CHAPTER XVII.

This eBook was produced by David Widger

BOOK TWELFTH.

INITIAL CHAPTER.

WHEREIN THE CAXTON FAMILY REAPPEAR.

"Again," quoth my father,--"again behold us! We who greeted the

commencement of your narrative, who absented ourselves in the midcourse

when we could but obstruct the current of events, and jostle personages

more important,--we now gather round the close. Still, as the chorus to

the drama, we circle round the altar with the solemn but dubious chant

which prepares the audience for the completion of the appointed

destinies; though still, ourselves, unaware how the skein is to be

unravelled, and where the shears are to descend."

So there they stood, the Family of Caxton,--all grouping round me, all

eager officiously to question, some over-anxious prematurely to

criticise.

"Violante can't have voluntarily gone off with that horrid count," said

my mother; "but perhaps she was deceived, like Eugenia by Mr. Bellamy, in

the novel of 'CAMILLA'."

"Ha!" said my father, "and in that case it is time yet to steal a hint

from Clarissa Harlowe, and make Violante die less of a broken heart than

a sullied honour. She is one of those girls who ought to be killed! All

things about her forebode an early tomb!"

"Dear, dear!" cried Mrs. Caxton, "I hope not!"

"Pooh, brother," said the captain, "we have had enough of the tomb in the

history of poor Nora. The whole story grows out of a grave, and if to a

grave it must return--if, Pisistratus, you must kill somebody--

kill Levy."

"Or the count," said my mother, with unusual truculence. "Or Randal

Leslie," said Squills. "I should like to have a post-mortem cast of his

head,--it would be an instructive study."

Here there was a general confusion of tongues, all present conspiring to

bewilder the unfortunate author with their various and discordant

counsels how to wind up his story and dispose of his characters.

"Silence!" cried Pisistratus, clapping his hands to both ears. "I can no

more alter the fate allotted to each of the personages whom you honour

with your interest than I can change your own; like you, they must go

where events lead there, urged on by their own characters and the

agencies of others. Providence so pervadingly governs the universe,

that you cannot strike it even out of a book. The author may beget a

character, but the moment the character comes into action, it escapes

from his hands,--plays its own part, and fulfils its own inevitable

doom."

"Besides," said Squills, "it is easy to see, from the phrenological

development of the organs in those several heads which Pisistratus has

allowed us to examine, that we have seen no creations of mere fiction,

but living persons, whose true history has set in movement their various

bumps of Amativeness, Constructiveness, Acquisitiveness, Idealty, Wonder,

Comparison, etc. They must act, and they must end, according to the

influences of their crania. Thus we find in Randal Leslie the

predominant organs of Constructiveness, Secretiveness, Comparison, and

Eventuality, while Benevolence, Conscientiousness, Adhesiveness, are

utterly nil. Now, to divine how such a man must end, we must first see

what is the general composition of the society in which he moves, in

short, what other gases are brought into contact with his phlogiston.

As to Leonard, and Harley, and Audley Egerton, surveying them

phrenologically, I should say that--"

"Hush!" said my father, "Pisistratus has dipped his pen in the ink, and

it seems to me easier for the wisest man that ever lived to account for

what others have done than to predict what they should do. Phrenologists

discovered that Mr. Thurtell had a very fine organ of Conscientiousness;

yet, somehow or other, that erring personage contrived to knock the

brains out of his friend's organ of Individuality. Therefore I rise to

propose a Resolution,--that this meeting be adjourned till Pisistratus

has completed his narrative; and we shall then have the satisfaction of

knowing that it ought, according to every principle of nature, science,

and art, to have been completed differently. Why should we deprive

ourselves of that pleasure?"

"I second the motion," said the captain; "but if Levy be not hanged, I

shall say that there is an end of all poetical justice."

"Take care of poor Helen," said Blanche, tenderly: "nor, that I would

have you forget Violante."

"Pish! and sit down, or they shall both die old maids." Frightened at

that threat, Blanche, with a deprecating look, drew her stool quietly

near me, as if to place her two /proteges/ in an atmosphere mesmerized to

matrimonial attractions; and my mother set hard to work--at a new frock

for the baby. Unsoftened by these undue female influences, Pisistratus

wrote on at the dictation of the relentless Fates. His pen was of iron,

and his heart was of granite. He was as insensible to the existence of

wife and baby as if he had never paid a house bill, nor rushed from a

nursery at the sound of an infant squall. O blessed privilege of

Authorship!

