At that moment a heavy step was heard in the hall, a hand fumbled with
the lock of the door. Miss Vane glanced apprehensively at Hubert.
"He is there," she said--"he is coming in. The London papers will arrive
in half an hour. Hubert, don't leave him to learn the news from the
papers or from his London lawyer."
"What harm if he did?" muttered Hubert; but, before Miss Vane could
reply, the door was opened and the General entered the room.
He was a tall, white-haired man, with a stoop in his shoulders which had
not been perceptible a year before. His finely-cut features strongly
resembled those of his sister, but there was some weakness in the
slightly receding chin, some hint of irresolution in the lines of the
handsome mouth, which could not be found in Leonora Vane's expressive
countenance. The General's eyes were remarkably fine, clear and blue as
sea-water or the sky, but their expression on this occasion was
peculiar. They had a wild, wandering, irresolute look which impressed
Hubert painfully. He rose respectfully from his chair as the old man
came in; but for a moment or two the General gazed at him
unrecognisingly.
"Hubert has come to spend the day with us, Richard," said Miss Vane.
"Hubert? Oh, yes, Hubert Lepel!" murmured the General, as if recalling a
forgotten name. "Florence Lepel's brother--a cousin of ours, I believe?
Glad to see you, Hubert," said the General, suddenly awakening,
apparently from a dream. "Did you come down this morning? From London or
from Whitminster?"
"From London, sir."
"Oh, yes--from London! I thought perhaps that you had been"--the
General's voice sank to a husky whisper--"to see that fellow get his
deserts. Hush--don't speak of it before Leonora; ladies should not hear
about these things, you know!" He caught Hubert by the sleeve and drew
him aside. "The execution was to be this morning; did you not know?" he
said, fixing his wild eyes upon the young man's paling face. "Eight
o'clock was the hour; it must be over by now. Well, well--the Lord have
mercy upon his sinful soul!"
"Amen!" Hubert muttered between his closed teeth. Then he seemed to make
a violent effort to control himself--to assume command over his
kinsman's disordered mind. "Come, sir," he said--"you must not talk like
that. Think no more of that wretched man. You know there was a chance--a
loophole. Some people were not convinced that he was guilty. There have
been petitions signed by hundreds of people, I believe, to the Home
Secretary for mercy."
"Mercy--mercy!" shouted the General, his pale face growing first red and
then purple from excitement. "Who talks of mercy to that ruffian? But
Harbury"--naming the Home Secretary for the time being--"Harbury will
stand firm; Harbury will never yield! I would take my oath that Harbury
won't give in! Such a miscarriage of justice was never heard of! Don't
talk to me of it! Harbury knows his duty; and the man has been
punished--the man is dead!"
Hubert's voice trembled a little as he spoke.
"The man is not dead, sir," he said.
The General turned upon him fiercely.
"Was not this morning fixed for the--is this not the twenty-fifth?" he
said. "What do you mean?"
There was a moment's silence, during which he read the answer to his
question in Hubert's melancholy eyes. Miss Vane held her breath; she saw
her brother stagger as if a sudden dizziness had seized him; he caught
at the back of an antique heavily-carved oak chair for support. In the
pause she noted involuntarily the beauty of the golden sunshine that
filled every corner of the luxuriously-appointed room, intensifying the
glow of color in the Persian carpet, illuminating as with fire the
brass-work and silver-plate which decorated the table and the sideboard,
vividly outlining in varied tones of delicate hues the masses of June
roses that filled every vase and bowl in the room. The air was full of
perfume--nothing but beauty met the eye; and yet, in spite of this
material loveliness, how black and evil, how unutterably full of
sadness, did the world appear to Leonora Vane just then! And, if she
could have seen into the heart of one at least of the men who stood
before her, she would almost have died of grief and shame.
"You don't mean," stammered the General, "that the ruffian who murdered
my brother--has been--reprieved?"
