“I fear I shall not be able. I have several matters to arrange before

I leave town for Burleigh, which I must do next week. Three months,

dearest Florence, will scarcely suffice to make Burleigh put on its best

looks to greet its new mistress; and I have already appointed the great

modern magicians of draperies and ormolu to consult how we may make

Aladdin’s palace fit for the reception of the new princess. Lawyers,

too!--in short, I expect to be fully occupied. But to-morrow, at three,

I shall be with you, and we can ride out, if the day be fine.”

“Surely,” said Florence, “yonder is Signor Cesarini--how haggard and

altered he appears!”

Maltravers, turning his eyes towards the spot to which Florence pointed,

saw Cesarini emerging from a lane, with a porter behind him carrying

some books and a trunk. The Italian, who was talking and gesticulating

as to himself, did not perceive them.

“Poor Castruccio! he seems leaving his lodging,” thought Maltravers. “By

this time I fear he will have spent the last sum I conveyed to him--I

must remember to find him out and replenish his stores.--Do not forget,”

said he aloud, “to see Cesarini, and urge him to accept the appointment

we spoke of.”

“I will not forget it--I will see him to-morrow before we meet. Yet it

is a painful task, Ernest.”

“I allow it. Alas! Florence, you owe him some reparation. He undoubtedly

once conceived himself entitled to form hopes the vanity of which his

ignorance of our English world and his foreign birth prevented him from

suspecting.”

“Believe me, I did not give him the right to form such expectations.”

“But you did not sufficiently discourage them. Ah, Florence, never

underrate the pangs of hope crushed, of love contemned.”

“Dreadful!” said Florence, almost shuddering. “It is strange, but my

conscience never so smote me before. It is since I loved that I feel,

for the first time, how guilty a creature is--”

“A coquette!” interrupted Maltravers. “Well, let us think of the past no

more; but if we can restore a gifted man, whose youth promised much,

to an honourable independence and a healthful mind, let us do so. Me,

Cesarini never can forgive; he will think I have robbed him of you. But

we men--the woman we have once loved, even after she rejects us, ever

has some power over us, and your eloquence, which has so often roused

me, cannot fail to impress a nature yet more excitable.”

Maltravers, on quitting Florence at her own door, went home, summoned

his favourite servant, gave him Cesarini’s address at Chelsea, bade him

find out where he was, if he had left his lodgings; and leave at his

present home, or (failing its discovery) at the “Travellers,” a cover,

which he made his servant address, inclosing a bank-note of some amount.

If the reader wonder why Maltravers thus constituted himself the unknown

benefactor of the Italian, I must tell him that he does not understand

Maltravers. Cesarini was not the only man of letters whose faults he

pitied, whose wants he relieved. Though his name seldom shone in the

pompous list of public subscriptions--though he disdained to affect the

Maecenas and the patron, he felt the brotherhood of mankind, and a kind

of gratitude for those who aspired to rise or to delight their species.

An author himself, he could appreciate the vast debt which the world

owes to authors, and pays but by calumny in life and barren laurels

after death. He whose profession is the Beautiful succeeds only

through the Sympathies. Charity and compassion are virtues taught with

difficulty to ordinary men; to true genius they are but the instincts

which direct it to the destiny it is born to fulfil-viz., the discovery

and redemption of new tracts in our common nature. Genius--the Sublime

Missionary--goes forth from the serene Intellect of the Author to live

in the wants, the griefs, the infirmities of others, in order that it

may learn their language; and as its highest achievement is Pathos, so

its most absolute requisite is Pity!

CHAPTER VII.

“_Don John._ How canst thou cross this marriage?

“_Borachio._ Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly, that no

dishonesty shall appear in me, my lord.”--_Much Ado about Nothing_.

FERRERS and Cesarini were both sitting over their wine, and both had

sunk into silence, for they had only one subject in common, when a note

was brought to Lumley from Lady Florence.--“This is lucky enough!” said

he, as he read it. “Lady Florence wishes to see you, and incloses me a

note for you, which she asks me to address and forward to you. There it

is.”

Cesarini took the note with trembling hands: it was very short, and

merely expressed a desire to see him the next day at two o’clock.

“What can it be?” he exclaimed; “can she want to apologise, to explain?”

“No, no, no! Florence will not do that; but, from certain words she

dropped in talking with me, I guess that she has some offer to your

worldly advantage to propose to you. Ha! by the way, a thought strikes

me.”

Lumley eagerly rang the bell. “Is Lady Florence’s servant waiting for an

answer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well--detain him.”

“Now, Cesarini, assurance is made doubly sure. Come into the next

room. There, sit down at my desk, and write, as I shall dictate, to

Maltravers.”

“I!”

“Yes, now do put yourself in my hands--write, write. When you have

finished, I will explain.”

Cesarini obeyed, and the letter was as follows:

“DEAR MALTRAVERS,

“I have learned your approaching marriage with Lady Florence Lascelles.

Permit me to congratulate you. For myself, I have overcome a vain and

foolish passion; and can contemplate your happiness without a sigh.

“I have reviewed all my old prejudices against marriage, and believe it

to be a state which nothing but the most perfect congeniality of temper,

pursuits, and minds, can render bearable. How rare is such congeniality!

In your case it may exist. The affections of that beautiful being are

doubtless ardent--and they are yours!

“Write me a line by the bearer to assure me of your belief in my

sincerity.

“Yours,

“C. CESARINI.”

“Copy out this letter, I want its ditto--quick. Now seal and direct the

duplicate,” continued Ferrers; “that’s right; go into the hall, give it

yourself to Lady Florence’s servant, and beg him to take it to Seamore

Place, wait for an answer, and bring it here; by which time you will

have a note ready for Lady Florence. Say I will mention this to her

ladyship, and give the man half-a-crown. There, begone.”

“I do not understand a word of this,” said Cesarini, when he returned:

“will you explain?”

“Certainly; the copy of the note you have despatched to Maltravers I

shall show to Lady Florence this evening, as a proof of your sobered

and generous feelings; observe, it is so written, that the old letter of

your rival may seem an exact reply to it. To-morrow a reference to this

note of yours will bring out our scheme more easily; and if you follow

my instructions, you will not seem to _volunteer_ showing our handiwork,

as we at first intended; but rather to yield it to her eyes, from

a generous impulse, from an irresistible desire to save her from an

unworthy husband and a wretched fate. Fortune has been dealing our cards

for us, and has turned up the ace. Three to one now on the odd trick.

Maltravers, too, is at home. I called at his house, on returning from my

uncle’s, and learned that he would not stir out all the evening.”

In due time came the answer from Ernest: it was short and hurried; but

full of all the manly kindness of his nature; it expressed admiration

and delight at the tone of Cesarini’s letter; it revoked all former

expressions derogatory to Lady Florence; it owned the harshness and

error of his first impressions; it used every delicate argument that

could soothe and reconcile Cesarini; and concluded by sentiments of

friendship and desire of service, so cordial, so honest, so free from

the affectation of patronage, that even Cesarini himself, half insane as

he was with passion, was almost softened. Lumley saw the change in his

countenance--snatched the letter from his hand--read it--threw it into

the fire--and saying, “We must guard against accidents,” clapped the

Italian affectionately on the shoulder, and added, “Now you can have no

remorse; for a more Jesuitical piece of insulting hypocritical cant I

never read. Where’s your note to Lady Florence? Your compliments, you

will be with her at two. There, now the rehearsal’s over, the scenes

arranged, and I’ll dress, and open the play for you with a prologue.”

CHAPTER VIII.

“Aestuat ingens

Imo in corde pudor, mixtoque insania luctu,

Et furiis agitatus amor, et conscia virtus.” *--VIRGIL.

* Deep in her inmost heart is stirred the immense shame, and madness

with commingled grief, and love agitated by rage, and conscious virtue.

THE next day, punctual to his appointment, Cesarini repaired to his

critical interview with Lady Florence. Her countenance, which, like

that of most persons whose temper is not under their command, ever too

faithfully expressed what was within, was unusually flushed. Lumley

had dropped words and hints which had driven sleep from her pillow and

repose from her mind.

She rose from her seat with nervous agitation as Cesarini entered and

made his grave salutation. After a short and embarrassed pause, she

recovered, however, her self-possession, and with all a woman’s delicate

and dexterous tact, urged upon the Italian the expediency of accepting

the offer of honourable independence now extended to him.

“You have abilities,” she said, in conclusion, “you have friends, you

have youth; take advantage of those gifts of nature and fortune, and

fulfil such a career as,” added Lady Florence, with a smile, “Dante did

not consider incompatible with poetry.”

“I cannot object to any career,” said Cesarini, with an effort, “that

may serve to remove me from a country that has no longer any charms for

me. I thank you for your kindness; I will obey you. May you be happy;

and yet--no, ah! no--happy you must be! Even he, sooner or later, must

see you with my eyes.”

“I know,” replied Florence, falteringly, “that you have wisely and

generously mastered a past illusion. Mr. Ferrers allowed me to see the

letter you wrote to Er---to Mr. Maltravers; it was worthy of you:

it touched me deeply; but I trust you will outlive your prejudices

against--”

“Stay,” interrupted Cesarini; “did Ferrers communicate to you the answer

to that letter?”

“No, indeed.”

“I am glad of it.”

“Why?”

“Oh, no matter. Heaven bless you; farewell.”

“No; I implore you, do not go yet; what was there in that letter that it

could pain me to see? Lumley hinted darkly; but would not speak out: be

more frank.”

“I cannot: it would be treachery to Maltravers, cruelty to you; yet

would it be cruel?”

“No, it would not; it would be kindness and mercy; show me the

letter--you have it with you.”

“You could not bear it; you would hate me for the pain it would give

you. Let me depart.”

“Man, you wrong Maltravers. I see it now. You would darkly slander him

whom you cannot openly defame. Go; I was wrong to listen to you--go!”

“Lady Florence, beware how you taunt me into undeceiving you. Here is

the letter, it is his handwriting; will you read it? I warn you not.”

“I will believe nothing but the evidence of my own eyes; give it me.”

“Stay then; on two conditions. First, that you promise me sacredly that

you will not disclose to Maltravers, without my consent, that you have

seen this letter. Think not I fear his anger. No! but in the mortal

encounter that must ensue, if you thus betray me, your character would

be lowered in the world’s eyes, and even I (my excuse unknown) might

not appear to have acted with honour in obeying your desire, and warning

you, while there is yet time, of bartering love for avarice. Promise

me.”

“I do, I do most solemnly.”

“Secondly, assure me that you will not ask to keep the letter, but will

immediately restore it to me.”

“I promise it. Now then.”

“Take the letter.”

Florence seized and rapidly read the fatal and garbled document: her

brain was dizzy, her eyes clouded, her ears rang as with the sound of

water, she was sick and giddy with emotion; but she read enough. This

letter was written, then, in answer to Castruccio’s of last night; it

avowed dislike of her character; it denied the sincerity of her love;

it more than hinted the mercenary nature of his own feelings. Yes, even

there, where she had garnered up her heart, she was not Florence,

the lovely and beloved woman; but Florence, the wealthy and high-born

heiress. The world which she had built upon the faith and heart of

Maltravers crumbled away at her feet. The letter dropped from her hands;

her whole form seemed to shrink and shrivel up; her teeth were set, and

her cheek was as white as marble.

“O God!” cried Cesarini, stung with remorse. “Speak to me, speak to

me, Florence! I did wrong; forget that hateful letter! I have been

false--false!”

“Ah, false--say so again--no, no, I remember he told me--he, so wise,

so deep a judge of human character, that he would be sponsor for your

faith--, that your honour and heart were incorruptible. It is true; I

thank you--you have saved me from a terrible fate.”

“O, Lady Florence, dear--too dear--yet, would that--alas! she does not

listen to me,” muttered Castruccio, as Florence, pressing her hands to

her temples, walked wildly to and fro the room. At length she paused

opposite to Cesarini, looked him full in the face, returned him the

letter without a word, and pointed to the door.