"O testudinis aureae

Dulcem quae strepitum, Pieri, temperas!

O mutis quoque piscibus

Donatura cyeni, si libeat, sonum!"

["O Muse, who dost temper the sweet sound of the golden shell of the

tortoise, and couldst also give, were it needed, to silent fishes

the song of the swan."]

CHAPTER II.

It is necessary to go somewhat back in the course of this narrative, and

account to the reader for the disappearance of Violante.

It may be remembered that Peschiera, scared by the sudden approach of

Lord L'Estrange, had little time for further words to the young Italian,

than those which expressed his intention to renew the conference, and

press for her decision. But the next day, when he re-entered the garden,

secretly and stealthily, as before, Violante did not appear. And after

watching round the precincts till dusk, the count retreated, with an

indignant conviction that his arts had failed to enlist on his side

either the heart or the imagination of his intended victim. He began

now to revolve and to discuss with Levy the possibilities of one of those

bold and violent measures, which were favoured by his reckless daring and

desperate condition. But Levy treated with such just ridicule any

suggestion to abstract Violante by force from Lord Lansmere's house, so

scouted the notions of nocturnal assault, with the devices of scaling

windows and rope-ladders, that the count reluctantly abandoned that

romance of villany so unsuited to our sober capital, and which would no

doubt have terminated in his capture by the police, with the prospect of

committal to the House of Correction.

Levy himself found his invention at fault, and Randal Leslie was called

into consultation. The usurer had contrived that Randal's schemes of

fortune and advancement were so based upon Levy's aid and connivance,

that the young man, with all his desire rather to make instruments of

other men, than to be himself their instrument, found his superior

intellect as completely a slave to Levy's more experienced craft, as ever

subtle Genius of air was subject to the vulgar Sorcerer of earth.

His acquisition of the ancestral acres, his anticipated seat in

parliament, his chance of ousting Frank from the heritage of Hazeldean,

were all as strings that pulled him to and fro, like a puppet in the

sleek, filbert-nailed fingers of the smiling showman, who could exhibit

him to the admiration of a crowd, or cast him away into dust and lumber.

Randal gnawed his lip in the sullen wrath of a man who bides his hour of

future emancipation, and lent his brain to the hire of the present

servitude, in mechanical acquiescence. The inherent superiority of the

profound young schemer became instantly apparent over the courage of

Peschiera and the practised wit of the baron.

"Your sister," said Randal, to the former, "must be the active agent in

the first and most difficult part of your enterprise. Violante cannot be

taken by force from Lord Lansmere's,--she must be induced to leave it

with her own consent. A female is needed here. Woman can best decoy

woman."

"Admirably said," quoth the count; "but Beatrice has grown restive, and

though her dowry, and therefore her very marriage with that excellent

young Hazeldean, depend on my own alliance with my fair kinswoman, she

has grown so indifferent to my success that I dare not reckon on her aid.

Between you and me, though she was once very eager to be married, she now

seems to shrink from the notion; and I have no other hold over her."

"Has she not seen some one, and lately, whom she prefers to poor Frank?"

"I suspect that she has; but I know not whom, unless it be that detested

L'Estrange."

"Ah, well, well. Interfere with her no further yourself, but have all in

readiness to quit England, as you had before proposed, as soon as

Violante be in your power."

"All is in readiness," said the count. "Levy has agreed to purchase a

famous sailing-vessel of one of his clients. I have engaged a score or

so of determined outcasts, accustomed to the sea,--Genoese, Corsicans,

Sardinians, ex-Carbonari of the best sort,--no silly patriots, but

liberal cosmopolitans, who have iron at the disposal of any man's gold.

I have a priest to perform the nuptial service, and deaf to any fair

lady's 'No.' Once at sea, and wherever I land, Violante will lean on my

arm as Countess of Peschiera."

"But Violante," said Randal, doggedly, determined not to yield to the

disgust with which the count's audacious cynicism filled even him--"but

Violante cannot be removed in broad daylight at once to such a vessel,

nor from a quarter so populous as that in which your sister resides."

"I have thought of that too," said the count; "my emissaries have found

me a house close by the river, and safe for our purpose as the dungeons

of Venice."

