have you seen Paulina lately?” he asked, afterwards.

“Not very lately.”

“I don’t know what’s amiss with her,” exclaimed Reginald, peevishly; “she has not written to me to ask explanation of my absence and silence.”

“Perhaps she grew tired of writing to a person who valued her letters so lightly.”

“I was glad enough to hear from her,” answered Reginald; “but I could not be expected to find time to answer all her letters. Women have nothing better to do than to scribble long epistles.”

“Perhaps Madame Durski has found some one who will take the trouble to answer her letters,” said Victor.

After this, the two men parted, and Reginald Eversleigh called a cab, in which he drove down to Hilton House.

He might have stayed away much longer, in self-interested obedience to Carrington, had he been sure of Paulina’s unabated devotion; but he was piqued by her silence, and he wanted to discover whether there was a rival in the field.

He knew Madame Durski’s habits, and that it was not till late in the afternoon that she was to be seen.

It was nearly six o’clock when he drove up to the door of Hilton House. Carlo Toas admitted him, and favoured him with a searching and somewhat severe scrutiny, as he led the way to the drawing-room in which Paulina was wont to receive her guests.

Here Sir Reginald felt some little surprise, and a touch of mortification, on beholding the aspect of things. He had expected to find Paulina pensive, unhappy, perhaps ill. He had expected to see her agitated at his coming. He had pondered much upon the cessation of her letters; and he had told himself that she had ceased to write because she was angry with him–with that anger which exists only where there is love.

To his surprise, he found her brilliant, radiant, dressed in her most charming style.

Never had he seen her looking more beautiful or more happy.

He pressed the widow’s hand tenderly, and contemplated her for some moments in silence.

“My dear Paulina,” he said at last, “I never saw you looking more lovely than to-night. And yet to-night I almost feared to find you ill.”

“Indeed; and why so?” she asked. Her tone was the ordinary tone of society, from which it was impossible to draw any inference.

“Because it is so long since I heard from you.”

“I have grown tired of writing letters that were rarely honoured by your notice.”

“So, so,” thought the baronet; “I was right. She is offended.”

“To what do I owe this visit?” asked Madame Durski.

“She is desperately angry,” thought the baronet. “My dear Paulina,” he said, aloud, “can you imagine that your letters were indifferent to me? I have been busy, and, as you know, I have been away from London.”

“Yes,” she said; “you spent your Christmas very agreeably, I believe.”

“Not at all, I assure you. A bachelors’ party in a country parsonage is one of the dullest things possible, to say nothing of the tragical event which ended my visit,” added Reginald, his cheek paling as he spoke.

“A bachelors’ party!” repeated Paulina; “there were no ladies, then, at your cousin’s house?”

“None.”

“Indeed!”

Paulina Durski’s lip curled contemptuously, but she did not openly convict Sir Reginald of the deliberate falsehood he had uttered.

“I am very glad you have come to me,” she said, presently, “because I have urgent need of your help.”

“My dear Paulina, believe me–” began the baronet

“Do not make your protest till you have heard what I have to ask,” said Madame Durski. “You know how troublesome my creditors had become before Christmas. The time has arrived when they must be paid, or when I–“

She stopped, and looked searchingly at the face of her companion.

“When you–what?” he asked. “What is the alternative, Paulina?”

“I think you ought to know as well as I,” she answered. “I must either pay those debts or fly from this place, and from this country, disgraced. I appeal to you in this bitter hour of need. Can you not help me–you, who have professed to love me?”

“Surely, Paulina, you cannot doubt my love,” replied Sir Reginald; “unhappily, there is no magical process by which the truest and purest love can transform itself into money. I have not a twenty-pound note in the world.”

“Indeed; and the four hundred and fifty pounds you won from Lord Caversham just before Christmas–is that money gone?”

“Every shilling of it,” answered Reginald, coolly.

He had notes to the amount of nearly two hundred pounds in his desk; but he was the last man in Christendom to sacrifice money which he himself required, and his luxurious habits kept him always deeply in debt.

“You must have disposed of it very speedily. Surely, it is not all gone, Reginald. I think a hundred would satisfy my creditors, for a time at least.”

“I tell you it is gone, Paulina. I gave you a considerable sum at the time I won the money–you should remember.”

“Yes, I remember perfectly. You gave me fifty pounds–fifty pounds for the support of the house which enabled you to entrap your dupes, while I was the bait to lure them to their ruin. Oh, you have been very generous, very noble; and now that your dupes are tired of being cheated–now that your cat’s paw has become useless to you–I am to leave the country, because you will not sacrifice one selfish desire to save me from disgrace.”

“This is absurd, Paulina,” exclaimed the baronet, impatiently; “you talk the usual nonsense women indulge in when they can’t have everything their own way. It is not in my power to help you to pay your creditors, and you had much better slip quietly away while you are free to do so, and before they contrive to get you into prison. You know what Sheridan said about frittering away his money in paying his debts. There’s no knowing where to leave off if you once begin that sort of thing.”

“You would have me steal away in secret, like what you English call a swindler!”

“You needn’t dwell upon unpleasant names. Some of the best people in England have been obliged to cross the water for the same reasons that render your residence here unpleasant. There’s nothing to be gained by sentimental talk about the business, my dear Paulina. My friends at the clubs have begun to grow suspicious of this house, and I don’t think there’s a chance of my ever winning another sovereign in these rooms. Why, then, should you remain to be tormented by your creditors? Return to Paris, where you have twice as many devoted slaves and admirers as in this detestable straight-laced land of ours. I will slip across as soon as ever I can settle my affairs here some way or other, and once more you may be queen of a brilliant _salon_, while I–“

“While you may find a convenient cat’s paw for getting hold of new plunder,” cried Paulina, with unmitigated scorn. Then, with a sudden burst of passion, she exclaimed, “Oh, Sir Reginald Eversleigh, I thank Providence for this interview. At last–at last, I understand you completely. I have been testing you, Sir Reginald–I have been sounding your character. I have stooped to beg for help from you, in order that I might know the broken reed on which I have leaned. And now I can laugh at you, and despise you. Go, Sir Reginald Eversleigh; this house is mine–my home–no longer a private gambling-house–no longer a snare for the delusion of your rich friends. I am no longer friendless. My debts have been paid–paid by one who, if he had owned but one sixpence, would have given it to me, content to be penniless himself for my sake. I have no need of your help. I am not obliged to creep away in the night like a felon, from the house that has sheltered me. I can now dare to call myself mistress of this house, unfettered by debt, untrammelled by the shameful secrets that made my life odious to me; and my first act as mistress of this house shall be to forbid its doors to you.”

“Indeed, Madame Durski!” cried Reginald, with a sneer; “this is a wonderful change.”

“You thought, perhaps, there were no limits to a woman’s folly,” said Paulina; “but you see you were wrong. There is an end even to that. And now, Sir Reginald Eversleigh, I will wish you good evening, and farewell.”