“No, no, do not bid me leave you yet,” said Cesarini, trembling with

repentant emotion, yet half beside himself with jealous rage at her love

for his rival.

“My friend, go,” said Florence, in a tone of voice singularly subdued

and soft. “Do not fear me; I have more pride in me than even affection;

but there are certain struggles in a woman’s breast which she could

never betray to any one--any one but a mother. God help me, I have none!

Go; when next we meet, I shall be calm.”

She held out her hand as she spoke, the Italian dropped on his knee,

kissed it convulsively, and, fearful of trusting himself further,

vanished from the room.

He had not been long gone before Maltravers was seen riding through the

street. As he threw himself from his horse, he looked up at the window,

and kissed his hand at Lady Florence, who stood there watching his

arrival, with feelings indeed far different from those he anticipated.

He entered the room lightly and gaily.

Florence stirred not to welcome him. He approached and took her hand;

she withdrew it with a shudder.

“Are you not well, Florence?”

“I am well, for I have recovered.”

“What do you mean? why do you turn from me?”

Lady Florence fixed her eyes on him, eyes that literally blazed; her lip

quivered with scorn.

“Mr. Maltravers, at length I know you. I understand the feelings with

which you have sought a union between us. O God! why, why was I thus

cursed with riches--why made a thing of barter and merchandise, and

avarice, and low ambition? Take my wealth, take it, Mr. Maltravers,

since that is what you prize. Heaven knows I can cast it willingly away;

but leave the wretch whom you long deceived, and who now, wretch though

she be, renounces and despises you!”

“Lady Florence, do I hear aright? Who has accused me to you?”

“None, sir, none; I would have believed none. Let it suffice that I

am convinced that our union can be happy to neither: question me no

further; all intercourse between us is for ever over!”

“Pause,” said Maltravers, with cold and grave solemnity; “another word,

and the gulf will become impassable. Pause.”

“Do not,” exclaimed the unhappy lady, stung by what she considered

the assurance of a hardened hypocrisy--“do not affect this haughty

superiority; it dupes me no longer. I was your slave while I loved you:

the tie is broken. I am free, and I hate and scorn you! Mercenary and

sordid as you are, your baseness of spirit revives the differences of

our rank. Henceforth, Mr. Maltravers, I am Lady Florence Lascelles, and

by that title alone will you know me. Begone, Sir!”

As she spoke, with passion distorting every feature of her face, all

her beauty vanished away from the eyes of the proud Maltravers, as if

by witchcraft: the angel seemed transformed into the fury; and cold,

bitter, and withering was the eye which he fixed upon that altered

countenance.

“Mark me, Lady Florence Lascelles,” said he, very calmly, “you have now

said what you can never recall. Neither in man nor in woman did Ernest

Maltravers ever forget or forgive a sentence which accused him of

dishonour. I bid you farewell for ever; and with my last words I condemn

you to the darkest of all dooms--the remorse that comes too late!”

Slowly he moved away; and as the door closed upon that towering and

haughty form, Florence already felt that his curse was working to its

fulfilment. She rushed to the window--she caught one last glimpse of him

as his horse bore him rapidly away. Ah! when shall they meet again?

CHAPTER IX.

“And now I live--O wherefore do I live?

And with that pang I prayed to be no more.”

WORDSWORTH.

IT was about nine o’clock that evening, and Maltravers was alone in

his room. His carriage was at the door--his servants were arranging

the luggage--he was going that night to Burleigh. London--society-the

world--were grown hateful to him. His galled and indignant spirit

demanded solitude. At this time, Lumley Ferrers entered.

“You will pardon my intrusion,” said the latter, with his usual

frankness--“but--”

“But what, sir? I am engaged.”

“I shall be very brief. Maltravers, you are my old friend. I retain

regard and affection for you, though our different habits have of late

estranged us. I come to you from my cousin--from Florence--there has

been some misunderstanding between you. I called on her to-day after you

left the house. Her grief affected me. I have only just quitted her.

She has been told by some gossip or other some story or other--women are

credulous, foolish creatures;--undeceive her, and, I dare say, all may

be settled.”

“Ferrers, if a man had spoken to me as Lady Florence did, his blood

or mine must have flowed. And do you think that words that might have

plunged me into the guilt of homicide if uttered by a man, I could ever

pardon in one whom I had dreamed of for a wife? Never!”

“Pooh, pooh--women’s words are wind. Don’t throw away so splendid a

match for such a trifle.”

“Do you too, sir, mean to impute mercenary motives to me?”

“Heaven forbid! You know I am no coward, but I really don’t want to

fight you. Come, be reasonable.”

“I dare say you mean well, but the breach is final--all recurrence to it

is painful and superfluous. I must wish you good evening.”

“You have positively decided?”

“I have.”

“Even if Lady Florence made the _amende honorable_?”

“Nothing on the part of Lady Florence could alter my resolution. The

woman whom an honourable man--an English gentleman--makes the partner of

his life, ought never to listen to a syllable against his fair name: his

honour is hers, and if her lips, that should breathe comfort in calumny,

only serve to retail the lie--she may be beautiful, gifted, wealthy, and

high-born, but he takes a curse to his arms. That curse I have escaped.”

“And this I am to say to my cousin?”

“As you will. And now stay, Lumley Ferrers, and hear me. I neither

accuse nor suspect you, I desire not to pierce your heart, and in this

case I cannot fathom your motives; but if it should so have happened

that you have, in any way, ministered to Lady Florence Lascelles’

injurious opinions of my faith and honour, you will have much to answer

for, and sooner or later there will come a day of reckoning between you

and me.”

“Mr. Maltravers, there can be no quarrel between us, with my cousin’s

fair name at stake, or else we should not now part without preparations

for a more hostile meeting. I can bear your language. _I_, too, though

no philosopher, can forgive. Come, man, you are heated--it is very

natural;--let us part friends--your hand.”

“If you can take my hand, Lumley, you are innocent, and I have wronged

you.”

Lumley smiled, and cordially pressed the hand of his old friend.

As he descended the stairs, Maltravers followed, and just as Lumley

turned into Curzon Street, the carriage whirled rapidly past him, and by

the lamps he saw the pale and stern face of Maltravers.

It was a slow, drizzling rain,--one of those unwholesome nights frequent

in London towards the end of autumn. Ferrers, however, insensible to the

weather, walked slowly and thoughtfully towards his cousin’s house. He

was playing for a mighty stake, and hitherto the cast was in his favour,

yet he was uneasy and perturbed. His conscience was tolerably proof to

all compunction, as much from the levity as from the strength of his

nature; and (Maltravers removed) he trusted in his knowledge of the

human heart, and the smooth speciousness of his manner, to win, at last,

in the hand of Lady Florence, the object of his ambition. It was not

on her affection, it was on her pique, her resentment, that he relied.

“When a woman fancies herself slighted by the man she loves, the first

person who proposes must be a clumsy wooer indeed, if he does not carry

her away.” So reasoned Ferrers, but yet he was ruffled and disquieted;

the truth must be spoken,--able, bold, sanguine, and scornful as he was,

his spirit quailed before that of Maltravers; he feared the lion of that

nature when fairly aroused: his own character had in it something of a

woman’s--an unprincipled, gifted, aspiring, and subtle woman’s,--and

in Maltravers--stern, simple, and masculine--he recognised the

superior dignity of the “lords of the creation;” he was overawed by the

anticipation of a wrath and revenge which he felt he merited, and which

he feared might be deadly.

While gradually, however, his spirit recovered its usual elasticity,

he came in the vicinity of Lord Saxingham’s house, and suddenly, by

a corner of the street, his arm was seized: to his inexpressible

astonishment he recognised in the muffled figure that accosted him the

form of Florence Lascelles.

“Good heavens!” he cried, “is it possible?--You, alone in the streets,

at this hour, in such a night, too! How very wrong--how very imprudent!”

“Do not talk to me--I am almost mad as it is: I could not rest--I could

not brave quiet, solitude,--still less, the face of my father--I

could not!--but quick, what says he?--What excuse has he? Tell me

everything--I will cling to a straw.”

“And is this the proud Florence Lascelles?”

“No,--it is the humbled Florence Lascelles. I have done with

pride--speak to me!”

“Ah, what a treasure is such a heart! How can he throw it away?”

“Does he deny?”

“He denies nothing--he expresses himself rejoiced to have escaped--such

was his expression--a marriage in which his heart never was engaged. He

is unworthy of you--forget him.”

Florence shivered, and as Ferrers drew her arm in his own, her ungloved

hand touched his, and the touch was like that of ice.

“What will the servants think?--what excuse can we make?” said Ferrers,

when they stood beneath the porch. Florence did not reply; but as the

door opened, she said softly,--

“I am ill--ill,” and clung to Ferrers with that unnerved and heavy

weight which betokens faintness.

The light glared on her--the faces of the lacqueys betokened their

undisguised astonishment. With a violent effort, Florence recovered

herself, for she had not yet done with pride, swept through the hall

with her usual stately step, slowly ascended the broad staircase, and

gained the solitude of her own room, to fall senseless on the floor.

BOOK IX.

I go, the bride of Acheron.--SOPH. _Antig._

These things are in the Future.--_Ib._ 1333.

CHAPTER I.

* * * “There the action lies

In its true nature * * * *

* * * What then? What rests?

Try what repentance can!”--_Hamlet_.

“I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.”--_King John_.

IT was a fine afternoon in December, when Lumley Ferrers turned from

Lord Saxingham’s door. The knockers were muffled--the windows on the

third story were partially closed. There was sickness in that house.

Lumley’s face was unusually grave; it was even sad. “So young--so

beautiful,” he muttered. “If ever I loved woman, I do believe I loved

her:--that love must be my excuse.... I repent of what I have done--but

I could not foresee that a mere lover’s stratagem was to end in such

effects--the metaphysician was very right when he said, ‘We only

sympathise with feelings we know ourselves.’ A little disappointment in

love could not have hurt me much--it is d----d odd it should hurt her

so. I am altogether out of luck: old Templeton--I beg his pardon, Lord

Vargrave--(by-the-by, he gets heartier every day--what a constitution he

has!) seems cross with me. He did not like the idea that I should marry

Lady Florence--and when I thought that vision might have been realised,

hinted that I was disappointing some expectations he had formed; I can’t

make out what he means. Then, too, the government have offered that

place to Maltravers instead of to me. In fact, my star is not in the

ascendant. Poor Florence, though,--I would really give a great deal

to know her restored to health!--I have done a villainous thing, but I

thought it only a clever one. However, regret is a fool’s passion. By

Jupiter!--talking of fools, here comes Cesarini.”

Wan, haggard, almost spectral, his hat over his brows, his dress

neglected, his air reckless and fierce, Cesarini crossed the way, and

thus accosted Lumley:

“We have murdered her, Ferrers; and her ghost will haunt us to our dying

day!”

“Talk prose; you know I am no poet. What do you mean?”

“She is worse to-day,” groaned Cesarini, in a hollow voice. “I wander

like a lost spirit round the house; I question all who come from it.

Tell me--oh, tell me, is there hope?”

“I do, indeed, trust so,” replied Ferrers, fervently. “The illness has

only of late assumed an alarming appearance. At first it was merely a

severe cold, caught by imprudent exposure one rainy night. Now they fear

it has settled on the lungs; but if we could get her abroad, all might

be well.”

“You think so, honestly?”

“I do. Courage, my friend; do not reproach yourself; it has nothing to

do with us. She was taken ill of a cold, not of a letter, man!”

“No, no; I judge her heart by my own. Oh, that I could recall the past!

Look at me; I am the wreck of what I was; day and night the recollection

of my falsehood haunts me with remorse.”

“Pshaw!--we will go to Italy together, and in your beautiful land love

will replace love.”

“I am half resolved, Ferrers.”