"I wish not to know all this," answered Randal, quickly; "you will

instruct Madame di Negra where to take Violante.--my task limits itself

to the fair inventions that belong to intellect; what belongs to force is

not in my province. I will go at once to your sister, whom I think I can

influence more effectually than you can; though later I may give you a

hint to guard against the chance of her remorse. Meanwhile as, the

moment Violante disappears, suspicion would fall upon you, show yourself

constantly in public surrounded by your friends. Be able to account for

every hour of your time--"

"An alibi?" interrupted the ci-devant solicitor.

"Exactly so, Baron. Complete the purchase of the vessel, and let the

count man it as he proposes. I will communicate with you both as soon as

I can put you into action. To-day I shall have much to do; it will be

done."

As Randal left the room, Levy followed him.

"What you propose to do will be well done, no doubt," quoth the usurer,

linking his arm in Randal's; "but take care that you don't get yourself

into a scrape, so as to damage your character. I have great hopes of you

in public life; and in public life character is necessary,--that is, so

far as honour is concerned."

"I damage my character!--and for a Count Peschiera!" said Randal, opening

his eyes. "I! What do you take me for?"

The baron let go his hold.

"This boy ought to rise very high," said he to himself, as he turned back

to the count.

CHAPTER III.

Randal's acute faculty of comprehension had long since surmised the truth

that Beatrice's views and temper of mind had been strangely and suddenly

altered by some such revolution as passion only can effect; that pique or

disappointment had mingled with the motive which had induced her to

accept the hand of his rash young kinsman; and that, instead of the

resigned indifference with which she might at one time have contemplated

any marriage that could free her from a position that perpetually galled

her pride, it was now with a repugnance, visible to Randal's keen eye,

that she shrank from the performance of that pledge which Frank had so

dearly bought. The temptations which the count could hold out to her to

become his accomplice in designs of which the fraud and perfidy would

revolt her better nature had ceased to be of avail. A dowry had grown

valueless, since it would but hasten the nuptials from which she

recoiled. Randal felt that he could not secure her aid, except by

working on a passion so turbulent as to confound her judgment. Such a

passion he recognized in jealousy. He had once doubted if Harley were

the object of her love; yet, after all, was it not probable? He knew,

at least, of no one else to suspect. If so, he had but to whisper,

"Violante is your rival. Violante removed, your beauty may find its

natural effect; if not, you are an Italian, and you will be at least

avenged." He saw still more reason to suppose that Lord L'Estrange was

indeed the one by whom he could rule Beatrice, since, the last time he

had seen her, she had questioned him with much eagerness as to the family

of Lord Lansmere, especially as to the female part of it. Randal had

then judged it prudent to avoid speaking of Violante, and feigned

ignorance; but promised to ascertain all particulars by the time he next

saw the marchesa. It was the warmth with which she had thanked him that

had set his busy mind at work to conjecture the cause of her curiosity so

earnestly aroused, and to ascribe that cause to jealousy. If Harley

loved Violante (as Randal himself had before supposed), the little of

passion that the young man admitted to himself was enlisted in aid of

Peschiera's schemes. For though Randal did not love Violante, he

cordially disliked L'Estrange, and would have gone as far to render that

dislike vindictive, as a cold reasoner, intent upon worldly fortunes,

will ever suffer mere hate to influence him.

"At the worst," thought Randal, "if it be not Harley, touch the chord of

jealousy, and its vibration will direct me right."

Thus soliloquizing, he arrived at Madame di Negra's.

Now, in reality the marchesa's inquiries as to Lord Lansmere's family had

their source in the misguided, restless, despairing interest with which

she still clung to the image of the young poet, whom Randal had no reason

to suspect. That interest had become yet more keen from the impatient

misery she had felt ever since she had plighted herself to another. A

wild hope that she might yet escape, a vague regretful thought that she

had been too hasty in dismissing Leonard from her presence,--that she

ought rather to have courted his friendship, and contended against her

unknown rival,--at times drew her wayward mind wholly from the future to

which she had consigned herself. And, to do her justice, though her

sense of duty was so defective, and the principles which should have

guided her conduct were so lost to her sight, still her feelings towards

the generous Hazeldean were not so hard and blunted but what her own

ingratitude added to her torment; and it seemed as if the sole atonement

she could make to him was to find an excuse to withdraw her promise, and

save him from herself. She had caused Leonard's steps to be watched; she

had found that he visited at Lord Lansmere's; that he had gone there

often, and stayed there long. She had learned in the neighbourhood that

Lady Lansmere had one or two young female guests staying with her.