“Is this a farce, Paulina?” asked the baronet, in a voice that was almost stifled by rage.

“No, Sir Reginald, it is a stern reality,” answered Madame Durski, laying her hand on the bell.

Her summons was speedily answered by Carlo Toas.

“Carlo, the door,” she said, quietly.

The baronet gave her one look–a dark and threatening glance–and then left the room, followed by the Spaniard, who conducted him to his cab with every token of grave respect.

“Curse her!” muttered Sir Reginald, between his set teeth, as he drove away from Hilton House. “It must be Douglas Dale who has given her the power to insult me thus, and he shall pay for her insolence. But why did Victor bring those two together? An alliance between them can only result in mischief to me. I must and will fathom his motive for conduct that seems so incomprehensible.”

* * * * *

Sir Reginald and his fatal ally, Carrington, met on the following day, and the former angrily related the scene which had been enacted at Hilton House.

“Your influence has been at work there,” he exclaimed. “You have brought about an alliance between this woman and Douglas Dale.”

“I have,” answered Victor, coolly. “Mr. Dale has offered her his hand and fortune, as well as his heart, and has been accepted.”

“You are going to play me false, Victor Carrington!”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, or else why take such pains to bring about this marriage?”

“You are a fool, Reginald Eversleigh, and an obstinate fool, or you would not harp upon this subject after what I have said. I have told you that the marriage which you fear will never take place.”

“How will you prevent it?”

“As easily as I could bring it about, did I choose to do so. Pshaw! my dear boy, the simple, honest people in this world are so many puppets, and it needs but the master-mind to pull the strings.”

“If this marriage is not intended to take place, why have you brought about an engagement between Paulina and Douglas?” asked the baronet, in nowise convinced by what his ally had said. “I have my reasons, and good ones, though you are too dull of brain to perceive them,” replied Victor, impatiently. “You and your cousin, Douglas Dale, have been fast friends, have you not?”

“We have.”

“Listen to me, then. If he were to die without direct heirs you are the only person who would profit by his death; and if he, a young; man, powerful of frame, in robust health, no likely subject for disease, were to die, leaving you owner of ten thousand a year, and were to die while in the habit of holding daily intercourse with you, known to be your friend and companion, is it not just possible that malevolent and suspicious people might drop strange hints as to the cause of his death? They might harp upon your motives for wishing him out of the way. They might dwell upon the fact that you were so much together, and that you had such opportunities–mark me, Reginald, _opportunities_– for tampering with the one solitary life which stood between you and fortune. They might say all this, might they not?”

“Yes,” replied Reginald, in his gloomiest tone, “they might.”

“Very well, then, if you take my advice, you will cut your cousin’s acquaintance from this time. You will take care to let your friends of the clubs know that he has supplanted you in the affections of the woman you loved, and that you and he are no longer on speaking terms. You will cut him publicly at one of your clubs; so that the fact of the coldness between you may become sufficiently notorious. And when you have done this, you will start for the Continent.”

“Go abroad? But why?”

“That is my secret. Remember, you have promised to obey me blindly,” answered Victor. “You will go abroad; you will let the world know that you and Douglas Dale are divided by the width of the Channel; you will leave him free to devote himself to the woman he has chosen for his wife; and if, while engaged to her, an untimely fate should overtake this young man–if he, like his elder brother, should be removed from your pathway, the most malicious scandal-monger that ever lived could scarcely say that you had any hand in his fate.”

“I understand,” murmured Reginald, in a low voice; “I understand.”

He said no more. He had grown white to the very lips; and those pale lips were dry and feverish. But the conversation changed abruptly, and Douglas Dale’s name was not again mentioned.

In the meantime, the betrothed lovers had been very happy and this interview, which she had always dreaded but felt she could not avoid, having passed over, Paulina was more at liberty to realize her changed position, and dwell on her future prospects. She was really happy, but in her happiness there was some touch of fever, something too much of nervous excitement. It was not the calm happiness which makes the crowning joy of an untroubled life. A long career of artificial excitement, of alternate fears and hopes, the mad delight and madder despair which makes the gambler’s fever, had unfitted Paulina for the quiet peace of a spirit at rest. She yearned for rest, but the angel of rest had been scared away by the long nights of dissipation, and would not answer to her call.

Victor Carrington had fathomed the mystery of her feverish gaiety–her intervals of dull apathy that was almost despair. In the depth of her misery she had lulled herself to a false repose by the use of opium; and even now, when the old miseries were no more, she could not exist without the poisonous anodyne.

“Douglas Dale must be blinded by his infatuation, or he would have found out the state of the case by this time,” Victor said to himself. “Circumstances could not be more favourable to my plans. A man who is blind and deaf, and utterly idiotic under the influence of an absurd infatuation, one woman whose brains are intoxicated by opium, and another who would sell her soul for money.”

* * * * *

These incidents, which have occupied so much space in the telling, in reality did not fill up much time. Only a month had elapsed since Lionel Dale’s death, when Reginald Eversleigh and Paulina had the interview described above. And now it seemed as though Fate itself were conspiring with the conspirators, for the watch kept upon them by Andrew Larkspur was perforce delayed, and Lady Eversleigh’s designs of retributive punishment were suspended. A few days after the return of Mr. Larkspur to town, that gentleman was seized with serious illness, and for three weeks was unable to leave his bed. Mr. Andrew lay ill with acute bronchitis, in the lodging-house in Percy Street, and Mrs. Eden was compelled to wait his convalescence with what patience she might.

* * * * *

Sir Reginald Eversleigh and Douglas Dale met at the Phoenix Club soon after Reginald’s interview with Madame Durski.

Douglas met his cousin with a quiet and courteous manner, in which there was no trace of unfriendly feeling: a manner that expressed so little of any feeling whatever as to be almost negative.

It was not so, however, with Sir Reginald. He remembered Victor Carrington’s advice as to the wisdom of a palpable estrangement between himself and his cousin, and he took good care to act upon that counsel.

This course was, indeed, the only one that would have been at all agreeable to him.

He hated Douglas Dale with all the force of his evil nature, as the innocent instrument of Sir Oswald’s retribution upon the destroyer of Mary Goodwin.

He envied the young man the advantages which his own bad conduct had forfeited; and he now had learned to hate him with redoubled intensity, as the man who had supplanted him in the affections of Paulina Durski.

The two men met in the smoking-room of the club at the most fashionable hour of the day.

Nothing could have been more conspicuous than the haughty insolence of the spendthrift baronet as he saluted his wealthy cousin.

“How is it I have not seen you at my chambers in the Temple, Eversleigh?” asked Douglas, in that calm tone of studied courtesy which expresses so little.