“Ha!--to do what?”

“To write--to reveal all to her.”

The hardy complexion of Ferrers grew livid; his brow became dark with a

terrible expression.

“Do so, and fall the next day by my hand; my aim in slighter quarrel

never erred.”

“Do you dare to threaten me?”

“Do you dare to betray me? Betray one who, if he sinned, sinned on your

account--in your cause; who would have secured to you the loveliest

bride, and the most princely dower in England; and whose only offence

against you is that he cannot command life and health?”

“Forgive me,” said the Italian, with great emotion,--“forgive me, and

do not misunderstand; I would not have betrayed _you_--there is honour

among villains. I would have confessed only my own crime; I would never

have revealed yours--why should I?--it is unnecessary.”

“Are you in earnest--are you sincere?”

“By my soul!”

“Then, indeed, you are worthy of my friendship. You will assume the

whole forgery--an ugly word, but it avoids circumlocution--to be your

own?”

“I will.”

Ferrers paused a moment, and then stopped suddenly short.

“You will swear this!”

“By all that is holy.”

“Then mark me, Cesarini; if to-morrow Lady Florence be worse, I will

throw no obstacle in the way of your confession, should you resolve to

make it; I will even use that influence which you leave me, to palliate

your offence, to win your pardon. And yet to resign your hopes--to

surrender one so loved to the arms of one so hated--it is

magnanimous--it is noble--it is above my standard! Do as you will.”

Cesarini was about to reply, when a servant on horseback abruptly

turned the corner, almost at full speed. He pulled in--his eye fell upon

Lumley--he dismounted.

“Oh, Mr. Ferrers,” said the man breathlessly, “I have been to your

house; they told me I might find you at Lord Saxingham’s--I was just

going there--”

“Well, well, what is the matter?”

“My poor master, sir--my lord, I mean--”

“What of him?”

“Had a fit, sir--the doctors are with him--my mistress--for my lord

can’t speak--sent me express for you.”

“Lend me your horse--there, just lengthen the stirrups.”

While the groom was engaged at the saddle, Ferrers turned to Cesarini.

“Do nothing rashly,” said he; “I would say, if I might, nothing at

all, without consulting me; but mind, I rely, at all events, on your

promise--your oath.”

“You may,” said Cesarini, gloomily.

“Farewell, then,” said Lumley, as he mounted; and in a few moments he

was out of sight.

CHAPTER II.

“O world, thou wast the forest to this hart,

* * * * *

Dost thou here lie?”--_Julius Caesar_.

AS Lumley leapt from his horse at his uncle’s door, the disorder and

bustle of those demesnes, in which the severe eye of the master usually

preserved a repose and silence as complete as if the affairs of life

were carried on by clockwork, struck upon him sensibly. Upon the trim

lawn the old women employed in cleaning and weeding the walks were all

assembled in a cluster, shaking their heads ominously in concert, and

carrying on their comments in a confused whisper. In the hall, the

housemaid (and it was the first housemaid whom Lumley had ever seen in

that house, so invisibly were the wheels of the domestic machine carried

on) was leaning on her broom, “swallowing with open mouth a footman’s

news.” It was as if, with the first slackening of the rigid rein, human

nature broke loose from the conventual stillness in which it had ever

paced its peaceful path in that formal mansion.

“How is he?”

“My lord is better, sir; he has spoken, I believe.”

At this moment a young face, swollen and red with weeping, looked down

from the stairs; and presently Evelyn rushed breathlessly into the hall.

“Oh, come up--come up--cousin Lumley; he cannot, cannot die in your

presence; you always seem so full of life! He cannot die; you do not

think he will die? Oh, take me with you, they won’t let me go to him!”

“Hush, my dear little girl, hush; follow me lightly--that is right.”

Lumley reached the door, tapped gently--entered; and the child also

stole in unobserved or at least unprevented. Lumley drew aside the

curtains; the new lord was lying on his bed, with his head propped by

pillows, his eyes wide open, with a glassy, but not insensible stare,

and his countenance fearfully changed.

Lady Vargrave was kneeling on the other side of the bed, one hand

clasped in her husband’s, the other bathing his temples, and her tears

falling, without sob or sound, fast and copiously down her pale fair

cheeks.

Two doctors were conferring in the recess of the window; an apothecary

was mixing drugs at a table; and two of the oldest female servants of

the house were standing near the physicians, trying to overhear what was

said.

“My dear, dear uncle, how are you?” asked Lumley.

“Ah, you are come, then,” said the dying man, in a feeble yet distinct

voice; “that is well--I have much to say to you.”

“But not now--not now--you are not strong enough,” said the wife,

imploringly.

The doctors moved to the bedside. Lord Vargrave waved his hand, and

raised his head.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “I feel as if death were hastening upon me; I

have much need, while my senses remain, to confer with my nephew. Is

the present a fitting time?--if I delay, are you sure that I shall have

another?”

The doctors looked at each other.

“My lord,” said one, “it may perhaps settle and relieve your mind

to converse with your nephew; afterwards you may more easily compose

yourself to sleep.”

“Take this cordial, then,” said the other doctor.

The sick man obeyed. One of the physicians approached Lumley, and

beckoned him aside.

“Shall we send for his lordship’s lawyer?” whispered the leech.

“I am his heir-at-law,” thought Lumley. “Why, _no_, my dear sir--no, I

think not, unless he expresses a desire to see him; doubtless my poor

uncle has already settled his worldly affairs. What is his state?”

The doctor shook his head. “I will speak to you, sir, after you have

left his lordship.”

“What is the matter there?” cried the patient, sharply and querulously.

“Clear the room--I would be alone with my nephew.”

The doctors disappeared; the old women reluctantly followed; when,

suddenly, the little Evelyn sprang forward and threw herself on the

breast of the dying man, sobbing as if her heart would break.

“My poor child!--my sweet child--my own, own darling!” gasped out Lord

Vargrave, folding his weak arms round her; “bless you--bless you! and

God will bless you. My wife,” he added, with a voice far more tender

than Lumley had ever before heard him address to Lady Vargrave, “if

these be the last words I utter to you, let them express all the

gratitude I feel for you, for duties never more piously discharged:

you did not love me, it is true; and in health and pride that knowledge

often made me unjust to you. I have been severe--you have had much to

bear--forgive me.”

“Oh! do not talk thus; you have been nobler, kinder than my deserts. How

much I owe you--how little I have done in return!”

“I cannot bear this; leave me, my dear, leave me. I may live yet--I hope

I may--I do not want to die. The cup may pass from me. Go--go--and you,

my child.”

“Ah, let _me_ stay.”

Lord Vargrave kissed the little creature, as she clung to his neck, with

passionate affection, and then, placing her in her mother’s arms, fell

back exhausted on his pillow. Lumley, with handkerchief to his eyes,

opened the door to Lady Vargrave, who sobbed bitterly, and carefully

closing it, resumed his station by his uncle.

When Lumley Ferrers left the room, his countenance was gloomy and

excited rather than sad. He hurried to the room which he usually

occupied, and remained there for some hours while his uncle slept--a

long and sound sleep. But the mother and the stepchild (now restored to

the sick-room) did not desert their watch.

It wanted about an hour to midnight, when the senior physician sought

the nephew.

“Your uncle asks for you, Mr. Ferrers; and I think it right to say that

his last moments approach. We have done all that can be done.”

“Is he fully aware of his danger?”

“He is; and has spent the last two hours in prayer--it is a Christian’s

death-bed, sir.”

“Humph!” said Ferrers, as he followed the physician. The room was

darkened--a single lamp, carefully shaded, burned on a table, on which

lay the Book of Life in Death: and with awe and grief on their faces,

the mother and the child were kneeling beside the bed.

“Come here, Lumley,” faltered forth the fast-dying man.

“There are none here but you three--nearest and dearest to me?--That is

well. Lumley, then, you know all--my wife, he knows all. My child, give

your hand to your cousin--so you are now plighted. When you grow up,

Evelyn, you will know that it is my last wish and prayer that you should

be the wife of Lumley Ferrers. In giving you this angel, Lumley, I atone

to you for all seeming injustice. And to you, my child, I secure the

rank and honours to which I have painfully climbed, and which I am

forbidden to enjoy. Be kind to her, Lumley--you have a good and frank

heart--let it be her shelter--she has never known a harsh word. God

bless you all, and God forgive me--pray for me. Lumley, to-morrow you

will be Lord Vargrave, and by and by” (here a ghastly, but exultant

smile flitted over the speaker’s countenance), “you will be my

Lady--Lady Vargrave. Lady--so--so--Lady Var--”

The words died on his trembling lips; he turned round, and, though he

continued to breathe for more than an hour, Lord Vargrave never uttered

another syllable.

CHAPTER III.

“Hopes and fears

Start up alarmed, and o’er life’s narrow verge

Look down--on what?--a fathomless abyss.”--YOUNG.

“Contempt, farewell, and maiden pride, adieu!”

_Much Ado about Nothing_.

THE wound which Maltravers had received was peculiarly severe and

rankling. It is true that he had never been what is called violently in

love with Florence Lascelles; but from the moment in which he had been

charmed and surprised into the character of a declared suitor, it was

consonant with his scrupulous and loyal nature to view only the bright

side of Florence’s gifts and qualities, and to seek to enamour his

grateful fancy with her beauty, her genius, and her tenderness for

himself. He had thus forced and formed his thoughts and hopes to centre

all in one object; and Florence and the Future had grown words which

conveyed the same meaning to his mind. Perhaps he felt more bitterly

her sudden and stunning accusations, couched as they were in language so

unqualified, because they fell upon his pride rather than his affection,

and were not softened away by the thousand excuses and remembrances

which a passionate love would have invented and recalled. It was a deep,

concentrated sense of injury and insult, that hardened and soured his

whole nature--wounded vanity, wounded pride, and wounded honour.

And the blow, too, came upon him at a time when he was most dissatisfied

with all other prospects. He was disgusted with the littleness of the

agents and springs of political life--he had formed a weary contempt

for the barrenness of literary reputation. At thirty years of age he had

necessarily outlived the sanguine elasticity of early youth, and he

had already broken up many of those later toys in business and ambition

which afford the rattle and the hobby-borse to our maturer manhood.

Always asking for something too refined and too exalted for human life,

every new proof of unworthiness in men and things saddened or revolted

a mind still too fastidious for that quiet contentment with the world

as it is, which we must all learn before we can make our philosophy

practical and our genius as fertile of the harvest as it may be prodigal

of the blossom. Haughty, solitary, and unsocial, the ordinary resources

of mortified and disappointed men were not for Ernest Maltravers.

Rigidly secluded in his country retirement, he consumed the days in

moody wanderings; and in the evenings he turned to books with a spirit

disdainful and fatigued. So much had he already learned, that books

taught him little that he did not already know. And the biographies of

authors, those ghost-like beings who seem to have had no life but in

the shadow of their own haunting and imperishable thoughts, dimmed the

inspiration he might have caught from their pages. Those slaves of the

Lamp, those Silkworms of the Closet, how little had they enjoyed, how

little had they lived! Condemned to a mysterious fate by the wholesale

destinies of the world, they seemed born but to toil and to spin

thoughts for the common crowd--and, their task performed in drudgery and

in darkness, to die when no further service could be wrung from their

exhaustion. Names had they been in life, and as names they lived for

ever, in life as in death, airy and unsubstantial phantoms. It pleased

Maltravers at this time to turn a curious eye towards the obscure and

half-extinct philosophies of the ancient world. He compared the Stoics

with the Epicureans--those Epicureans who had given their own version to

the simple and abstemious utilitarianism of their master. He asked which

was the wiser, to sharpen pain or to deaden pleasure--to bear all or to

enjoy all; and, by a natural reaction which often happens to us in life,

this man, hitherto so earnest, active-spirited, and resolved on great

things, began to yearn for the drowsy pleasures of indolence. The

garden grew more tempting than the porch. He seriously revolved the old

alternative of the Grecian demi-god--might it not be wiser to abandon

the grave pursuits to which he had been addicted, to dethrone the

august but severe ideal in his heart, to cultivate the light loves and

voluptuous trifles of the herd, and to plant the brief space of youth

yet left to him with the myrtle and the rose? As water flows over

water, so new schemes rolled upon new--sweeping away every momentary

impression, and leaving the surface facile equally to receive and to

forget. Such is the common state with men of imagination in those crises

of life, when some great revolution of designs and hopes unsettles

elements too susceptible of every changing wind. And thus the weak

are destroyed, while the strong relapse, after terrible but unknown

convulsions, into that solemn harmony and order from which destiny and

God draw their uses to mankind.