Surely this was the attraction--here was the rival!

Randal found Beatrice in a state of mind that answered his purpose; and

first turning his conversation on Harley, and noting that her countenance

did not change, by little and little he drew forth her secret.

Then said Randal, gravely, "If one whom you honour with a tender thought

visits at Lord Lansmere's house, you have, indeed, cause to fear for

yourself, to hope for your brother's success in the object which has

brought him to England; for a girl of surpassing beauty is a guest in

Lord Lansmere's house, and I will now tell you that that girl is she whom

Count Peschiera would make his bride."

As Randal thus spoke, and saw how his listener's brow darkened and her

eye flashed, he felt that his accomplice was secured. Violante! Had not

Leonard spoken of Violante, and with such praise? Had not his boyhood

been passed under her eyes? Who but Violante could be the rival?

Beatrice's abrupt exclamations, after a moment's pause, revealed to

Randal the advantage he had gained. And partly by rousing her jealousy

into revenge, partly by flattering her love with assurances that,

if Violante were fairly removed from England, were the wife of Count

Peschiera, it would be impossible that Leonard could remain insensible to

her own attractions; that he, Randal, would undertake to free her

honourably from her engagement to Frank Hazeldean, and obtain from her

brother the acquittal of the debt which had first fettered her hand to

that confiding suitor,--he did not quit the marchesa until she had not

only promised to do all that Randal might suggest, but impetuously urged

him to mature his plans, and hasten the hour to accomplish them. Randal

then walked some minutes musing and slow along the streets, revolving the

next meshes in his elaborate and most subtle web. And here his craft

luminously devised its masterpiece.

It was necessary, during any interval that might elapse between

Violante's disappearance and her departure from England, in order to

divert suspicion from Peschiera (who might otherwise be detained), that

some cause for her voluntary absence from Lord Lansmere's should be at

least assignable; it was still more necessary that Randal himself should

stand wholly clear from any surmise that he could have connived at the

count's designs, even should their actual perpetrator be discovered or

conjectured. To effect these objects, Randal hastened to Norwood, and

obtained an interview with Riccabocca. In seeming agitation and alarm,

he informed the exile that he had reason to know that Peschiera had

succeeded in obtaining a secret interview with Violante, and he feared

had made a certain favourable impression on her mind; and speaking as

if with the jealousy of a lover, he entreated Riccabocca to authorize

Randal's direct proposals to Violante, and to require her consent to

their immediate nuptials.

The poor Italian was confounded with the intelligence conveyed to him;

and his almost superstitious fears of his brilliant enemy, conjoined with

his opinion of the susceptibility to outward attractions common to all

the female sex, made him not only implicitly credit, but even exaggerate,

the dangers that Randal intimated. The idea of his daughter's marriage

with Randal, towards which he had lately cooled, he now gratefully

welcomed.

But his first natural suggestion was to go, or send, for Violante, and

bring her to his own house. This, however, Randal artfully opposed.

"Alas! I know," said he, "that Peschiera has discovered your retreat, and

surely she would be far less safe here than where she is now!"

"But, diavolo! you say the man has seen her where she is now, in spite

of all Lady Lansmere's promises and Harley's precautions."

"True. Of this Peschiera boasted to me. He effected it not, of course,

openly, but in some disguise. I am sufficiently, however, in his

confidence--any man may be that with so audacious a braggart--to deter

him from renewing his attempt for some days. Meanwhile, I or yourself

will leave discovered some surer home than this, to which you can remove,

and then will be the proper time to take back your daughter. And for the

present, if you will send by me a letter to enjoin her to receive me as

her future bridegroom, it will necessarily divert all thought at once

from the count; I shall be able to detect by the manner in which she

receives me, how far the count has overstated the effect he pretends to

have produced. You can give me also a letter to Lady Lansmere, to

prevent your daughter coming hither. Oh, sir, do not reason with me.

Have indulgence for my lover's fears. Believe that I advise for the

best. Have I not the keenest interest to do so?"