“Because I had no particular reason for calling on you; and because, if I had wished to see you, I should scarcely have expected to find you in your Temple chambers,” answered Sir Reginald. “If report does not belie you, you spend the greater part of your existence at a certain villa at Fulham.”

There was that in Sir Reginald Eversleigh’s tone which attracted the attention of the men within hearing–almost all of whom were well acquainted with the careers of the two cousins, and many of whom knew them personally.

Though the club loungers were too well-bred to listen, it was nevertheless obvious that the attention of all had been more or less aroused by the baronet’s tone and manner.

Douglas Dale answered, in accents as audible, and a tone as haughty as the accents and tone of his cousin.

“Report is not likely to belie me,” he said, “since there is no mystery in my life to afford food for gossip. If by a certain villa at Fulham you mean Hilton House, you are not mistaken. I have the honour to be a frequent guest at that house.”

“It is an honour which many of us have enjoyed,” answered Reginald, with a sneer.

“An honour which I used to find deuced expensive, by Jove!” exclaimed Viscount Caversham, who was standing near Douglas Dale.

“That was at the time when Sir Reginald Eversleigh usurped the position of host in Madame Durski’s house,” replied Douglas. “You would find things much changed there now, Caversham, were the lady to favour you by an invitation. When Madame Durski first came to England she was so unfortunate as to fall into the hands of evil counsellors. She has learned since to know her friends from her enemies.”

“She is a very charming woman,” drawled the viscount, laughingly; “but if you want to keep a balance at your banker’s, Dale, I should strongly advise you to refuse her hospitality.”

“Madame Durski will shortly be my wife,” replied Douglas, in a voice loud enough to be heard by the bystanders; “and the smallest word calculated to cast a slur on her fair fame will be an insult to me–an insult which I shall know how to resent.”

This announcement fell like a thunderbolt in the assembly of fashionable idlers. All knew the history of the house at Fulham. They knew of Paulina Durski only as a beautiful, but dangerous, syren, whose fatal smiles lured men to their ruin. That Douglas Dale should unite himself to such a woman seemed to them little short of absolute madness.

Love must be strong indeed which will face the ridicule of mankind unflinchingly. Douglas Dale knew that, in redeeming Paulina from her miserable situation, in elevating her to a position that many blameless and well-born Englishwomen would have gladly accepted, he was making a sacrifice which the men amongst whom he lived would condemn as the act of a fool. But he was willing to endure this, painful though it was to him, for the sake of the woman he loved.

“Better that I should have the scorn of shallow-brained worldlings than that the blight on her life should continue,” he said to himself. “When she is my wife, no man will dare to question her honour–no woman will dare to frown upon her when she enters society leaning on my arm.”

This is what Douglas Dale repeated to himself very often during his courtship of Paulina Durski. This is what he thought as he stood erect and defiant in the crowded room of the Pall Mall club, facing the curious looks of his acquaintances.

After the first shock there was a dead silence; no voice murmured the common-place phrases of congratulation which might naturally have followed such an announcement. If Douglas Dale had just announced that some dire misfortune had befallen him, the faces of the men around him could not have been more serious. No one smiled; no one applauded his choice; not one voice congratulated him on having won for himself so fair a bride.

That ominous silence told Douglas Dale how terrible was the stigma which the world had set upon her he so fondly loved. The anguish which rent his heart during those few moments is not to be expressed by words. After that most painful silence, he walked to the table at which it was his habit to sit, and began to read a newspaper. Sir Reginald watched him furtively for a few moments in silence, and then left the room.

After this the two cousins met frequently; but they never spoke. They passed each other with the coldest and most ceremonious salutation. The idlers of the club perceived this, and commented on the fact.

“Douglas Dale and his cousin are not on speaking terms,” they said: “they have quarrelled about that beautiful Austrian widow, at whose house there used to be such high play.”

In Paulina’s society, Douglas tried to forget the cruel shadow which darkened, and which, in all likelihood, would for ever darken, her name; and while in her society he contrived to banish from his mind all bitter thought of the world’s harsh verdict and cruel condemnation.

But away from Paulina he was tortured by the recollection of that scene at the Phoenix Club; tormented by the thought that, let him make what sacrifice he might, he could never wipe out the stain which those midnight assemblies of gamesters had left on his future wife’s reputation.

“We will leave England for ever after the marriage,” he said to himself sometimes. “We will make our home in some fair Italian city, where my Paulina will be respected and admired as if she were a queen, as well as the loveliest and sweetest of women.”

If he asked Paulina where their future life was to be spent she always replied to him in the same manner.

“Wherever you take me I shall be content,” she said. “I can never be grateful enough for your goodness; I can never repay the debt I owe you. Let our future be your planning, not mine.”

“And you have no wish, no fancy, that I can realize, Paulina?”

“None. Prom my earliest girlhood I have sighed for only one blessing– peace! You have given me that. What more can I ask at your hands? Ah! Douglas, I fear my love has already cost you too dearly. The world will never forgive you for your choice; you, who might make so brilliant a marriage!”

Her generous feelings once aroused, Paulina could be almost as noble as her lover. Again and again she implored him to withdraw his promise–to leave, and to forget her.

“Believe me, Douglas, our engagement is a mistake,” she said. “Consider this before it is too late. You are a proud man where honour is concerned, and the past life of her whom you marry should be without spot or blemish. It is not so with me. If I have not sinned as other women have sinned, I have stooped to be the companion of gamblers and roues; I have allowed my house to become the haunt of reckless and dissipated men. Society revenges itself cruelly upon those who break its laws. Society will neither forget nor forgive my offence.”

“I do not live for society, but for you, Paulina,” replied Douglas, passionately; “you are all the world to me. Let me never hear these arguments again, unless you would have me think that you are weary of me, and that you only want an excuse for getting rid of me.”

“Weary of you!” exclaimed Paulina; “my friend, my benefactor. How can I ever prove my gratitude for your goodness–your devotion?”

“By learning to love me a little,” answered Douglas, tenderly.

“The lesson ought not to be difficult,” Paulina murmured.

Could she do less than love this noble friend, this pure-minded and unselfish adorer?

He came to her one day, accompanied by a solicitor; but before introducing the man of law, he asked for a private interview with Paulina, and in this interview gave her a new proof of his devotion.

“In thinking much of our position, dearest, I have been struck with a sudden terror of the uncertainty of life. What would be your fate, Paulina, if anything were to happen–if–well, if I were to die suddenly, as men so often die in this high-pressure age, before marriage had united our interests? What would be your fate, alone and helpless, assailed once more by all the perplexities of poverty, and, perhaps, subject to the mean spite of my cousin, Reginald Eversleigh, who does not forgive me for having robbed him of his place in your heart, little as he was worthy of your love?”

“Oh, Douglas!” exclaimed Paulina, “why do you imagine such things? Why should death assail you?”