It was from this irresolute contest between antagonist principles that

Maltravers was aroused by the following letter from Florence Lascelles:

“For three days and three sleepless nights I have debated with myself

whether or not I ought to address you. Oh, Ernest, were I what I was,

in health, in pride, I might fear that, generous as you are, you would

misconstrue my appeal; but that is now impossible. Our union never can

take place, and my hopes bound themselves to one sweet and melancholy

hope, that you will remove from my last hours the cold and dark shadow

of your resentment. We have both been cruelly deceived and betrayed.

Three days ago I discovered the perfidy that has been practised against

us. And then, ah! then, with all the weak human anguish of discovering

it too late (_your curse is fulfilled_, Ernest!), I had at least one

moment of proud, of exquisite rapture. Ernest Maltravers, the hero of my

dreams, stood pure and lofty as of old--a thing it was not unworthy to

love, to mourn, to die for. A letter in your handwriting had been

shown to me, garbled and altered, as it seems--but I detected not

the imposture--it was yourself, yourself alone, brought in false and

horrible witness against yourself! And could you think that any other

evidence, the words, the oaths of others, would have convicted you in

my eyes? There you wronged me. But I deserved it--I had bound myself to

secrecy--the seal is taken from my lips in order to be set upon my tomb.

Ernest, beloved Ernest--beloved till the last breath is extinct--till

the last throb of this heart is stilled--write me one word of comfort

and of pardon. You will believe what I have imperfectly written, for

you ever trusted my faith, if you have blamed my faults. I am now

comparatively happy--a word from you will, make me blest. And Fate

has, perhaps, been more merciful to both, than in our shortsighted and

querulous human vision, we might, perhaps, believe; for now that the

frame is brought low--and in the solitude of my chamber I can duly and

humbly commune with mine own heart, I see the aspect of those faults

which I once mistook for virtues--and feel that, had we been united, I,

loving you ever, might not have constituted your happiness, and so have

known the misery of losing your affection. May He who formed you for

glorious and yet all unaccomplished purposes strengthen you, when these

eyes can no longer sparkle at your triumphs, or weep at your lightest

sorrow. You will go on in your broad and luminous career:--a few years,

and my remembrance will have left but the vestige of a dream behind.

But, but--I can write no more. God bless you!”

CHAPTER IV.

“Oh, stop this headlong current of your goodness;

It comes too fast upon a feeble soul.”

DRYDEN: _Sebastian and Doras_.

THE smooth physician had paid his evening visit; Lord Saxingham had gone

to a cabinet dinner, for Life must ever walk side by side with Death:

and Lady Florence Lascelles was alone. It was a room adjoining her

sleeping-apartment--a room in which, in the palmy days of the brilliant

and wayward heiress, she had loved to display her fanciful and peculiar

taste. There had she been accustomed to muse, to write, to study--there

had she first been dazzled by the novel glow of Ernest’s undiurnal and

stately thoughts--there had she first conceived the romance of girlhood,

which had led her to confer with him, unknown--there had she first

confessed to herself that fancy had begotten love--there had she gone

through love’s short and exhausting process of lone emotion;--the

doubt, the hope, the ecstasy; the reverse, the terror; the inanimate

despondency, the agonised despair! And there now, sadly and patiently,

she awaited the gradual march of inevitable decay. And books and

pictures, and musical instruments, and marble busts, half shadowed

by classic draperies--and all the delicate elegancies of womanly

refinement--still invested the chamber with a grace as cheerful as if

youth and beauty were to be the occupants for ever--and the dark and

noisome vault were not the only lasting residence for the things of

clay.

Florence Lascelles was dying; but not indeed wholly of that common,

if mystic malady, a broken heart. Her health, always delicate, because

always preyed upon by a nervous, irritable, and feverish spirit, had

been gradually and invisibly undermined, even before Ernest confessed

his love. In the singular lustre of those large-pupilled eyes--in the

luxuriant transparency of that glorious bloom,--the experienced might

long since have traced the seeds which cradled death. In the night

when her restless and maddened heart so imprudently drove her forth to

forestall the communication of Lumley (whom she had sent to Maltravers,

she scarce knew for what object, or with what hope), in that night she

was already in a high state of fever. The rain and the chill struck the

growing disease within--her excitement gave it food and fire--delirium

succeeded; and in that most fearful and fatal of all medical errors,

which robs the frame, when it most needs strength, of the very principle

of life, they had bled her into a temporary calm, and into permanent and

incurable weakness. Consumption seized its victim. The physicians who

attended her were the most renowned in London, and Lord Saxingham was

firmly persuaded that there was no danger. It was not in his nature

to think that death would take so great a liberty with Lady Florence

Lascelles, when there were so many poor people in the world whom there

would be no impropriety in removing from it. But Florence knew her

danger, and her high spirit did not quail before it. Yet, when Cesarini,

stung beyond endurance by the horrors of his remorse, wrote and

confessed all his own share of the fatal treason, though, faithful to

his promise, he concealed that of his accomplice,--then, ah then, she

did indeed repine at her doom, and long to look once more with the eyes

of love and joy upon the face of the beautiful world. But the illness of

the body usually brings out a latent power and philosophy of the soul,

which health never knows; and God has mercifully ordained it as the

customary lot of nature, that in proportion as we decline into the

grave, the sloping path is made smooth and easy to our feet; and every

day, as the films of clay are removed from our eyes, Death loses the

false aspect of the spectre, and we fall at last into its arms as a

wearied child upon the bosom of its mother.

It was with a heavy heart that Lady Florence listened to the monotonous

clicking of the clock that announced the departure of moments few, yet

not precious, still spared to her. Her face buried in her hands, she

bent over the small table beside her sofa, and indulged her melancholy

thoughts. Bowed was the haughty crest, unnerved the elastic shape that

had once seemed born for majesty and command--no friends were near,

for Florence had never made friends. Solitary had been her youth, and

solitary were her dying hours.

As she thus sat and mused, a sound of carriage wheels in the street

below slightly shook the room--it ceased--the carriage stopped at the

door. Florence looked up. “No, no, it cannot be,” she muttered; yet,

while she spoke, a faint flush passed over her sunken and faded cheek,

and the bosom heaved beneath the robe, “a world too wide for its shrunk”

proportions. There was a silence, which to her seemed interminable, and

she turned away with a deep sigh, and a chill sinking of the heart.

At this time her woman entered with a meaning and flurried look.

“I beg your pardon, my lady--but--”

“But what?”

“Mr. Maltravers has called, and asked for your ladyship--so, my lady,

Mr. Burton sent for me, and I said, my lady is too unwell to see any

one; but Mr. Maltravers would not be denied; and he is waiting in my

lord’s library, and insisted on my coming up and ‘nouncing him, my

lady.”

Now Mrs. Shinfield’s words were not euphonistic, nor her voice

mellifluous; but never had eloquence seemed to Florence so effective.

Youth, love, beauty, all rushed back upon her at once, brightening her

eyes, her cheek, and filling up ruin with sudden and deceitful light.

“Well,” she said, after a pause, “let Mr. Maltravers come up.”

“Come up, my lady? Bless me!--let me just ‘range your hair--your

ladyship is really in such dish-a-bill.”

“Best as it is, Shinfield--he will excuse all.--Go.”

Mrs. Shinfield shrugged her shoulders, and departed. A few moments

more--a step on the stairs, the creaking of the door,--and Maltravers

and Florence were again alone. He stood motionless on the threshold. She

had involuntarily risen, and so they stood opposite to each other, and

the lamp fell full upon her face. Oh, Heaven! when did that sight cease

to haunt the heart of Maltravers! When shall that altered aspect not

pass as a ghost before his eyes!--there it is, faithful and reproachful

alike in solitude and in crowds--it is seen in the glare of noon--it

passes dim and wan at night beneath the stars and the earth--it looked

into his heart and left its likeness there for ever and for ever!

Those cheeks, once so beautifully rounded, now sunken into lines and

hollows--the livid darkness beneath the eyes--the whitened lip--the

sharp, anxious, worn expression, which had replaced that glorious and

beaming regard from which all the life of genius, all the sweet pride of

womanhood had glowed forth, and in which not only the intelligence, but

the eternity of the soul, seemed visibly wrought.

There he stood, aghast and appalled. At length a low groan broke from

his lips--he rushed forward, sank on his knees beside her, and clasping

both her hands, sobbed aloud as he covered them with kisses. All the

iron of his strong nature was broken down, and his emotions, long

silenced, and now uncontrollable and resistless, were something terrible

to behold!

“Do not--do not weep so,” murmured Lady Florence, frightened by his

vehemence; “I am sadly changed, but the fault is mine--Ernest, it is

mine; best, kindest, gentlest, how could I have been so mad! And you

forgive me? I am yours again--a little while yours. Ah, do not grieve

while I am so blessed!”

As she spoke, her tears--tears from a source how different from that

whence broke the scorching and intolerable agony of his own! fell soft

upon his bended head, and the hands that still convulsively strained

hers. Maltravers looked wildly up into her countenance, and shuddered

as he saw her attempt to smile. He rose abruptly, threw himself into

a chair, and covered his face. He was seeking by a violent effort to

master himself, and it was only by the heaving of his chest, and now and

then a gasp as for breath, that he betrayed the stormy struggle within.

Florence gazed at him a moment in bitter, in almost selfish penitence.

“And this was the man who seemed to me so callous to the softer

sympathies--this was the heart I trampled upon--this the nature I

distrusted!”

She came near him, trembling and with feeble steps--she laid her hand

upon his shoulder, and the fondness of love came over her, and she wound

her arms around him.

“It is our fate--it is my fate,” said Maltravers at last, awaking as

from a hideous dream, and in a hollow but calm voice--“we are the things

of destiny, and the wheel has crushed us. It is an awful state of

being this human life!--What is wisdom--virtue--faith to men--piety to

Heaven--all the nurture we bestow on ourselves--all our desire to win

a loftier sphere, when we are thus the tools of the merest chance--the

victims of the pettiest villainy; and our very existence--our very

senses almost, at the mercy of every traitor and every fool!”

There was something in Ernest’s voice, as well as in his reflections,

which appeared so unnaturally calm and deep that it startled Florence,

with a fear more acute than his previous violence had done. He rose,

and muttering to himself, walked to and fro, as if insensible of her

presence--in fact he was so. At length he stopped short, and fixing his

eyes upon Lady Florence, said in a whispered and thrilling tone:

“Now, then, the name of our undoer?”

“No, Ernest, no--never, unless you promise me to forego the purpose

which I read in your eyes. He has confessed--he is penitent--I have

forgiven him--you will do so too!”

“His name!” repeated Maltravers, and his face, before very flushed, was

unnaturally pale.

“Forgive him--promise me.”

“His name, I say,--his name?”

“Is this kind?--you terrify me--you will kill me!” faltered out

Florence, and she sank on the sofa exhausted: her nerves, now so

weakened, were perfectly unstrung by his vehemence, and she wrung her

hands and wept piteously.

“You will not tell me his name?” said Maltravers, softly. “Be it so. I

will ask no more. I can discover it myself. Fate the Avenger will reveal

it.”