Like many a man who is wise enough with pen and paper before him, and

plenty of time wherewith to get up his wisdom, Riccabocca was flurried,

nervous, and confused when that wisdom was called upon for any ready

exertion. From the tree of knowledge he had taken grafts enough to serve

for a forest; but the whole forest could not spare him a handy walking-

stick. The great folio of the dead Machiavelli lay useless before him,--

the living Machiavelli of daily life stood all puissant by his side. The

Sage was as supple to the Schemer as the Clairvoyant is to the Mesmerist;

and the lean slight fingers of Randal actually dictated almost the very

words that Riccabocca wrote to his child and her hostess.

The philosopher would have liked to consult his wife; but he was ashamed

to confess that weakness. Suddenly he remembered Harley, and said, as

Randal took up the letters which Riccabocca had indited,

"There, that will give us time; and I will send to Lord L'Estrange and

talk to him."

"My noble friend," replied Randal, mournfully, "may I entreat you not to

see Lord L'Estrange until at least I have pleaded my cause to your

daughter,--until, indeed, she is no longer under his father's roof?"

"And why?"

"Because I presume that you are sincere when you deign to receive me as a

son-in-law, and because I am sure that Lord L'Estrange would hear with

distaste of your disposition in my favour. Am I not right?"

Riccabocca was silent.

"And though his arguments would fail with a man of your honour and

discernment, they might have more effect on the young mind of your child.

Think, I beseech you, the more she is set against me, the more accessible

she may be to the arts of Peschiera. Speak not, therefore, I implore

you, to Lord L'Estrange till Violante has accepted my hand, or at least

until she is again under your charge; otherwise take back your letter,--

it would be of no avail."

"Perhaps you are right. Certainly Lord L'Estrange is prejudiced against

you; or rather, he thinks too much of what I have been, too little of

what I am."

"Who can see you, and not do so? I pardon him." After kissing the hand

which the exile modestly sought to withdraw froin that act of homage,

Randal pocketed the letters; and, as if struggling with emotion, rushed

from the house.

Now, O curious reader, if thou wilt heedfully observe to what uses Randal

Leslie put those letters,--what speedy and direct results he drew forth

from devices which would seem to an honest simple understanding the most

roundabout, wire-drawn wastes of invention,--I almost fear that in thine

admiration for his cleverness, thou mayest half forget thy contempt for

his knavery.

But when the head is very full, it does not do to have the heart very

empty; there is such a thing as being top-heavy!

CHAPTER IV.

Helen and Violante had been conversing together, and Helen had obeyed her

guardian's injunction, and spoken, though briefly, of her positive

engagement to Harley. However much Violante had been prepared for the

confidence, however clearly she had divined that engagement, however

before persuaded that the dream of her childhood was fled forever, still

the positive truth, coming from Helen's own lips, was attended with that

anguish which proves how impossible it is to prepare the human heart for

the final verdict which slays its future. She did not, however, betray

her emotion to Helen's artless eyes; sorrow, deep-seated, is seldom self-

betrayed. But, after a little while, she crept away; and, forgetful of

Peschiera, of all things that could threaten danger (what danger could

harm her more!) she glided from the house, and went her desolate way

under the leafless wintry trees. Ever and anon she paused, ever and anon

she murmured the same words: "If she loved him, I could be consoled; but

she does not! or how could she have spoken to me so calmly! how could her

very looks have been so sad! Heartless! heartless!"

Then there came on her a vehement resentment against poor Helen, that

almost took the character of scorn or hate,--its excess startled herself.

"Am I grown so mean?" she said; and tears that humbled her rushed to her

eyes. "Can so short a time alter one thus? Impossible!"

Randal Leslie rang at the front gate, inquired for Violante, and,

catching sight of her form as he walked towards the house, advanced

boldly and openly. His voice startled her as she leaned against one of

the dreary trees, still muttering to herself,--forlorn. "I have a letter

to you from your father, Signorina," said Randal; "but before I give it

to your hands, some explanation is necessary. Condescend, then, to hear

me." Violante shook her head impatiently, and stretched forth her hand

for the letter. Randal observed her countenance with his keen, cold,

searching eye; but he still withheld the letter, and continued, after a

pause,

"I know that you were born to princely fortunes; and the excuse for my

addressing you now is, that your birthright is lost to you, at least

unless you can consent to a union with the man who has despoiled you of

your heritage,--a union which your father would deem dishonour to

yourself and him. Signorina, I might have presumed to love you, but I

should not have named that love, had your father not encouraged me by his

assent to my suit."