"It is said, sir, that imprisonment for life is a worse punishment than
death," said Hubert gently. The face of no man--even of one condemned to
life-long punishment--could have expressed deeper gloom than his own as
he said the words. Yet mingling with the gloom there was something
inflexible that gave it almost a repellent character. It was as if he
would have thrown any show or pity back into the face of those who
offered it, and defied the world to sympathise with him on account of
some secret trouble which he had brought upon himself.
"Worse than death--worse than death!" repeated the old man. "I do not
know what you mean, sir. I shall go up to town at once and see Harbury
about this matter. It is in his hands----"
"Not now," interposed Hubert. "The Queen----"
"The Queen will hear reason, sir! I will make my way to her presence,
and speak to her myself. She will not refuse the prayer of an old man
who has served his country as long and as faithfully as I have done. I
will tell her the story myself, and she will see justice done--justice
on the man who murdered my brother!"
His voice grew louder and his breath came in choking gasps between the
words. His face was purple, the veins on his forehead were swollen and
his eyes bloodshot; with one hand he was leaning on the table, with the
other he gesticulated violently, shaking the closed fist almost in
Hubert's face, as if he mistook him for the murderer himself. It was a
pitiable sight. The old man had completely lost his self-command, and
his venerable white hairs and bowed form accentuated the harrowing
effect which his burst of passion produced upon his hearers. Hubert
stood silent, spell-bound, as it seemed, with sorrow and dismay; but
Miss Vane, shaking off her unwonted timidity, went up to her brother and
laid her hand upon his outstretched quivering arm.
"Richard, Richard, do not speak in that way!" she said. "It is not
Christian--it is not even human. You are not a man who would wish to
take away a fellow-creature's life or to rob him of a chance of
repentance."
The General's hand fell, but his eyes flamed with the look of an
infuriated beast of prey as he turned them on Miss Leonora.
"You are a woman," he said harshly, "and, as a woman, you may be weak;
but I am a man and a soldier, and would die for the honor of my family.
Not take away that man's life? I swear to you that, if I had him here, I
would kill him with my own hands! Does not the Scripture tell us that a
life shall be given for a life?"
"It tells us that vengeance is the Lord's, Richard, and that He will
repay."
"Yes--by the hands of His servants, Leonora. Are you so base as not to
desire the punishment of your brother's murderer! If so, never speak to
me, never come near my house again! And you, young gentleman, get ready
to come with me to London at once! I will see Harbury before the day is
over."
"My dear General," said Hubert, looking exceedingly perplexed, "I think
that you will hardly find Harbury in town. I heard yesterday that he was
leaving London for a few days."
"Nonsense, sir! Leaving London before the close of the session!
Impossible! But we can get his address and follow him, I suppose? I will
see Harbury to-night!"
"It will be useless," said Hubert, with resignation, "but, if you
insist----"
"I do insist! The honor of my house is at stake, and I shall do my
utmost to bring that ruffian to the gallows! I cannot understand you
young fellows of the present day, cold-blooded, effeminate, without
natural affection--I cannot understand it, I say. Ring the bell for
Saunders; tell him to put up my bag. I will go at once--this very
moment--this----"
The General's voice suddenly faltered and broke. For some time his words
had been almost unintelligible; they ran into one another, as if his
tongue was not under the control of his will. His face, first red, then
purple, was nearly black, and a slight froth was showing itself upon his
discolored lips. As his sister and cousin looked at him in alarm, they
saw that he staggered backwards as if about to fall. Hubert sprang
forward and helped him to his chair, where he lay back, with his eyes
half closed, breathing stertorously, and apparently almost unconscious.
The rage, the excitement, had proved too much for his physical strength;
he was on the verge, if he had not absolutely succumbed to it, of an
apoplectic fit.
The doctor was sent for in haste. All possibility of the General's
expedition to London was out of the question, very much to Miss Vane's
relief. She had been dreading an illness of this kind for some days, and
it was this fear which had caused her to telegraph for Hubert before
breaking to her brother the news that she herself had learned the night
before. She had seen her father die of a similar attack, and had been
roused to watchfulness by symptoms of excitement in her brother's manner
during the last few days. The blow had fallen now, and she could only be
thankful that matters were no worse.