At the thought he grew more composed; and as Florence wept on, the

unnatural concentration and fierceness of his mind again gave way,

and, seating himself beside her, he uttered all that could soothe, and

comfort, and console. And Florence was soon soothed! And there, while

over their heads the grim skeleton was holding the funeral pall, they

again exchanged their vows, and again, with feelings fonder than of old,

spoke of love.

CHAPTER V.

“Erichtho, then,

Breathes her dire murmurs, which enforce him bear

Her baneful secrets to the spirits of horror.”--MARLOWE.

WITH a heavy step Maltravers ascended the stairs of his lonely house

that night, and heavily, with a suppressed groan, did he sink upon the

first chair that proffered rest.

It was intensely cold. During his long interview with Lady Florence, his

servant had taken the precaution to go to Seamore Place, and make

some hasty preparations for the owner’s return. But the bedroom looked

comfortless and bare, the curtains were taken down, the carpets were

taken up (a single man’s housekeeper is wonderfully provident in these

matters; the moment his back is turned, she bustles, she displaces, she

exults; “things can be put a little to rights!”). Even the fire would

not burn clear, but gleamed sullen and fitful from the smothering fuel.

It was a large chamber, and the lights imperfectly filled it. On

the table lay parliamentary papers, and pamphlets, and bills and

presentation-books from younger authors--evidences of the teeming

business of that restless machine the world. But of all this Maltravers

was not sensible: the winter frost numbed not his feverish veins. His

servant, who loved him, as all who saw much of Maltravers did, fidgeted

anxiously about the room, and plied the sullen fire, and laid out the

comfortable dressing-robe, and placed wine on the table, and asked

questions which were not answered, and pressed service which was not

heeded. The little wheels of life go on, even when the great wheel is

paralysed or broken. Maltravers was, if I may so express it, in a kind

of mental trance. His emotions had left him thoroughly exhausted. He

felt that torpor which succeeds and is again the precursor of great woe.

At length he was alone, and the solitude half unconsciously restored

him to the sense of his heavy misery. For it may be observed, that

when misfortune has stricken us home, the presence of any one seems to

interfere between the memory and the heart. Withdraw the intruder, and

the lifted hammer falls at once upon the anvil! He rose as the door

closed on his attendant--rose with a start, and pushed the hat from his

gathered brows. He walked for some moments to and fro, and the air of

the room, freezing as it was, oppressed him.

There are times when the arrow quivers within us--in which all space

seems too confined. Like the wounded hart, we could fly on for ever;

there is a vague desire of escape--a yearning, almost insane, to get out

from our own selves: the soul struggles to flee away, and take the wings

of the morning.

Impatiently, at last, did Maltravers throw open his window; it

communicated with a balcony, built out to command the wide view which,

from a certain height, that part of the park affords. He stepped into

the balcony and bared his breast to the keen air. The uncomfortable and

icy heavens looked down upon the hoar-rime that gathered over the grass,

and the ghostly boughs of the deathlike trees. All things in the world

without brought the thought of the grave, and the pause of being,

and the withering up of beauty, closer and closer to his soul. In the

palpable and griping winter, death itself seemed to wind around him

its skeleton and joyless arms. And as thus he stood, and, wearied with

contending against, passively yielded to, the bitter passions that

wrung and gnawed his heart,--he heard not a sound at the door--nor

the footsteps on the stairs--nor knew he that a visitor was in his

room--till he felt a hand upon his shoulder, and turning round, he

beheld the white and livid countenance of Castruccio Cesarini.

“It is a dreary night and a solemn hour, Maltravers,” said the Italian,

with a distorted smile--“a fitting night and time for my interview with

you.”

“Away!” said Maltravers, in an impatient tone. “I am not at leisure for

these mock heroics.”

“Ay, but you shall hear me to the end. I have watched your arrival--I

have counted the hours in which you remained with her--I have followed

you home. If you have human passions, humanity itself must be dried

up within you, and the wild beast in his cavern is not more fearful

to encounter. Thus, then, I seek and brave you. Be still. Has Florence

revealed to you the name of him who belied you, and who betrayed herself

to the death?”

“Ha!” said Maltravers, growing very pale, and fixing his eyes on

Cesarini, “you are not the man--my suspicions lighted elsewhere.”

“I am the man. Do thy worst.”

Scarce were the words uttered, when, with a fierce cry, Maltravers threw

himself on the Italian;--he tore him from his footing--he grasped him in

his arms as a child--he literally whirled him around and on high; and in

that maddening paroxysm, it was, perhaps, but the balance of a feather,

in the conflicting elements of revenge and reason, which withheld

Maltravers from hurling the criminal from the fearful height on which

they stood. The temptation passed--Cesarini leaned safe, unharmed, but

half senseless with mingled rage and fear, against the wall.

He was alone--Maltravers had left him--had fled from himself--fled into

the chamber--fled for refuge from human passions to the wing of the

All-Seeing and All-Present. “Father,” he groaned, sinking on his knees,

“support me, save me: without Thee I am lost.”

Slowly Cesarini recovered himself, and re-entered the apartment. A

string in his brain was already loosened, and, sullen and ferocious,

he returned again to goad the lion that had spared him. Maltravers had

already risen from his brief prayer. With locked and rigid countenance,

with arms folded on his breast, he stood confronting the Italian,

who advanced towards him with a menacing brow and arm, but halted

involuntarily at the sight of that commanding aspect.

“Well, then,” said Maltravers at last, with a tone preternaturally calm

and low, “you then are the man. Speak on--what arts did you employ?”

“Your own letter. When, many months ago, I wrote to tell you of the

hopes it was mine to conceive, and to ask your opinion of her I loved,

how did you answer me? With doubts, with depreciation, with covert and

polished scorn, of the very woman whom, with a deliberate treachery, you

afterwards wrested from my worshipping and adoring love. That letter I

garbled. I made the doubts you expressed of my happiness seem doubts of

your own. I changed the dates--I made the letter itself appear written,

not on your first acquaintance with her, but subsequent to your plighted

and accepted vows. Your own handwriting convicted you of mean suspicions

and of sordid motives. These were my arts.”

“They were most noble. Do you abide by them--or repent?”

“For what I have done to _thee_ I have no repentance. Nay, I regard thee

still as the aggressor. Thou hast robbed me of her who was all the world

to me--and, be thine excuses what they may, I hate thee with a hate that

cannot slumber--that abjures the abject name of remorse! I exult in the

very agonies thou endurest. But for her--the stricken--the dying! O God,

O God! The blow falls upon mine own head!”

“Dying!” said Maltravers, slowly and with a shudder. “No, no--not

dying--or what art thou? Her murderer! And what must I be? Her avenger!”

Overpowered with his own passions, Cesarini sank down and covered his

face with his clasped hands. Maltravers stalked gloomily to and fro the

apartment. There was silence for some moments.

At length Maltravers paused opposite Cesarini and thus addressed him:

“You have come hither not so much to confess the basest crime of which

man can be guilty, as to gloat over my anguish and to brave me to

revenge my wrongs. Go, man, go--for the present you are safe. While she

lives, my life is not mine to hazard--if she recover, I can pity you

and forgive. To me your offence, foul though it be, sinks below contempt

itself. It is the consequences of that crime as they relate to--to--that

noble and suffering woman, which can alone raise the despicable into

the tragic and make your life a worthy and a necessary offering--not to

revenge, but justice:--life for life--victim for victim! ‘Tis the old

law--‘tis a righteous one.”

“You shall not, with your accursed coldness, thus dispose of me as you

will, and arrogate the option to smite or save! No,” continued Cesarini,

stamping his foot--“no; far from seeking forbearance at your hands--I

dare and defy you! You think I have injured you--I, on the other hand,

consider that the wrong has come from yourself. But for you, she might

have loved me--have been mine. Let that pass. But for you, at least, it

is certain that I should neither have sullied my soul with a vile sin,

nor brought the brightest of human beings to the grave. If she dies, the

murder may be mine, but you were the cause--the devil that tempted to

the offence. I defy and spit upon you--I have no softness left in me--my

veins are fire--my heart thirsts for blood. You--you--have still the

privilege to see--to bless--to tend her:--and I--I, who loved her

so--who could have kissed the earth she trod on--I--well, well, no

matter--I hate you--I insult you--I call you villain and dastard--I

throw myself on the laws of honour, and I demand that conflict you defer

or deny!”

“Home, doter--home--fall on thy knees, and pray to Heaven for

pardon--make up thy dread account--repine not at the days yet thine to

wash the black spot from thy soul. For, while I speak, I foresee too

well that her days are numbered, and with her thread of life is entwined

thine own. Within twelve hours from her last moment, we shall meet

again: but now I am as ice and stone,--thou canst not move me. Her

closing life shall not be darkened by the aspect of blood--by the

thought of the sacrifice it demands. Begone, or menials shall cast thee

from my door: those lips are too base to breathe the same air as honest

men. Begone, I say, begone!”

Though scarce a muscle moved in the lofty countenance of

Maltravers--though no frown darkened the majestic brow--though no fire

broke from the steadfast and scornful eye--there was a kingly authority

in the aspect, in the extended arm, the stately crest, and a power in

the swell of the stern voice, which awed and quelled the unhappy being

whose own passions exhausted and unmanned him. He strove to fling back

scorn to scorn, but his lips trembled, and his voice died in hollow

murmurs within his breast. Maltravers regarded him with a crushing

and intense disdain. The Italian with shame and wrath wrestled against

himself, but in vain: the cold eye that was fixed upon him was as a

spell, which the fiend within him could not rebel against or resist.

Mechanically he moved to the door,--then turning round, he shook his

clenched hand at Maltravers, and, with a wild, maniacal laugh, rushed

from the apartment.

CHAPTER VI.

“On some fond breast the parting soul relies.”--GRAY.

NOT a day passed in which Maltravers was absent from the side of

Florence. He came early, he went late. He subsided into his former

character of an accepted suitor, without a word of explanation with Lord

Saxingham. That task was left to Florence. She doubtless performed it

well, for his lordship seemed satisfied though grave, and, almost for

the first time in his life, sad. Maltravers never reverted to the cause

of their unhappy dissension. Nor from that night did he once give way

to whatever might be his more agonised and fierce emotions--he never

affected to reproach himself--he never bewailed with a vain despair

their approaching separation. Whatever it cost him, he stood collected

and stoical in the intense power of his self control. He had but

one object, one desire, one hope--to save the last hours of Florence

Lascelles from every pang--to brighten and smooth the passage across

the Solemn Bridge. His forethought, his presence of mind, his care,

his tenderness, never forsook him for an instant: they went beyond

the attributes of men, they went into all the fine, the indescribable

minutiae by which woman makes herself, “in pain and anguish,” the

“ministering angel.” It was as if he had nerved and braced his whole

nature to one duty--as if that duty were more felt than affection

itself--as if he were resolved that Florence should not remember that

_she had no mother_!

And, oh, then, how Florence loved him! how far more luxurious, in its

grateful and clinging fondness, was that love, than the wild and jealous

fire of their earlier connection! Her own character, as is often the

case in lingering illness, became incalculably more gentle and softened

down, as the shadows closed around it. She loved to make him read and

talk to her--and her ancient poetry of thought now grew mellowed, as

it were, into religion, which is indeed poetry with a stronger wing....

There was a world beyond the grave--there was life out of the chrysalis

sleep of death--they would yet be united. And Maltravers, who was a

solemn and intense believer in the GREAT HOPE, did not neglect the

purest and highest of all the fountains of solace.

Often in that quiet room, in that gorgeous mansion, which had been the

scene of all vain or worldly schemes--of flirtations and feastings,

and political meetings and cabinet dinners, and all the bubbles of the

passing wave--often there did these persons, whose position to each

other had been so suddenly and so strangely changed--converse on those

matters--daring and divine--which “make the bridal of the earth and

sky.”