“Why, indeed, dearest,” returned Douglas, with a smile. “Do not think that I anticipate so sad a close to our engagement. But it is the duty of a man to look sharply out for every danger in the pathway of the woman he is bound to protect. I am a lawyer, remember, Paulina, and I contemplate the future with the eye of a lawyer. So far as I can secure you from even the possibility of misfortune, I will do it. I have brought a solicitor here to-day, in order that he may read you a will which I have this morning executed in your favour.”

“A will!” repeated Madame Durski; “you are only too good to me. But there is something horrible to my mind in these legal formalities.”

“That is only a woman’s prejudice. It is the feminine idea that a man must needs be at the point of death when he makes his will. And now let me explain the nature of this will,” continued Douglas. “I have told you that if I should happen to die without direct heirs, the estate left me by Sir Oswald Eversleigh will go to my cousin Reginald. That estate, from which is derived my income, I have no power to alienate; I am a tenant for life only. But my income has been double, and sometimes treble, my expenditure, for my habits have been very simple, and my life only that of a student in the Temple. My sole extravagance, indeed, has been the collection of a library. I have, therefore, been able to save twelve thousand pounds, and this sum is my own to bequeath. I have made a will, leaving this amount to you, Paulina– charged only with a small annuity to a faithful old servant–together with my personal property, consisting only of a few good Italian pictures, a library of rare old books, and the carvings and decorations of my roams–all valuable in their way. This is all the law allows me to give you, Paulina; but it will, at least, secure you from want.”

Madame Durski tried to speak; but she was too deeply affected by this new proof of her lover’s generosity. Tears choked her utterance; she took Douglas Dale’s hand in both her own, and lifted it to her lips; and this silent expression of gratitude touched his heart more than the most eloquent speech could have affected it.

He led her into the room where the attorney awaited her.

“This gentleman is Mr. Horley,” he said, “a friend and adviser in whom you may place unbounded confidence. My will is to remain in his possession; and should any untimely fate overtake me, he will protect your interests. And now, Mr. Horley, will you be good enough to read the document to Madame Durski, in order that she may understand what her position would be in case of the worst?”

Mr. Horley read the will. It was as simple and concise as the law allows any legal document to be; and it made Paulina Durski mistress of twelve thousand pounds, and property equal to two or three thousand more, in the event of Douglas Dale’s death.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXI.

“A WORTHLESS WOMAN, MERE COLD CLAY.”

Neither Lydia Graham nor her brother were quick to recover from the disappointment caused by the untimely fate of Lionel Dale. Miss Graham endeavoured to sustain her failing spirits with the hope that in Douglas she might find a wealthier prize than his brother; but Douglas was yet to be enslaved by those charms which Lydia herself felt were on the wane, and by fascinations which twelve years of fashionable existence had rendered somewhat stale even to the fair Lydia’s most ardent admirers.

It was very bitter–the cup had been so near her lips, when an adverse destiny had dashed it from her. The lady’s grief was painfully sincere. She did not waste one lamentation on her lover’s sad fate, but she most bitterly regretted her own loss of a rich husband.

She watched and hoped day after day for the promised visit from Douglas Dale, but he did not come. Every day during visiting hours she wore her most becoming toilets; she arranged her small drawing-room with the studied carelessness of an elegant woman; she seated herself in her most graceful attitudes every time the knocker heralded the advent of a caller; but it was all so much wasted labour. The only guest whom she cared to see was not among those morning visitors; and Lydia’s heart began to be oppressed by a sense of despair.

“Well, Gordon, have you heard anything of Douglas Dale?” she asked her brother, day after day.

One day he came home with a very gloomy face, and when she uttered the usual question, he answered her in his gloomiest tone.

“I’ve heard something you’ll scarcely care to learn,” he said, “as it must sound the death-knell of all your hopes in that quarter. You know, Douglas Dale is a member of the Phoenix, as well as the Forum. I don’t belong to the Phoenix, as you also know, but I meet Dale occasionally at the Forum. Yesterday I lunched with Lord Caversham, a member of the Phoenix, and an acquaintance of Dale’s; and from him I learned that Douglas Dale has publicly announced his intended marriage with Paulina Durski.”

“Impossible!” exclaimed Lydia.

She had heard of Paulina and the villa at Fulham from her brother, and she hated the lovely Austrian for the beauty and the fascination which won her a kind of renown amongst the fops and lordlings–the idlers and spendthrifts of the fashionable clubs.

“It cannot be true,” cried Miss Graham, flushing crimson with anger. “It is one of Lord Caversham’s absurd stories; and I dare say is without the slightest foundation. I cannot and will not believe that Douglas Dale would throw himself away upon such a woman as this Madame Durski.”

“You have never seen her?”

“Of course not.”

“Then don’t speak so very confidently,” said Captain Graham, who was malicious enough to take some pleasure in his sister’s discomfiture. “Paulina Durski is one of the handsomest women I ever saw; not above five-and-twenty years of age–elegant, fascinating, patrician–a woman for whose sake a wiser man than Douglas Dale might be willing to sacrifice himself.”

“I will see Mr. Dale,” exclaimed Lydia. “I will ascertain from his own lips whether there is any foundation for this report.”

“How will you contrive to see him?” “You must arrange that for me. You can invite him to dinner.”

“I can invite him; but the question is whether he will come. Perhaps, if you were to write him a note, he would be more flattered than by any verbal invitation from me.”

Lydia was not slow to take this hint. She wrote one of those charming and flattering epistles which an artful and self-seeking woman of the world so well knows how to pen. She expressed her surprise and regret at not having seen Mr. Dale since her return to town–her fear that he might be ill, her hope that he would accept an invitation to a friendly dinner with herself and her brother, who was also most anxious about him.

She was not destined to disappointment. On the following day she received a brief note from Mr. Dale, accepting her invitation for the next evening.

The note was very stiffly–nay, almost coldly worded; but Lydia attributed the apparent lack of warmth to the reserved nature of Douglas Dale, rather than to any failure of her own scheme.

The fact that he accepted her invitation at all, she considered a proof of the falsehood of the report about his intended marriage, and a good omen for herself.

She took care to provide a _recherche_ little dinner for her important guest, low as the finances of herself and her brother were–and were likely to be for some time to come. She invited a dashing widow, who was her obliging friend and neighbour, and who was quite ready to play propriety for the occasion. Lydia Graham looked her handsomest when Douglas Dale was ushered into her presence that evening; but she little knew how indifferent were the eyes that contemplated her bold, dark beauty; and how, even as he looked at her, Douglas Dale’s thoughts wandered to the fair, pale face of Paulina Durski–that face, which for him was the loveliest that had ever beamed with light and beauty below the stars.

The dinner was to all appearance a success. Nothing could be more cordial or friendly, as it seemed, than that party of four, seated at a prettily decorated circular table, attended by a well-trained man- servant–the dashing widow’s butler and factotum, borrowed for the occasion.