Violante turned to the speaker, her face eloquent with haughty surprise.

Randal met the gaze unmoved. He continued, without warmth, and in the

tone of one who reasons calmly, rather than of one who feels acutely,

"The man of whom I spoke is in pursuit of you. I have cause to believe

that this person has already intruded himself upon you. Ah, your

countenance owns it; you have seen Peschiera? This house is, then, less

safe than your father deemed it. No house is safe for you but a

husband's. I offer to you my name,--it is a gentleman's; my fortune,

which is small; the participation in my hopes of the future, which are

large. I place now your father's letter in your hand, and await your

answer." Randal bowed slightly, gave the letter to Violante, and retired

a few paces.

It was not his object to conciliate Violante's affection, but rather to

excite her repugnance, or at least her terror,--we must wait to discover

why; so he stood apart, seemingly in a kind of self-confident

indifference, while the girl read the following letter:

"My child, receive with favour Mr. Leslie. He has my consent to

address you as a suitor. Circumstances of which it is needless now

to inform you render it essential to my very peace and happiness

that your marriage should he immediate. In a word, I have given my

promise to Mr. Leslie, and I confidently leave it to the daughter of

my House to redeem the pledge of her anxious and tender father."

The letter dropped from Violante's hand. Randal approached, and restored

it to her. Their eyes met. Violante recoiled.

"I cannot marry you," said she, passionately.

"Indeed?" answered Randal, dryly. "Is it because you cannot love me?"

"Yes."

"I did not expect that you would as yet, and I still persist in my suit.

I have promised to your father that I would not recede before your first

unconsidered refusal."

"I will go to my father at once."

"Does he request you to do so in his letter? Look again. Pardon me,

but he foresaw your impetuosity; and I have another note for Lady

Lansmere, in which he begs her ladyship not to sanction your return to

him (should you so wish) until he come or send for you himself. He will

do so whenever your word has redeemed his own."

"And do you dare to talk to me thus, and yet pretend to love me?"

Randal smiled ironically.

"I pretend but to wed you. Love is a subject on which I might have

spoken formerly, or may speak hereafter. I give you some little time to

consider. When I next call, let me hope that we may fix the day for our

wedding."

"Never!"

"You will be, then, the first daughter of your House who disobeyed a

father; and you will have this additional crime; that you disobeyed him

in his sorrow, his exile, and his fall."

Violante wrung her hands.

"Is there no choice, no escape?"

"I see none for either. Listen to me. I love you, it is true; but it is

not for my happiness to marry one who dislikes me, nor for my ambition to

connect myself with one whose poverty is greater than my own. I marry

but to keep my plighted faith with your father, and to save you from a

villain you would hate more than myself, and from whom no walls are a

barrier, no laws a defence. One person, indeed, might perhaps have

preserved you from the misery you seem to anticipate with me; that person

might defeat the plans of your father's foe,--effect, it might be, terms

which could revoke his banishment and restore his honours; that person

is--"

"Lord L'Estrange?"

"Lord L'Estrange!" repeated Randal, sharply, and watching her pale parted

lips and her changing colour; "Lord L'Estrange! What could he do? Why

did you name him?"

Violante turned aside. "He saved my father once," said she, feelingly.

"And has interfered, and trifled, and promised, Heaven knows what, ever

since: yet to what end? Pooh! The person I speak of your father would

not consent to see, would not believe if he saw her; yet she is generous,

noble, could sympathize with you both. She is the sister of your

father's enemy, the Marchesa di Negra. I am convinced that she has great

influence with her brother,--that she has known enough of his secrets to

awe him into renouncing all designs on yourself; but it is idle now to

speak of her."

"No, no," exclaimed Violante. "Tell me where she lives--I will see her."

"Pardon me, I cannot obey you; and, indeed, her own pride is now aroused

by your father's unfortunate prejudices against her. It is too late to

count upon her aid. You turn from me,--my presence is unwelcome. I rid

you of it now. But welcome or unwelcome, later you must endure it--and

for life."

Randal again bowed with formal ceremony, walked towards the house, and

asked for Lady Lansmere. The countess was at home. Randal delivered

Riccabocca's note, which was very short, implying that he feared

Peschiera had discovered his retreat, and requesting Lady Lansmere to

retain Violante, whatever her own desire, till her ladyship heard from

him again.