“How fortunate am I,” said Florence, one day, “that my choice fell on

one who thinks as you do! How your words elevate and exalt me!--yet once

I never dreamt of asking your creed on these questions. It is in

sorrow or sickness that we learn why Faith was given as a soother to

man--Faith, which is Hope with a holier name--hope that knows neither

deceit nor death. Ah, how wisely do you speak of the _philosophy_ of

belief! It is, indeed, the telescope through which the stars grow large

upon our gaze. And to you, Ernest, my beloved--comprehended and known

at last--to you I leave, when I am gone, that monitor--that friend; you

will know yourself what you teach to me. And when you look not on the

heaven alone but in all space--on all the illimitable creation, you will

know that I am there! For the home of a spirit is wherever spreads the

Universal Presence of God. And to what numerous stages of being, what

paths, what duties, what active and glorious tasks in other worlds may

we not be reserved--perhaps to know and share them together, and mount

age after age higher in the scale of being. For surely in heaven there

is no pause or torpor--we do not lie down in calm and unimprovable

repose. Movement and progress will remain the law and condition of

existence. And there will be efforts and duties for us above as there

have been below.”

It was in this theory, which Maltravers shared, that the character of

Florence, her overflowing life and activity of thought--her aspirations,

her ambition, were still displayed. It was not so much to the calm and

rest of the grave that she extended her unreluctant gaze, as to the

light and glory of a renewed and progressive existence.

It was while thus they sat, the low voice of Ernest, tranquil yet half

trembling with the emotions he sought to restrain--sometimes sobering,

sometimes yet more elevating, the thoughts of Florence, that Lord

Vargrave was announced, and Lumley Ferrers, who had now succeeded to

that title, entered the room. It was the first time that Florence had

seen him since the death of his uncle--the first time Maltravers

had seen him since the evening so fatal to Florence. Both

started--Maltravers rose and walked to the window. Lord Vargrave took

the hand of his cousin and pressed it to his lips in silence, while his

looks betokened feelings that for once were genuine.

“You see, Lumley, I am resigned,” said Florence, with a sweet smile. “I

am resigned and happy.”

Lumley glanced at Maltravers, and met a cold, scrutinising, piercing

eye, from which he shrank with some confusion. He recovered himself in

an instant.

“I am rejoiced, my cousin, I _am_ rejoiced,” said he, very earnestly,

“to see Maltravers here again. Let us now hope the best.”

Maltravers walked deliberately up to Lumley. “Will you take my hand

_now_, too?” said he, with deep meaning in his tone.

“More willingly than ever,” said Lumley; and he did not shrink as he

said it.

“I am satisfied,” replied Maltravers, after a pause, and in a voice that

expressed more than his words.

There is in some natures so great a hoard of generosity, that it often

dulls their acuteness. Maltravers could not believe that frankness could

be wholly a mask--it was an hypocrisy he knew not of. He himself was

not incapable, had circumstances so urged him, of great crimes; nay, the

design of one crime lay at that moment deadly and dark within his heart,

for he had some passions which in so resolute a character could produce,

should the wind waken them into storm, dire and terrible effects. Even

at the age of thirty, it was yet uncertain whether Ernest Maltravers

might become an exemplary or an evil man. But he could sooner have

strangled a foe than taken the hand of a man whom he had once betrayed.

“I love to think you friends,” said Florence, gazing at them

affectionately, “and to you, at least, Lumley, such friendship should be

a blessing. I always loved you much and dearly, Lumley--loved you as a

brother, though our characters often jarred.”

Lumley winced. “For Heaven’s sake,” he cried, “do not speak thus

tenderly to me--I cannot bear it, and look on you and think--”

“That I am dying. Kind words become us best when our words are

approaching to the last. But enough of this--I grieved for your loss.”

“My poor uncle!” said Lumley, eagerly changing the conversation--“the

shock was sudden; and melancholy duties have absorbed me so till this

day, that I could not come even to you. It soothed me, however, to

learn, in answer to my daily inquiries, that Ernest was here. For

my part,” he added with a faint smile, “I have had duties as well as

honours devolved on me. I am left guardian to an heiress, and betrothed

to a child.”

“How do you mean?”

“Why, my poor uncle was so fondly attached to his wife’s daughter, that

he has left her the bulk of his property: a very small estate--not L2000

a year--goes with the title (a new title, too, which requires twice as

much to carry it off and make its pinchbeck pass for gold). In order,

however, to serve a double purpose, secure to his _protegee_ his own

beloved peerage, and atone to his nephew for the loss of wealth--he has

left it a last request, that I should marry the young lady over whom I

am appointed guardian, when she is eighteen--alas! I shall then be at

the other side of forty! If she does not take to so mature a bridegroom,

she loses thirty--only thirty of the L200,000 settled upon her, which

goes to me as a sugar-plum after the nauseous draught of the young

lady’s ‘No.’ Now, you know all. His widow, really an exemplary young

woman, has a jointure of L1500 a year, and the villa. It is not much,

but she is contented.”

The lightness of the new peer’s tone revolted Maltravers, and he

turned impatiently away. But Lord Vargrave, resolving not to suffer the

conversation to glide back to sorrowful subjects, which he always hated,

turned round to Ernest, and said, “Well, my dear Ernest, I see by the

papers that you are to have N------‘s late appointment--it is a very

rising office. I congratulate you.”

“I have refused,” said Maltravers, drily.

“Bless me!--indeed!--why?”

Ernest bit his lip, and frowned; but his glance wandering unconsciously

at Florence, Lumley thought he detected the true reply to his question,

and became mute.

The conversation was afterwards embarrassed and broken up; Lumley went

away as soon as he could, and Lady Florence that night had a severe

fit, and could not leave her bed the next day. That confinement she

had struggled against to the last; and now, day by day, it grew more

frequent and inevitable. The steps of Death became accelerated. And Lord

Saxingham, wakened at last to the mournful truth, took his place by his

daughter’s side, and forgot that he was a cabinet minister.

CHAPTER VII.

“Away, my friends, why take such pains to know

What some brave marble soon in church shall show?”

CRABBE.

IT may seem strange, but Maltravers had never loved Lady Florence as he

did now. Was it the perversity of human nature that makes the things of

mortality dearer to us in proportion as they fade from our hopes, like

birds whose hues are only unfolded when they take wing and vanish amidst

the skies; or was it that he had ever doted more on loveliness of mind

than that of form, and the first bloomed out the more, the more the last

decayed? A thing to protect, to soothe, to shelter--oh, how dear it is

to the pride of man! The haughty woman who can stand alone and requires

no leaning-place in our heart, loses the spell of her sex.

I pass over those stages of decline gratuitously painful to record; and

which in this case mine cannot be the cold and technical hand to trace.

At length came that time when physicians could define within a few days

the final hour of release. And latterly the mocking pruderies of rank

had been laid aside, and Maltravers had, for some hours at least in the

day, taken his watch beside the couch to which the admired and brilliant

Florence Lascelles was now almost constantly reduced. But her high and

heroic spirit was with her to the last. To the last she could endure

love and hope. One day when Maltravers left his post, she besought him,

with more solemnity than usual, to return that evening. She fixed the

precise hour, and she sighed heavily when he departed. Maltravers

paused in the hall to speak to the physician, who was just quitting Lord

Saxingham’s library. Ernest spoke to him for some moments calmly, and

when he heard the fiat, he betrayed no other emotion than a slight

quiver of the lip! “I must not weep for her yet,” he muttered, as he

turned from the door. He went thence to the house of a gentleman of his

own age, with whom he had formed that kind of acquaintance which never

amounts to familiar friendship, but rests upon mutual respect, and

is often more ready than professed friendship itself to confer mutual

service. Colonel Danvers was a man who usually sat next to Maltravers in

parliament; they voted together, and thought alike on principles both

of politics and honour: they would have lent thousands to each other

without bond or memorandum; and neither ever wanted a warm and indignant

advocate when he was abused behind his back in the presence of the

other. Yet their tastes and ordinary habits were not congenial; and when

they met in the streets, they never said, as they would to companions

they esteemed less, “Let us spend the day together!” Such forms of

acquaintance are not uncommon among honourable men who have already

formed habits and pursuits of their own, which they cannot surrender

even to friendship. Colonel Danvers was not at home--they believed he

was at his club, of which Ernest also was a member. Thither Maltravers

bent his way. On arriving, he found that Danvers had been at the club

an hour ago, and left word that he should shortly return. Maltravers

entered and quietly sat down. The room was full of its daily loungers;

but he did not shrink from, he did not even heed, the crowd. He felt not

the desire of solitude--there was solitude enough within him. Several

distinguished public men were there, grouped around the fire, and many

of the hangers-on and satellites of political life; they were talking

with eagerness and animation, for it was a season of great party

conflict. Strange as it may seem, though Maltravers was then scarcely

sensible of their conversation, it all came back vividly and faithfully

on him afterwards, in the first hours of reflection on his own future

plans, and served to deepen and consolidate his disgust of the world.

They were discussing the character of a great statesman whom, warmed

but by the loftiest and purest motives, they were unable to understand.

Their gross suspicions, their coarse jealousies, their calculations of

patriotism by place, all that strips the varnish from the face of that

fair harlot--Political Ambition--sank like caustic into his spirit.

A gentleman seeing him sit silent, with his hat over his moody brows,

civilly extended to him the paper he was reading.

“It is the second edition; you will find the last French express.”

“Thank you,” said Maltravers; and the civil man started as he heard

the brief answer; there was something so inexpressibly prostrate and

broken-spirited in the voice that uttered it.

Maltravers’s eyes fell mechanically on the columns, and caught his own

name. That work which, in the fair retirement of Temple Grove it had

so pleased him to compose--in every page and every thought of which

Florence had been consulted--which was so inseparably associated with

her image, and glorified by the light of her kindred genius--was just

published. It had been completed long since; but the publisher had, for

some excellent reason of the craft, hitherto delayed its appearance.

Maltravers knew nothing of its publication; he had meant, after his

return to town, to have sent to forbid its appearance; but his thoughts

of late had crushed everything else out of his memory--he had forgotten

its existence. And now, in all the pomp and parade of authorship, it was

sent into the world! _Now_, _now_, when it was like an indecent mockery

of the Bed of Death--a sacrilege, an impiety! There is a terrible

disconnection between the author and the man---the author’s life and

the man’s life--the eras of visible triumph may be those of the most

intolerable, though unrevealed and unconjectured anguish. The book that

delighted us to compose may first appear in the hour when all things

under the sun are joyless. This had been Ernest Maltravers’s most

favoured work. It had been conceived in a happy hour of great

ambition--it had been executed with that desire of truth, which, in the

mind of genius, becomes ART. How little in the solitary hours stolen

from sleep had he thought of self, and that labourer’s hire called

“fame!” how had he dreamt that he was promulgating secrets to make his

kind better, and wiser, and truer to the great aims of life! How had

Florence, and Florence alone, understood the beatings of his heart in

every page! _And now_!--it so chanced that the work was reviewed in the

paper he read--it was not only a hostile criticism, it was a personally

abusive diatribe, a virulent invective. All the motives that can darken

or defile were ascribed to him. All the mean spite of some mean mind

was sputtered forth. Had the writer known the awful blow that awaited

Maltravers at that time, it is not in man’s nature but that he would

have shrunk from this petty gall upon the wrung withers; but, as I have

said, there is a terrible disconnection between the author and the man.

The first is always at our mercy--of the last we know nothing. At such

an hour Maltravers could feel none of the contempt that proud--none of

the wrath that vain, minds feel at these stings. He could feel nothing

but an undefined abhorrence of the world, and of the aims and objects

he had pursued so long. Yet that even he did not then feel. He was in

a dream; but as men remember dreams, so when he awoke did he loathe his

own former aspirations, and sicken at their base rewards. It was the

first time since his first year of inexperienced authorship that abuse

had had the power even to vex him for a moment. But here, when the cup

was already full, was the drop that overflowed. The great column of his

past world was gone, and all else seemed crumbling away.