Mrs. Marmaduke, the dashing widow, made herself very agreeable, and took care to engage Captain Graham in conversation all the evening, leaving Lydia free to occupy the entire attention of Douglas Dale.

That young lady made excellent use of her time. Day by day her chances of a rich marriage had grown less and less, and day by day she had grown more and more anxious to secure a position and a home. She had a very poor opinion of Mr. Dale’s intellect, for she believed only in the cleverness of those bolder and more obtrusive men who make themselves prominent in every assembly. She thought him a man easily to be beguiled by honeyed words and bewitching glances, and she had, therefore, determined to play a bold, if not a desperate game. While Mrs. Marmaduke and Captain Graham were talking in the front drawing- room, Lydia contrived to detain her guest in the inner apartment–a tiny chamber, just large enough to hold a small cottage piano, a stand of music-books, and a couple of chairs.

Miss Graham seated herself at the piano, and played a few bars with an absent and somewhat pensive air.

“That is a mournful melody,” said Douglas. “I don’t think I ever heard it before.”

“Indeed!” murmured Lydia; “and yet I think it is very generally known. The air is pretty, is it not? But the words are ultra-sentimental.”

And then she began to sing softly–

“I do not ask to offer thee
A timid love like mine;
I lay it, as the rose is laid, On some immortal shrine.”

“I think the words are rather pretty,” said Douglas.

“Do you?” murmured Miss Graham; and then she stopped suddenly, looking downward, with one of those conscious blushes which were always at her command.

There was a pause. Douglas Dale stood by the music-stand, listlessly turning over a volume of songs.

Lydia was the first to break the silence.

“Why did you not come to see us sooner, Mr. Dale?” she asked. “You promised me you would come.”

“I have been too much engaged to come,” answered Douglas.

This reply sounded almost rude; but to Lydia this unpolished manner seemed only the result of extreme shyness, and, indeed, embarrassment, which to her appeared proof positive of her intended victim’s enthralment.

Her eyes grew bright with a glance of triumph.

“I shall win,” she thought to herself; “I shall win.”

“Have you really wished to see me?” asked Douglas, after another pause.

“I did indeed wish to see you,” she murmured, in tremulous tones.

“Indeed!” said Douglas, in a tone that might mean astonishment, delight, or anything else. “Well, Miss Graham, that was very kind of you. I go out very little, and never except to the houses of intimate friends.”

“Surely you number us–my brother, I mean–among that privileged class,” said Lydia, once more blushing bewitchingly.

“I do, indeed,” said Douglas Dale, in a candid, kind, unembarrassed tone, which, if she had been a little less under the dominion of that proverbially blinding quality, vanity, would have been the most discouraging of all possible tones, to the schemes which she had formed; “I never forget how high you stood in my poor brother’s esteem, Miss Graham; indeed, if you will pardon my saying so, I thought there was a much warmer feeling than that, on his part.”

Lydia hardly knew how to take this observation. In one sense it was flattering, in another discouraging. If the belief brought Douglas Dale into easier relations with her, if it induced him to feel that a bond of friendship, cemented by the memory of the past, subsisted between them, so much the better for her purpose; but if he believed that this supposed love of Lionel’s had been returned, and proposed to cultivate her on the mutual sympathy, or “weep with thee, tear for tear,” principle, so much the worse. The position was undeniably embarrassing even to a young lady of Miss Lydia Graham’s remarkable strength of mind, and _savoir faire_. But she extricated herself from it, without speaking, by some wonderful management of her eyes, and a slight deprecatory movement of her shoulders, which made even Douglas Dale, a by no means ready man, though endowed with deep feelings and strong common sense, understand, as well as if she had spoken, that Lionel had indeed entertained feelings of a tender nature towards her, but that she had not returned them by any warmer sentiment than friendship. It was admirably well done; and the next sentence which Douglas Dale spoke was certainly calculated to nourish Lydia’s hopes.

“He might have sustained a terrible grief, then, had he lived longer,” said Douglas; “but I see this subject pains you, Miss Graham; I will touch upon it no more. But perhaps you will allow the recollection of what we must both believe to have been his feelings and his hopes, to plead with you for me.”

“For you, Mr. Dale!” and Lydia Graham’s breast heaved with genuine emotion, and her voice trembled with no artificial faltering.

“Yes, Miss Graham, for me. I need a friend, such a friend as you could be, if you would, to counsel and to aid me. But, pardon me, I am detaining you, and you have another guest.” (How ardently Lydia Graham wished she had not invited the accommodating widow to play propriety!) “You will permit me to visit you soon again, and we will speak of much which cannot now be discussed. May I come soon?”

As he spoke these hope-inspiring words, there was genuine eagerness in the tone of Douglas Dale’s voice, there was brightness in his frank eyes. No wonder Lydia held the story her brother had told her in scornful disbelief; no wonder she felt all the glow of the fulfilment of long-deferred hope. What would have been her sensations had she known that Douglas Dale’s only actuating motive in the proposed friendly alliance, was to secure a female friend for his adored Paulina, to gain for her the countenance and protection of a woman whose place in society was recognized and unassailable?

“You will excuse my joining your brother and your friend now, will you not, Miss Graham? I must, at all events, have taken an early leave of you, and this conversation has given me much to think of. I shall see you soon again. Good night!”

He moved hastily, passed through the door of the small apartment which, opened on the staircase, and was gone. Lydia Graham remained alone for a few moments, in a triumphant reverie, then she joined Gordon Graham and the bewitching widow, who had been making the most of the opportunity for indulging in her favourite florid style of flirtation.

“I have won,” Lydia said to herself; “and how easily! Poor fellow; his agitation was really painful. He did not even stop to shake hands with me.”

Mrs. Marmaduke took leave of her dearest Lydia, and her dearest Lydia’s brother, soon after Douglas Dale had departed, and Miss Graham and her brother were left _tete-a-tete_.

“Well,” said Gordon Graham, with rather a sulky air, “you don’t seem to have done much execution by your dinner-party, my young lady. Dale went off in a great hurry, which does not say much for your powers of fascination.”

Lydia gave her head a triumphant little toss as she looked at her brother.

“You are remarkably clever, my dear Gordon,” she said; “but you are apt to make mistakes occasionally, in spite of your cleverness. What should you say if I were to tell you that Mr. Dale has this evening almost made me an offer of his hand?”

“You don’t mean to say so?”

“I do mean to say so,” answered Lydia, triumphantly. “He is one of that eccentric kind of people who have their own manner of doing things, and do not care to tread the beaten track; or it may be that it is only his reserved nature which renders him strange and awkward in his manner of avowing himself.”

“Never mind how awkwardly the offer has been made, provided it is genuine,” returned the practical Captain Graham. “But I don’t like ‘almosts.’ Besides, you really must mind what you are about, Lydia; for I assure you there is no doubt at all about the fact of his engagement. He stated it himself.”