The countess read, and her lip curled in disdain. "Strange!" said she,

half to herself.

"Strange!" said Randal, "that a man like your correspondent should fear

one like the Count di Peschiera. Is that it?"

"Sir," said the countess, a little surprised, "strange that any man

should fear another in a country like ours!"

"I don't know," said Randal, with his low soft laugh; "I fear many men,

and I know many who ought to fear me; yet at every turn of the street one

meets a policeman!"

"Yes," said Lady Lansmere. "But to suppose that this profligate

foreigner could carry away a girl like Violante against her will,

--a man she has never seen, and whom she must have been taught to hate!"

"Be on your guard, nevertheless, I pray you, madam; 'Where there's a will

there's a way'!"

Randal took his leave, and returned to Madame di Negra's. He stayed with

her an hour, revisited the count, and then strolled to Limmer's.

"Randal," said the squire, who looked pale and worn, but who scorned to

confess the weakness with which he still grieved and yearned for his

rebellious son, "Randal, you have nothing now to do in London; can you

come and stay with me, and take to farming? I remember that you showed a

good deal of sound knowledge about thin sowing."

"My dear sir, I will come to you as soon as the general election is

over."

"What the deuce have you got to do with the general election?"

"Mr. Egerton has some wish that I should enter parliament; indeed,

negotiations for that purpose are now on foot."

The squire shook his head. "I don't like my half-brother's politics."

"I shall be quite independent of them," cried Randal, loftily; "that

independence is the condition for which I stipulate."

"Glad to hear it; and if you do come into parliament, I hope you'll not

turn your back on the land?"

"Turn my back on the land!" cried Randal, with devout horror. "Oh, sir,

I am not so unnatural!"

"That's the right way to put it," quoth the credulous squire; "it is

unnatural! It is turning one's back on one's own mother. The land is a

mother--"

"To those who live by her, certainly,--a mother," said Randal, gravely.

"And though, indeed, my father starves by her rather than lives, and Rood

Hall is not like Hazeldean, still--I--"

"Hold your tongue," interrupted the squire; "I want to talk to you. Your

grandmother was a Hazeldean."

"Her picture is in the drawing-room at Rood. People think me very like

her."

"Indeed!" said the squire. "The Hazeldeans are generally inclined to be

stout and rosy, which you are certainly not. But no fault of yours. We

are all as Heaven made us. However, to the point. I am going to alter

my will,"--(said with a choking gulp). "This is the rough draft for the

lawyers to work upon."

"Pray, pray, sir, do not speak to me on such a subject. I cannot bear to

contemplate even the possibility of--of--"

"My death? Ha, ha! Nonsense. My own son calculated on the date of it

by the insurance-tables. Ha, ha, ha! A very fashionable son, eh! Ha,

ha!"

"Poor Frank! do not let him suffer for a momentary forgetfulness of

right feeling. When he comes to be married to that foreign lady, and be

a father himself, he--"

"Father himself!" burst forth the squire. "Father to a swarm of sallow-

faced Popish tadpoles! No foreign frogs shall hop about my grave in

Hazeldean churchyard. No, no. But you need not look so reproachful,--

I 'm not going to disinherit Frank."

"Of course not," said Randal, with a bitter curve in the lip that

rebelled against the joyous smile which he sought to impose on it.

"No; I shall leave him the life-interest in the greater part of the

property; but if he marry a foreigner, her children will not succeed,--

you will stand after him in that case. But--now don't interrupt me--but

Frank looks as if he would live longer than you, so small thanks to me

for my good intentions, you may say. I mean to do more for you than a

mere barren place in the entail. What do you say to marrying?"

"Just as you please," said Randal, meekly.

"Good. There's Miss Sticktorights disengaged,--great heiress. Her lands

run onto Rood. At one time I thought of her for that graceless puppy of

mine. But I can manage more easily to make up the match for you.

There's a mortgage on the property; old Sticktorights would be very glad

to pay it off. I 'll pay it out of the Hazeldean estate, and give up the

Right of Way into the bargain. You understand?

"So come down as soon as you can, and court the young lady yourself."