At length Colonel Danvers entered. Maltravers drew him aside, and they

left the club.

“Danvers,” said the latter, “the time in which I told you I should need

your services is near at hand; let me see you, if possible, to-night.”

“Certainly--I shall be, at the House till eleven. After that hour you

will find me at home.”

“I thank you.”

“Cannot this matter be arranged amicably?”

“No, it is a quarrel of life and death.”

“Yet the world is really growing too enlightened for these old mimicries

of single combat.”

“There are some cases in which human nature and its deep wrongs will be

ever stronger than the world and its philosophy. Duels and wars belong

to the same principle; both are sinful on light grounds and poor

pretexts. But it is not sinful for a soldier to defend his country from

invasion, nor for man, with a man’s heart, to vindicate truth and honour

with his life. The robber that asks me for money I am allowed to shoot.

Is the robber that tears from me treasures never to be replaced, to go

free? These are the inconsistencies of a pseudo-ethics, which, as long

as we are made of flesh and blood, we can never subscribe to.”

“Yet the ancients,” said Danvers, with a smile, “were as passionate as

ourselves, and they dispensed with duels.”

“Yes, because they resorted to assassination!” answered Maltravers, with

a gloomy frown. “As in revolutions all law is suspended, so are there

stormy events and mighty injuries in life which are as revolutions to

individuals. Enough of this--it is no time to argue like the schoolmen.

When we meet you shall know all, and you will judge like me. Good day!”

“What, are you going already? Maltravers, you look ill, your hand is

feverish--you should take advice.”

Maltravers smiled--but the smile was not like his own--shook his head,

and strode rapidly away.

Three of the London clocks, one after the other, had told the hour

of nine, as a tall and commanding figure passed up the street towards

Saxingham House. Five doors before you reach that mansion there is a

crossing, and at this spot stood a young man, in whose face youth itself

looked sapless and blasted. It was then March;--the third of March;

the weather was unusually severe and biting, even for that angry month.

There had been snow in the morning, and it lay white and dreary in

various ridges along the street. But the wind was not still in the keen

but quiet sharpness of frost; on the contrary, it howled almost like a

hurricane through the desolate thoroughfares, and the lamps flickered

unsteadily in the turbulent gusts. Perhaps it was the blasts which

increased the haggardness of aspect in the young man I have mentioned.

His hair, which was much longer than is commonly worn, was tossed wildly

from cheeks preternaturally shrunken, hollow, and livid: and the frail,

thin form seemed scarcely able to support itself against the rush of the

winds.

As the tall figure, which, in its masculine stature and proportions, and

a peculiar and nameless grandeur of bearing, strongly contrasted that of

the younger man, now came to the spot where the streets met, it paused

abruptly.

“You are here once more, Castruccio Cesarini; it is well!” said the low

but ringing voice of Ernest Maltravers. “This, I believe, will not be

our last interview to-night.”

“I ask you, sir,” said Cesarini, in a tone in which pride struggled with

emotion--“I ask you to tell me how she is; whether you know--I cannot

speak--”

“Your work is nearly done,” answered Maltravers. “A few hours more, and

your victim, for she is yours, will bear her tale to the Great Judgment

Seat. Murderer as you are, tremble, for your own hour approaches!”

“She dies and I cannot see her! and you are permitted that last glimpse

of human perfectness; you who never loved her as I did; you--hated and

detested! you--”

Cesarini paused, and his voice died away, choked in his own convulsive

gaspings for breath.

Maltravers looked at him from the height of his erect and lofty form,

with a merciless eye; for in this one quarter, Maltravers had shut out

pity from his soul.

“Weak criminal!” said he, “hear me. You received at my hands

forbearance, friendship, fostering and anxious care. When your own

follies plunged you into penury, mine was the unseen hand that plucked

you from famine, or the prison. I strove to redeem, and save, and raise

you, and endow your miserable spirit with the thirst and the power of

honour and independence. The agent of that wish was Florence Lascelles;

you repaid us well! a base and fraudulent forgery, attaching meanness to

me, fraught with agony and death to her. Your conscience at last smote

you; you revealed to her your crime--one spark of manhood made you

reveal it also to myself. Fresh as I was in that moment from the

contemplations of the ruin you had made, I curbed the impulse that would

have crushed the life from your bosom. I told you to live on while life

was left to her. If she recovered, I could forgive; if she died, I must

avenge. We entered into that solemn compact, and in a few hours the bond

will need the seal: it is the blood of one of us. Castruccio Cesarini,

there is justice in Heaven. Deceive yourself not; you will fall by my

hand. When the hour comes, you will hear from me. Let me pass--I have no

more now to say.”

Every syllable of this speech was uttered with that thrilling

distinctness which seems as if the depth of the heart spoke in the

voice. But Cesarini did not appear to understand its import. He seized

Maltravers by the arm, and looked in his face with a wild and menacing

glare.

“Did you tell me she was dying?” he said. “I ask you that question:

why do you not answer me? Oh, by the way, you threaten me with your

vengeance. Know you not that I long to meet you front to front, and

to the death? Did I not tell you so--did I not try to move your slow

blood--to insult you into a conflict in which I should have gloried? Yet

then you were marble.”

“Because _my_ wrong I could forgive, and _hers_--there was then a hope

that hers might not need the atonement. Away!”

Maltravers shook the hold of the Italian from his arm, and passed on. A

wild, sharp yell of despair rang after him, and echoed in his ear as

he strode the long, dim, solitary stairs that led to the death-bed of

Florence Lascelles.

Maltravers entered the room adjoining that which contained the

sufferer--the same room, still gay and cheerful, in which had been his

first interview with Florence since their reconciliation.

Here he found the physician dozing in a _fauteuil_. Lady Florence had

fallen asleep during the last two or three hours. Lord Saxingham was in

his own apartment, deeply and noisily affected; for it was not thought

that Florence could survive the night.

Maltravers sat himself quietly down. Before him, on a table, lay several

manuscript books, gaily and gorgeously bound; he mechanically opened

them. Florence’s fair, noble Italian characters met his eye in every

page. Her rich and active mind, her love for poetry, her thirst for

knowledge, her indulgence of deep thought, spoke from those pages

like the ghosts of herself. Often, underscored with the marks of her

approbation, he chanced upon extracts from his own works, sometimes upon

reflections by the writer herself, not inferior in truth and depth to

his own; snatches of wild verse never completed, but of a power

and energy beyond the delicate grace of lady-poets; brief, vigorous

criticisms on books, above the common holiday studies of the sex;

indignant and sarcastic aphorisms on the real world, with high and sad

bursts of feeling upon the ideal one; all chequering and enriching the

various volumes, told of the rare gifts with which this singular girl

was endowed--a herbal, as it were, of withered blossoms that might have

borne Hesperian fruits. And sometimes in these outpourings of the

full mind and laden heart were allusions to himself, so tender and so

touching--the pencilled outline of his features, traced by memory in

a thousand aspects--the reference to former interviews and

conversations--the dates and hours marked with a woman’s minute and

treasuring care!--all these tokens of genius and of love spoke to him

with a voice that said, “And this creature is lost to you, forever: you

never appreciated her till the time for her departure was irrevocably

fixed!”

Maltravers uttered a deep groan; all the past rushed over him. Her

romantic passion for one yet unknown--her interest in his glory--her

zeal for his life of life, his spotless and haughty name. It was as if

with her, Fame and Ambition were dying also, and henceforth nothing but

common clay and sordid motives were to be left on earth.

How sudden--how awfully sudden had been the blow! True, there had been

an absence of some months in which the change had operated. But absence

is a blank, a nonentity. He had left her in apparent health, in the time

of prosperity and pride. He saw her again--stricken down in body and

temper--chastened--humbled--dying. And this being, so bright and lofty,

how had she loved him! Never had he been so loved, except in that

morning dream, haunted by the vision of the lost and dim-remembered

Alice. Never on earth could he be so loved again. The air and aspect

of the whole chamber grew to him painful and oppressive. It was full of

her--the owner! There the harp, which so well became her muse-like

form that it was associated with her like a part of herself! There the

pictures, fresh and glowing from her hand,-the grace--the harmony--the

classic and simple taste everywhere displayed.

Rousseau has left to us an immortal portrait of the lover waiting

for the first embraces of his mistress. But to wait with a pulse as

feverish, a brain as dizzy, for her last look--to await the moment of

despair, not rapture--to feel the slow and dull time as palpable a load

upon the heart, yet to shrink from your own impatience, and wish that

the agony of suspense might endure for ever--this, oh, this is a picture

of intense passion--of flesh and blood reality--of the rare and solemn

epochs of our mysterious life--which had been worthier the genius of

that “Apostle of Affliction”!

At length the door opened; the favourite attendant of Florence looked

in.

“Is Mr. Maltravers there? Oh, sir, my lady is awake and would see you.”

Maltravers rose, but his feet were glued to the ground, his sinking

heart stood still--it was a mortal terror that possessed him. With a

deep sigh he shook off the numbing spell, and passed to the bedside of

Florence.

She sat up, propped by pillows, and as he sank beside her, and clasped

her wan, transparent hand, she looked at him with a smile of pitying

love.

“You have been very, very kind to me,” she said, after a pause, and with

a voice which had altered even since the last time he heard it. “You

have made that part of life from which human nature shrinks with dread,

the happiest and the brightest of all my short and vain existence. My

own clear Ernest--Heaven reward you!”

A few grateful tears dropped from her eyes, and they fell on the hand

which she bent her lips to kiss.

“It was not here--nor amidst the streets and the noisy abodes of

anxious, worldly men--nor was it in this harsh and dreary season of the

year, that I could have wished to look my last on earth. Could I have

seen the face of Nature--could I have watched once more with the summer

sun amidst those gentle scenes we loved so well, Death would have had

no difference from sleep. But what matters it? With you there are summer

and Nature everywhere!”

Maltravers raised his face, and their eyes met in silence--it was

a long, fixed gaze, which spoke more than all words could. Her head

dropped on his shoulder, and there it lay, passive and motionless,

for some moments. A soft step glided into the room--it was the unhappy

father’s. He came to the other side of his daughter, and sobbed

convulsively.

She then raised herself, and even in the shades of death, a faint blush

passed over her cheek.

“My good dear father, what comfort will it give you hereafter to think

how fondly you spoiled your Florence!”

Lord Saxingham could not answer: he clasped her in his arms and wept

over her. Then he broke away--looked on her with a shudder--

“O God!” he cried, “she is dead--she is dead!”

Maltravers started. The physician kindly approached, and, taking Lord

Saxingham’s hand, led him from the room--he went mute and obedient like

a child.

But the struggle was not yet past. Florence once more opened her eyes,

and Maltravers uttered a cry of joy. But along those eyes the film was

darkening rapidly, as still through the mist and shadow they sought

the beloved countenance which hung over her, as if to breathe life into

waning life. Twice her lips moved, but her voice failed her; she shook

her head sadly.

Maltravers hastily held to her mouth a cordial which lay ready on the

table near her, but scarce had it moistened her lips, when her whole

frame grew heavier and heavier, in his clasp. Her head once more sank

upon his bosom--she thrice gasped wildly for breath--and at length,

raising her hand on high, life struggled into its expiring ray.

“_There_--above!--Ernest--that name--Ernest!”

Yes, that name was the last she uttered; she was evidently conscious of

that thought, for a smile, as her voice again faltered--a smile sweet

and serene--that smile never seen but on the faces of the dying and the

dead--borrowed from a light that is not of this world--settled slowly on

her brow, her lips, her whole countenance; still she breathed, but the

breath grew fainter! at length, without murmur, sound, or struggle, it

passed away--the head dropped from his bosom--the form fell from his

arms-all was over!

CHAPTER VIII.

* * * * “Is this the promised end?”--_Lear_.