“Well, and suppose he did,” said Lydia, “and suppose some good-for- nothing woman, in an equivocal position, _has_ trapped him into an offer. Is he the first man who has got into a dilemma of that kind, and got out of it? He thought I cared for Lionel, and that so there was no hope for him. I can quite understand his getting himself into an entanglement of the kind, under such circumstances.”

Gordon Graham smiled, a certain satirical smile, intensely irritating to his sister’s temper (which she called her nerves), and which it was rather fortunate she did not see. He was perfectly alive to the omnivorous quality of his sister’s vanity, and perfectly aware that it had on many occasions led her into a fool’s paradise, whence she had been ejected into the waste regions of disappointment and bitterness of spirit. He had been quite willing that she should try the experiment upon Douglas Dale, to which that gentleman had just been subjected; but he had not been sanguine as to its results, and he did not implicitly confide in the very exhilarating statement now made to him by Lydia. If Douglas Dale’s “almost” proposal meant nothing more than that he would be glad, or implied that he would be glad to be off with Paulina and on with Lydia, he did not think very highly of the chances of the latter. A man of the world, in the worst sense of that widely significant word, Gordon Graham was inclined to think that Douglas Dale was merely trifling with his sister, indulging in a “safe” flirtation, under the aegis of an avowed engagement. Graham felt very anxious to know the particulars of the conversation between Dale and his sister, in order to discover how far they bore out his theory; but he knew Lydia too well to place implicit reliance on any statement of them he might elicit from her.

“Well, but,” said he, “supposing you are right in all this, the ‘entanglement,’ as you call it, exists. How did he explain, or excuse it?”

Lydia smiled, a self-satisfied, contemptuous smile. She was not jealous of Madame Durski; she despised her. “He did not excuse it; he did not explain; he knows he has no severity to fear from me. All he needs is to induce me to acknowledge my affection for him, and then he will soon rid himself of all obstacles. Don’t be afraid, Gordon; this is a great falling off from the ambitions I once cherished, the hopes I once formed; this is a very different kind of thing from Sir Oswald Eversleigh and Raynham Castle, but I have made up my mind to be content with it.”

Lydia spoke with a kind of virtuous resignation and resolution, infinitely assuring to her brother. But he was getting tired of the discussion, and desirous to end it. Anxious as he was to be rid of his sister, and to effect the riddance on the best possible terms, he did not mean to be bored by her just then. So he spoke to the point at once.

“That’s rather a queer mode of proceeding,” he said. “You are to avow your affection for this fine gentleman, and then he is to throw over another lady in order to reward your devotion. There was a day when Miss Graham’s pride would have been outraged by a proposition which certainly seems rather humiliating.”

Lydia flushed crimson, and looked at her brother with angry eyes. She felt the sting of his malicious speech, and knew that it was intended to wound her.

“Pride and I have long parted company,” she answered, bitterly. “I have learnt to endure degradation as placidly as you do when you condescend to become the toady and flatterer of richer men than yourself.”

Captain Graham did not take the trouble to resent this remark. He smiled at his sister’s anger, with the air of a man who is quite indifferent to the opinion of others.

“Well, my dear Lydia,” he said, good-humouredly, “all I can say is, that if you have caught the brother of your late admirer, you are very lucky. The merest schoolboy knows enough arithmetic to be aware that ten thousand a year is twice as good as five. And it certainly is not every woman’s fortune to be able to recover a chance which seemed so nearly lost as yours when we left Hallgrove. By all means nail him to his proposition, and let him throw over the lovely Paulina. What a fool the man must be not to know his mind a little better!”

“Madame Durski entrapped him into the engagement,” said Lydia, scornfully.

“Ah, to be sure, women have a way of laying snares of the matrimonial kind, as you and I know, my dear Lydia. And now, good night. Go and think about your trousseau in the silence of your own apartment.”

Lydia Graham fell asleep that night, secure in the certainty that the end and aim of her selfish life had been at last attained, and disposed to regard the interval as very brief that must elapse before Douglas Dale would come to throw himself at her feet.

For a day or two unwonted peace and serenity were observable in Lydia Graham’s demeanour and countenance. She took even more than the ordinary pains with her dress; she arranged her little drawing-room more than ever effectively and with sedulous care, and she remained at home every afternoon, in spite of fine weather and an unusual number of invitations. But Douglas Dale made no sign, he did not come, he did not write, and all his enthusiastic declarations seemed to have ended in nothing. The truth was that Paulina Durski was ill, and in his anxiety and uneasiness, Douglas forgot even the existence of Lydia Graham.

A vague alarm began to fill Lydia’s mind, and she felt as if the good establishment, the liberal allowance of pin-money, the equipages, the clever French maid, the diamonds, and all the other delightful things which she had looked upon almost as already her own, were suddenly vanishing away like a dream.

Miss Graham was in no very amiable humour when, after a week’s watching and suspense, she descended to the dining-room, a small and shabbily furnished apartment, which bore upon it the stamp peculiar to London lodging-houses–an aspect which is just the reverse of everything we look for in a home.

Gordon Graham was already seated at the breakfast-table.

A letter for Miss Graham lay by the side of her breakfast-cup–a bulky document, with four stamps upon the envelope.

Lydia knew the hand too well. It was that of her French milliner, Mademoiselle Susanne, to whom she owed a sum which she knew never could be paid out of her own finances. The thought of this debt had been a perpetual nightmare to her. There was no such thing as bankruptcy for a lady of fashion in those days; and it was in the power of Mademoiselle Susanna to put her high-bred creditor into a common prison, and detain her there until she had passed the ordeal of the Insolvent Debtors’ Court.

Lydia opened the packet with a sinking heart. There it was, the awful bill, with its records of elegant dresses–every one of which had been worn with the hope of conquest, and all of which had, so far, failed to attain the hoped-for victory. And at the end of that long list came the fearful total–close upon three hundred pounds!

“I can never pay it!” murmured Lydia; “never! never!”

Her involuntary exclamation sounded almost like a cry of despair.

Gordon Graham looked up from the newspaper in which he had been absorbed until this moment, and stared at his sister.

“What’s the matter?” he exclaimed. “Oh, I see! it’s a bill–Susanne’s, I suppose? Well, well, you women will make yourselves handsome at any cost, and you must pay for it sooner or later. If you can secure Douglas Dale, a cheque from him will soon settle Mademoiselle Susanne, and make her your humble slave for the future. But what has gone wrong with you, my Lydia? Your brow wears a gloomy shade this morning. Have you received no tidings of your lover?”

“Gordon,” said Lydia, passionately, “do not taunt me. I don’t know what to think. But I have played a desperate game–I have risked all upon the hazard of this die–and if I have failed I must submit to my fate. I can struggle no longer; I am utterly weary of a life that has brought me nothing but disappointment and defeat.”