When the doctor had come--he was met half-way up the drive by the
messenger, on his way to pay a morning visit to Mrs. Sydney--and when he
had superintended the removal of the General to his room, Hubert was
left for a time alone. He quitted the dining-room and made his way to
his favorite resort at Beechfield Hall--a spacious conservatory which
ran the whole length of one side of the house. Into this conservatory,
now brilliant with exotics, several rooms opened, one after another--a
small breakfast-room, a study, a library, billiard-room, and
smoking-room. These all communicated with each other as well as with the
conservatory, and it was as easy as it was delightful to exchange the
neighborhood of books or pipes or billiard-balls for that of Mrs. Vane's
orchids and stephanotis-blossoms. Poor Mrs. Vane used to grumble over
the conservatory. It was on the wrong side of the house--the gentlemen's
side, she called it--and did not run parallel with the drawing-room; but
the very oddness of the arrangement seemed to please her guests.
Hubert had always liked to smoke his morning cigar amongst the flowers,
and, as he paced slowly up and down the tesselated floor, and inhaled
the heavy perfume of the myrtles and the heliotrope, his features
relaxed a little, his eyes grew less gloomy and his brow more tranquil.
He glanced round him with an air almost of content, and drew a deep
breath.
"If one could live amongst flowers all one's life, away from the crimes
and follies of the rest of the world, how happy one might be!" he said
to himself half cynically, half sadly, as he stooped to puff away the
green-fly from a delicate plant with the smoke of his cigar. "That's
impossible, however. There's no chance of a monastery in these modern
days! What wouldn't I give just now to be out of all this--this
misery--this deviltry?" He put a strong and bitter accent on the last
word. "But I see no way out of it--none!"
"There is no way out of it--for you," a voice near him said.
Without knowing it, he had spoken aloud. This answer to his reverie
startled him exceedingly. He wheeled round to discover whence it came,
and, to his surprise, found himself close to the open library window,
where, just inside the room, a girl was sitting in a low cushioned
chair.
He took the cigar from his mouth and held it between his fingers as he
looked at her, his brow contracting with anger rather than with
surprise. He stood thus two or three minutes, as if expecting her to
speak, but she did not even raise her eyes. She was a tall, fair girl
with hair of the palest flaxen, artistically fluffed out and curled upon
her forehead, and woven into a magnificent coronet upon her graceful
head; her downcast eyelids were peculiarly large and white, and, when
raised, revealed the greatest beauty and the greatest surprise of her
face--a pair of velvety dark-brown eyes, which had the curious power of
assuming a reddish tint when she was angry or disturbed. Her skin was of
the perfect creaminess which sometimes accompanies red hair--and it was
whispered by her acquaintances that Florence Lepel's flaxen locks had
once been of a decidedly carroty tinge, and that their present pallor
had been attained by artificial means. Whether this was the case or not
it could not be denied that their color was now very becoming to her
pale complexion, and that they constituted the chief of Miss Lepel's
many acknowledged charms. For, in a rather strange and uncanny way,
Florence Lepel was a beautiful woman; and, though critics said that she
was too thin, that her neck was too long, her face too pale and narrow,
her hair too colorless for beauty, there were many for whom a distinct
fascination lay in the unusual combination of these features.
She was dressed from head to foot in sombre black, which made her neck
and hands appear almost dazzlingly white. Perhaps it was also the
sombreness of her attire which gave a look of fragility--an almost
painful fragility--to her appearance. Hubert noted, half unconsciously,
that her figure was more willowy than ever, that the veins on her
temples and her long white hands were marked with extraordinary
distinctness, that there were violet shadows on the large eyelids and
beneath the drooping lashes. But, for all that, the bitter sternness of
his expression did not change. When he spoke, it was in a particularly
severe tone.
"I should be obliged to you," he said, still holding his cigar between
his fingers, and looking down at her with a very dark frown upon his
face, "if you would kindly tell me exactly what you mean."