IT was two hours after that scene before Maltravers left the house. It

was then just on the stroke of the first hour of morning. To him, while

he walked through the streets, and the sharp winds howled on his path,

it was as if a strange and wizard life had passed into and supported

him--a sort of drowsy, dull existence. He was like a sleepwalker,

unconscious of all around him; yet his steps went safe and free; and the

one thought that possessed his being--into which all intellect seemed

shrunk--the thought, not fiery nor vehement, but calm, stern, and

solemn--the thought of revenge--seemed, as it were, grown his soul

itself. He arrived at the door of Colonel Danvers, mounted the stairs,

and as his friend advanced to meet him, said calmly, “Now, then, the

hour has arrived.”

“But what would you do now?”

“Come with me, and you shall learn.”

“Very well, my carriage is below. Will you direct the servants?”

Maltravers nodded, gave his orders to the careless footman, and the two

friends were soon driving through the less known and courtly regions of

the giant city. It was then that Maltravers concisely stated to Danvers

the fraud that had been practised by Cesarini.

“You will go with me now,” concluded Maltravers, “to his house. To

do him justice, he is no coward; he has not shrunk from giving me his

address, nor will he shrink from the atonement I demand. I shall wait

below while you arrange our meeting--at daybreak for to-morrow.” Danvers

was astonished and even appalled by the discovery made to him. There was

something so unusual and strange in the whole affair. But neither his

experience, nor his principles of honour, could suggest any alternative

to the plan proposed. For though not regarding the cause of quarrel in

the same light as Maltravers, and putting aside all question as to the

right of the latter to constitute himself the champion of the betrothed,

or the avenger of the dead, it seemed clear to the soldier that a man

whose confidential letter had been garbled by another for the purpose

of slandering his truth and calumniating his name, had no option but

contempt, or the sole retribution (wretched though it be) which the

customs of the higher class permit to those who live within its pale.

But contempt for a wrong that a sorrow so tragic had followed--was

_that_ option in human philosophy?

The carriage stopped at a door in a narrow lane in an obscure suburb.

Yet, dark as all the houses around were, lights were seen in the upper

windows of Cesarini’s residence, passing to and fro; and scarce had the

servant’s loud knock echoed through the dim thoroughfare, ere the door

was opened. Danvers descended, and entered the passage--“Oh, sir, I am

so glad you are come!” said an old woman, pale and trembling; “he do

take on so!”

“There is no mistake,” asked Danvers, halting; “an Italian gentleman

named Cesarini lodges here?”

“Yes, sir, poor cretur--I sent for you to come to him--for says I to my

boy, says I--”

“Whom do you take me for?”

“Why, la, sir, you be’s the doctor, ben’t you?”

Danvers made no reply; he had a mean opinion of the courage of one who

could act dishonourably; he thought there was some design to cheat his

friend out of his revenge; accordingly he ascended the stairs, motioning

the woman to precede him.

He came back to the door of the carriage in a few minutes. “Let us go

home, Maltravers,” said he, “this man is not in a state to meet you.”

“Ha!” cried Maltravers, frowning darkly, and all his long-smothered

indignation rushing like fire through every vein of his body; “would he

shrink from the atonement?” He pushed Danvers impatiently aside, leapt

from the carriage, and rushed up-stairs.

Danvers followed.

Heated, wrought-up, furious, Ernest Maltravers burst into a small and

squalid chamber; from the closed doors of which, through many chinks,

had gleamed the light that told him Cesarini was within. And Cesarini’s

eyes, blazing with horrible fire, were the first object that met his

gaze. Maltravers stood still, as if frozen into stone.

“Ha! ha!” laughed a shrill and shrieking voice, which contrasted dreadly

with the accents of the soft Tuscan, in which the wild words were

strung--“who comes here with garments dyed in blood? You cannot accuse

me--for my blow drew no blood, it went straight to the heart--it tore no

flesh by the way; we Italians poison our victims! Where art thou--where

art thou, Maltravers? I am ready. Coward, you do not come! Oh, yes, yes,

here you are; the pistols--I will not fight so. I am a wild beast. Let

us rend each other with our teeth and talons!”

Huddled up like a heap of confused and jointless limbs in the furthest

corner of the room, lay the wretch, a raving maniac;--two men keeping

their firm gripe on him, which, ever and anon, with the mighty strength

of madness, he shook off, to fall back senseless and exhausted; his

strained and bloodshot eyes starting from their sockets, the slaver

gathering round his lips, his raven hair standing on end, his delicate

and symmetrical features distorted into a hideous and Gorgon aspect. It

was, indeed, an appalling and sublime spectacle, full of an awful moral,

the meeting of the foes! Here stood Maltravers, strong beyond the common

strength of men, in health, power, conscious superiority, premeditated

vengeance--wise, gifted; all his faculties ripe, developed, at his

command;--the complete and all-armed man, prepared for defence and

offence against every foe--a man who, once roused in a righteous

quarrel, would not have quailed before an army; and there and thus was

his dark and fierce purpose dashed from his soul, shivered into atoms

at his feet. He felt the nothingness of man and man’s wrath--in the

presence of the madman on whose head the thunderbolt of a greater curse

than human anger ever breathes had fallen. In his horrible affliction

the Criminal triumphed over the Avenger!

“Yes! yes!” shouted Cesarini, again; “they tell me she is dying; but

he is by her side;--pluck him thence--he shall not touch her hand--she

shall not bless him--she is mine--if I killed her, I have saved her from

him--she is mine in death. Let me in, I say,--I will come in,--I will, I

will see her, and strangle him at her feet.” With that, by a tremendous

effort, he tore himself from the clutch of his holders, and with a

sudden and exultant bound sprang across the room, and stood face to

face with Maltravers. The proud brave than turned pale, and recoiled a

step--“It is he! it is he!” shrieked the maniac, and he leaped like a

tiger at the throat of his rival. Maltravers quickly seized his arm, and

whirled him round. Cesarini fell heavily on the floor, mute, senseless,

and in strong convulsions.

“Mysterious Providence!” murmured Maltravers, “thou hast justly rebuked

the mortal for dreaming he might arrogate to himself thy privilege of

vengeance. Forgive the sinner, O God, as I do--as thou teachest this

stubborn heart to forgive--as she forgave who is now with thee, a

blessed saint in heaven!”

When, some minutes afterwards, the doctor, who had been sent for,

arrived, the head of the stricken patient lay on the lap of his foe, and

it was the hand of Maltravers that wiped the froth from the white lips,

and the voice of Maltravers that strove to soothe, and the tears of

Maltravers that were falling on that fiery brow.

“Tend him, sir, tend him as my brother,” said Maltravers, hiding his

face as he resigned the charge. “Let him have all that can alleviate and

cure--remove him hence to some fitter abode--send for the best advice.

Restore him, and--and--” He could say no more, but left the room

abruptly.

It was afterwards ascertained that Cesarini had remained in the streets

after his short interview with Ernest, that at length he had knocked at

Lord Saxingham’s door just in the very hour when death had claimed

its victim. He heard the announcement--he sought to force his way

up-stairs--they thrust him from the house, and nothing more of him

was known till he arrived at his own door, an hour before Danvers and

Maltravers came, in raging frenzy. Perhaps by one of the dim erratic

gleams of light which always chequer the darkness of insanity, he

retained some faint remembrance of his compact and assignation with

Maltravers, which had happily guided his steps back to his abode.

* * * * *

It was two months after this scene, a lovely Sabbath morning, in the

earliest May, as Lumley, Lord Vargrave, sat alone, by the window in

his late uncle’s villa, in his late uncle’s easy-chair--his eyes were

resting musingly on the green lawn on which the windows opened, or

rather on two forms that were seated upon a rustic bench in the middle

of the sward. One was the widow in her weeds, the other was that fair

and lovely child destined to be the bride of the new lord. The hands of

the mother and daughter were clasped each in each. There was sadness in

the faces of both--deeper if more resigned on that of the elder, for the

child sought to console her parent, and grief in childhood comes with a

butterfly’s wing.

Lumley gazed on them both, and on the child more earnestly.

“She is very lovely,” he said; “she will be very rich. After all, I

am not to be pitied. I am a peer, and I have enough to live upon at

present. I am a rising man--our party wants peers; and though I could

not have had more than a subaltern’s seat at the Treasury Board six

months ago, when I was an active, zealous, able commoner, now that I am

a lord, with what they call a stake in the country, I may open my mouth

and--bless me! I know not how many windfalls may drop in! My uncle was

wiser than I thought in wrestling for this peerage, which he won and I

wear!--Then, by and by, just at the age when I want to marry and have an

heir (and a pretty wife saves one a vast deal of trouble), L200,000 and

a young beauty! Come, come, I have strong cards in my hands if I play

them tolerably. I must take care that she falls desperately in love

with me. Leave me alone for that--I know the sex, and have never failed

except in--ah, that poor Florence! Well, it is no use regretting! Like

thrifty artists, we must paint out the unmarketable picture, and call

luckier creations to fill up the same canvas!”

Here the servant interrupted Lord Vargrave’s meditation by bringing in

the letters and the newspapers which had just been forwarded from

his town house. Lord Vargrave had spoken in the Lords on the previous

Friday, and he wished to see what the Sunday newspapers said of his

speech. So he took up one of the leading papers before he opened the

letters. His eyes rested upon two paragraphs in close neighbourhood with

each other: the first ran thus:

“The celebrated Mr. Maltravers has abruptly resigned his seat for the

------ of ------, and left town yesterday on an extended tour on

the Continent. Speculation is busy on the causes of the singular and

unexpected self-exile of a gentleman so distinguished--in the very

zenith of his career.”

“So, he has given up the game!” muttered Lord Vargrave; “he was never

a practical man--I am glad he is out of the way. But what’s this about

myself?”

“We hear that important changes are to take place in the government---it

is said that ministers are at last alive to the necessity of

strengthening themselves with new talent. Among other appointments

confidently spoken of in the best-informed circles, we learn that

Lord Vargrave is to have the place of ------. It will be a popular

appointment. Lord Vargrave is not a holiday orator, a mere declamatory

rhetorician--but a man of clear business-like views, and was highly

thought of in the House of Commons. He has also the art of attaching

his friends, and his frank, manly character cannot fail to have its due

effect with the English public. In another column of our journal our

readers will see a full report of his excellent maiden speech in the

House of Lords, on Friday last: the sentiments there expressed do the

highest honour to his lordship’s patriotism and sagacity.”

“Very well, very well indeed!” said Lumley, rubbing his hands; and

turning to his letters, his attention was drawn to one with an enormous

seal, marked “Private and confidential.” He knew before he opened

it that it contained the offer of the appointment alluded to in the

newspaper. He read, and rose exultantly; passing through the French

windows, he joined Lady Vargrave and Evelyn on the lawn, and, as he

smiled on the mother and caressed the child, the scene and the group

made a pleasant picture of English domestic happiness.

Here ends the First Portion of this work: it ends in the view that

bounds us when we look on the practical world with the outward

unspiritual eye--and see life that dissatisfies justice,--for life is so

seen but in fragments. The influence of fate seems so small on the man

who, in erring, but errs as the egotist, and shapes out of ill some use

that can profit himself. But Fate hangs a shadow so vast on the heart

that errs but in venturing and knows only in others the sources of

sorrow and joy.

Go alone, O Maltravers, unfriendly, remote--thy present a waste, and

thy past life a ruin, go forth to the future!--Go, Ferrers, light

cynic--with the crowd take thy way,--complacent, elated,--no cloud upon

conscience, for thou seest but sunshine on fortune.--Go forth to the

future!

Human life is compared to the circle.--Is the simile just? All lines

that are drawn from the centre to touch the circumference, by the law

of the circle, are equal. But the lines that are drawn from the heart

of the man to the verge of his destiny--do they equal each other?--Alas!

some seem so brief, and some lengthen on as for ever.

THE END