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXII.

A MEETING AND AN EXPLANATION.

For George Jernam’s young wife, the days passed sadly enough in the pleasant village of Allanbay. Fair as the scene of her life was, to poor Rosamond it seemed as if the earth were overshadowed by dark clouds, through which no ray of sunlight could penetrate. The affection which had sprung up between her and Susan Jernam was deep and strong, and the only gleam of happiness which Rosamond experienced in her melancholy existence came from the affection of her husband’s aunt.

If Rosamond’s existence was not happy, it was, at least in all outward seeming, peaceful. But the heart of the deserted wife knew not peace. She was perpetually brooding over the strange circumstances of George’s departure–perpetually asking herself why it was he had left her.

She could shape no answer to that constantly repeated question.

Had he ceased to love her? No! surely that could not be, for the change which arises in the most inconstant heart is, at least, gradual. George Jernam had changed in a day–in an hour.

Reason upon the subject as she might, the conviction at which Rosamond arrived at last was always the same. She believed that the mysterious change that had arisen in the husband she so fondly loved was a change in the mind itself–a sudden monomania, beyond the influence of the outer world–a wild hallucination of the brain, not to be cured by any ordinary physician.

Believing this, the wife’s heart was tortured as she thought of the perils that surrounded her husband’s life–perils that were doubly terrible for one whose mind had lost its even balance.

She watched every alteration in the atmosphere, every cloud in the sky, with unspeakable anxiety. As the autumn gave place to winter, as the winds blew loud above the broad expanse of ocean, as the foam-crests of the dark waves rose high, and gleamed white and silvery in the dim twilight, her heart sank with an awful fear for the absent wanderer.

Night and day her prayers arose to heaven–such prayers as only the loving heart of woman breathes for the object of all her thoughts.

While Rosamond occupied the abode which Captain Jernam had chosen for her, River View Cottage was abandoned entirely to the care of Mrs. Mugby and Susan Trott, and the trim house had a desolate look in the dismal autumn days, and the darkening winter twilights, carefully as it was kept by Mrs. Mugby, who aired the rooms, and dusted and polished the furniture every day, as industriously as if she had been certain of the captain’s return before night-fall.

“He may come this night, or he may not come for a year,” she said to Susan very often, when Miss Trott was a little disposed to neglect some of her duties, in the way of dusting and polishing; “but mark my words, Susan, when he does come, he’ll come sudden, without so much as one line of warning, or notice enough to get a bit of dinner ready for him.”

The day came at last when the housekeeper was gratified to find that all her dusting and polishing had not been thrown away. Captain Duncombe returned exactly as she had prophesied he would return, without sending either note or message to give warning of his arrival.

He rang the bell one day, and walked into the garden, and from the garden into the house, with the air of a man who had just come home from a morning’s walk, much to the astonishment of Susan Trott, who admitted him, and who stared at him with eyes opened to their widest extent, as he strode hurriedly past her.

He went straight into the parlour he had been accustomed to sit in. A fire was burning brightly in the polished steel grate, and everything bore the appearance of extreme comfort.

The merchant-captain looked round the room with an air of satisfaction.

“There’s nothing like a trip to the Indies for making a man appreciate the comforts of his own home,” he exclaimed. “How cheery it all looks; and a man must be a fool who couldn’t enjoy himself at home after tossing about in a hurricane off Gibraltar for a week at a stretch. But where’s your mistress?” cried Joe Duncombe, suddenly, turning to the astonished Susan. “Where’s Mrs. Jernam?–where’s my daughter? Doesn’t she hear her old father’s gruff voice? Isn’t she coming to bid me welcome after all I’ve gone through to earn more money for her?”

Before Susan could answer, Mrs. Mugby had heard the voice of her master, and came hurrying in to greet him.

“Thank you for your hearty welcome,” said the captain, hurriedly; “but where’s my daughter? Is she out of doors this cold winter day, gadding about London streets?–or how the deuce is it she doesn’t come to give her old father a kiss, and bid him welcome home?”

“Lor’, sir,” cried Mrs. Mugby, “you don’t mean to say as you haven’t heard from Miss Rosa–begging your pardon, Mrs. Jernam–but the other do come so much more natural?”

“Heard from her!” exclaimed the captain. “Not I, I haven’t had a line from her. But heaven have mercy on us! how the woman does stare! There isn’t anything wrong with my daughter, is there? She’s well–eh?”

The captain’s honest face grew pale, as a sudden fear arose in his mind.

“Don’t tell me my daughter is ill,” he gasped; “or worse–“

“No, no, no, captain,” cried Mrs. Mugby. “I heard from Mrs. Jernam only a week ago, and she was quite well; but she is residing down in Devonshire, where she removed with her husband last July; and I made sure you would have received a letter telling you of the change.”

“What!” roared Joseph Duncombe; “did my daughter go and turn her back upon the comfortable little box her father built for her–the place he spent his hard-won earnings upon for her sake? So Rosy got tired of the cottage, did she? It wasn’t good enough for her, I suppose. Well, well, that does seem rather hard somehow–it does seem hard.”

The captain dropped heavily down into the chair nearest him. He was deeply wounded by the idea that his daughter had deserted the home which he had made for her.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” interposed Mrs. Mugby, in her most insinuating tone, “which I am well aware it’s not my place to interfere in family matters; but knowing as devotion itself is a word not strong enough to express Mrs. Jernam’s feelings for her pa, I cannot stand by and see her misunderstood by that very pa. It was no doings of hers as she left River View, Captain Buncombe, for the place was very dear to her; but Captain Jernam, he took it into his head all of a sudden he’d set off for foreign parts in his ship the ‘Albert’s horse’; and before he went, he insisted on taking Mrs. Jernam down to Devonshire, which burying her alive would be too mild a word for such cruelty, I think.”

“What! he deserted his post, did he?” exclaimed the captain. “Ran away from his pretty young wife, after promising to stop with her till I came back! Now, I don’t call that an honest man’s conduct,” added the captain, indignantly.

“No more would any one, sir,” answered the housekeeper. “A wild, roving life is all very well in its way, but if a man who is just married to a pretty young wife, that worships the very ground he walks on, can’t stay at home quiet, I should like to know who can?”

“So he went to sea himself, and took his wife down to Devonshire before he sailed, eh?” said the captain. “Very fine goings on, upon my word! And did Miss Rosy consent to leave her father’s home without a murmur?” he asked, angrily.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” pleaded Mrs. Mugby, “Miss Rosamond was not the one to murmur before servants, whatever she might feel in her heart. I overheard her crying and sobbing dreadful one night, poor dear, when she little thought as there was any one to overhear her.”

“Did she say anything to you before she left?”

“Not till the night before she went away, and then she came to me in my kitchen, and said, ‘Mrs. Mugby, it’s my husband’s wish I should go down to Devonshire and live there, while he’s away with his ship. Of course, I am very sorry to leave the house that my dear father made such a happy home for me, and in which he and I lived so peaceably together; but I am bound to obey my husband, let him ask what he will. I shall write to my dear father, and tell him how sorry I am to leave my home.'”

“Did she say that?” said the captain, evidently touched by this proof of his child’s affection. “Then I won’t belie her so much as to doubt her love for me. I never got her letter; and why George Jernam should kick up his heels directly I was gone, and be off with his ship goodness knows where, is more than I can tell. I begin to think the best sailor that ever roamed the seas is a bad bargain for a husband. I’m sorry I ever let my girl marry a rover. However, I’ll just settle my business in London, and be off to Devonshire to see my poor little deserted Rosy. I suppose she’s gone to live at that sea-coast village where Jernam’s aunt lives?”

“Yes, sir, Allandale–or Allanbay–or some such name, I think, they call the place.”

“Yes, Allanbay–I remember,” answered the captain. “I’ll try and get through the business I’ve got on hand to-night, and be off to Devonshire to-morrow.”

Mrs. Mugby exerted herself to the uttermost in her endeavour to make the captain’s first dinner at home a great culinary triumph, but the disappointment he had experienced that morning had quite taken away his appetite. He had anticipated such delight from his unannounced return to River View Cottage; he had pictured to himself his daughter’s rapturous welcome; he had fancied her rushing to greet him at the first sound of his voice; and had almost felt her soft arm clasped around his neck, her kisses on his face.

Instead of the realization of this bright dream, he had found only disappointment.

Susan Trott placed the materials for the captain’s favourite punch upon the table after she had removed the cloth; but Joseph Duncombe did not appear to see the cherry preparations for a comfortable evening. He rose hastily from his chair, put on his hat, and went out, much to the discomfiture of the worthy Mrs. Mugby.

“After what I went through with standing over that roaring furnace of a kitchen-range, it does seem hard to see my sole just turned over and played with, like, and my chicking not so much as touched,” said the dame. “Oh, Miss Rosamond, Miss Rosamond, you’ve a deal to answer for!”

Captain Duncombe walked along the dark road between the cottage and Ratcliff Highway at a rapid pace. He soon reached the flaring lights of the sailors’ quarter, through which he made his way as fast as he could to a respectable and comfortable little tavern near the Tower, much frequented by officers of the merchant service.

He had promised to meet an old shipmate at this house, and was very glad of an excuse for spending his evening away from home.

In the little parlour he found the friend he expected to see, and the two sailors took their glasses of grog together in a very friendly manner, and then parted, the captain’s friend going away first, as he had a long distance to walk, in order to reach his suburban home.

The captain was sitting by the fire meditating, and sipping his last glass of grog, when the door was opened, and some one came into the room.

Joseph Duncombe looked up with a start as the new-comer entered, and, to his intense astonishment, recognized George Jernam.

“Jernam!” he cried; “you in London? Well, this is the greatest surprise of all.”

“Indeed, Captain Duncombe,” answered the other, coolly; “the ‘Albatross’ only entered the port of London this afternoon. This is the first place I have come to, and of all men on earth I least expected to meet you here.”

“And from your tone, youngster, it seems as if the surprise were by no means a pleasant one,” cried Joseph Duncombe. “May I ask how Rosamond Duncombe’s husband comes to address his wife’s father in the tone you have just used to me?”

“You are Rosamond’s father,” answered George; “that is sufficient reason that Valentine Jernam’s brother should keep aloof from you.”

“The man’s mad,” muttered Captain Duncombe; “undoubtedly mad.”

“No,” answered George Jernam, “I am not mad–I am only too acutely conscious of the misery of my position. I love your daughter, Joseph Duncombe; love her as fondly and truly as ever a man loved the wife of his choice. And yet here am I skulking in London, alone and miserable, at the hour when I should be hurrying back to the home of my darling. Dear though she is to me–truly as I love her–I dare not go back to her; for between her and me there rises the phantom of my murdered brother Valentine!”

“What on earth has my daughter Rosamond to do with the wretched fate of your brother?” asked the captain.

“In her own person, nothing; but it is her misfortune to be allied to one who was in league with the assassin, or assassins, of my unhappy brother.”

“What, in heaven’s name, do you mean?” asked the bewildered captain of the “Vixen.”

“Do not press me for my meaning, Captain Duncombe,” answered George, in a repellant tone; “you are my father-in-law. The knowledge which accident revealed to me of one dark secret in your life of seeming honesty came too late to prevent that tie between us. When the fatal truth revealed itself to me I was already your daughter’s husband. That secures my silence. Do not force yourself upon me. I shall do my duty to your daughter as if you and your crime had never been upon this earth. But you and I can never meet again except as foes. The remembrance of my brother Valentine is part and parcel of my life, and a wrong done to him is twice a wrong to myself.”

The captain of the “Vixen” had arisen from his chair. He stood before his son-in-law, breathless, crimson with passion.

“George Jernam,” he cried, “do you want me to knock you down? Egad, my fine gentleman, you may consider yourself lucky that I have not done it before this. What do you mean by all that balderdash you’ve been talking? What does it all mean, I say? Are you drunk, or mad, or both?”

“Captain Duncombe,” said George, calmly, “do you really wish me to speak plainly?”

“It will be very much the worse for you if you don’t,” retorted the infuriated captain.

“First, then, let me tell you that before I left River View Cottage last July, your daughter pressed me to avail myself of the contents of your desk one day when I was in want of foreign letter-paper.”

“Well, what then?”

“Very much against my own inclination, I consented to open that desk with a key in Rosamond’s possession. I did not pry into the secrets of its contents; but before me, in the tray intended for pens, I saw an object which could not fail to attract my attention–which riveted my gaze as surely as if I had ‘lighted on a snake.”

“What in the name of all that’s bewildering could that object have been?” cried the captain. “I don’t keep many curiosities in my writing- desk!”

“I will show you what I found that day,” answered George. “The finding of it changed the whole current of my life, and sent me away from that once happy home a restless and miserable wanderer.”

“The man’s mad,” muttered Captain Duncombe to himself; “he must be mad!”

George Jernam took from his waistcoat pocket a tiny parcel, and unfolding the paper covering, revealed a gold coin–the bent Brazilian coin–which he placed in the captain’s hands.

“Why! heaven have mercy on us!” cried Joseph Duncombe, “if that isn’t the ghost’s money!”

There was astonishment plainly depicted on his countenance; but no look of guilt. George Jernam watched his face as he contemplated the token, and saw that it was not the face of a guilty man.

“Oh, captain, captain!” he exclaimed, remorsefully, “if I have suspected you all this time for nothing?”

“Suspected me of what?”