Randal expressed his thanks with much grateful eloquence; and he then

delicately insinuated, that if the squire ever did mean to bestow upon

him any pecuniary favours (always without injury to Frank), it would

gratify him more to win back some portions of the old estate of Rood,

than to have all the acres of the Sticktorights, however free from any

other incumbrance than the amiable heiress.

The squire listened to Randal with benignant attention. This wish the

country gentleman could well understand and sympathize with. He promised

to inquire into the matter, and to see what could be done with old

Thornhill.

Randal here let out that Mr. Thornhill was about to dispose of a large

slice of the ancient Leslie estate through Levy, and that he, Randal,

could thus get it at a more moderate price than would be natural, if Mr.

Thornhill knew that his neighbour the squire would bid for the purchase.

"Better say nothing about it either to Levy or Thornhill."

"Right," said the squire. "No proprietor likes to sell to another

proprietor, in the same shire, as largely acred as hinmself: it spoils

the balance of power. See to the business yourself; and if I can help

you with the purchase (after that boy is married,--I can attend to

nothing before), why, I will."

Randal now went to Egerton's. The statesman was in his library, settling

the accounts of his house-steward, and giving brief orders for the

reduction of his establishment to that of an ordinary private gentleman.

"I may go abroad if I lose my election," said Egerton, condescending to

assign to his servant a reason for his economy; "and if I do not lose it,

still, now I am out of office, I shall live much in private."

"Do I disturb you, sir?" said Randal, entering.

"No; I have just done."

The house-steward withdrew, much surprised and disgusted, and meditating

the resignation of his own office,--in order, not like Egerton, to save,

but to spend. The house steward had private dealings with Baron Levy,

and was in fact the veritable X. Y. of the "Times," for whom Dick Avenel

had been mistaken. He invested his wages and perquisites in the discount

of bills; and it was part of his own money that had (though unknown to

himself) swelled the last L5,000 which Egerton had borrowed from Levy.

"I have settled with our committee; and, with Lord Lansmere's consent,"

said Egerton, briefly, "you will stand for the borough, as we proposed,

in conjunction with myself. And should any accident happen to me,--that

is, should I vacate this seat from any cause,--you may succeed to it,

very shortly perhaps. Ingratiate yourself with the electors, and speak

at the public-houses for both of us. I shall stand on my dignity, and

leave the work of the election to you. No thanks,--you know how I hate

thanks. Good-night."

"I never stood so near to fortune and to power," said Randal, as he

slowly undressed. "And I owe it but to knowledge,--knowledge of men,

life, of all that books can teach us."

So his slight thin fingers dropped the extinguisher on the candle, and

the prosperous Schemer laid himself down to rest in the dark. Shutters

closed, curtains drawn--never was rest more quiet, never was room more

dark!

That evening, Harley had dined at his father's. He spoke much to Helen,

scarcely at all to Violante. But it so happened that when later, and a

little while before he took his leave, Helen, at his request, was playing

a favourite air of his, Lady Lausmere, who had been seated between him

and Violante, left the room, and Violante turned quickly towards Harley.

"Do you know the Marchesa di Negra?" she asked, in a hurried voice.

"A little. Why do you ask?"

"That is my secret," answered Violante, trying to smile with her old

frank, childlike archness. "But, tell me, do you think better of her

than of her brother?"

"Certainly. I believe her heart to be good, and that she is not without

generous qualities."

"Can you not induce my father to see her? Would you not counsel him to

do so?"

"Any wish of yours is a law to me," answered Harley, gallantly. "You

wish your father to see her? I will try and persuade him to do so. Now,

in return, confide to me your secret. What is your object?"

"Leave to return to my Italy. I care not for honours, for rank; and even

my father has ceased to regret their loss. But the land, the native

land---Oh, to see it once more! Oh, to die there!"

"Die! You children have so lately left heaven, that ye talk as if ye

could return there, without passing through the gates of sorrow,

infirmity, and age! But I thought you were content with England. Why so

eager to leave it? Violante, you are unkind to us,--to Helen, who

already loves you so well." As Harley spoke, Helen rose from the piano,

and approaching Violante, placed her hand caressingly on the Italian's

shoulder. Violante shivered, and shrunk away. The eyes both of Harley

and Helen followed her. Harley's eyes were very grave and thoughtful.

"Is she not changed--your friend?" said he, looking down.

"Yes, lately; much changed. I fear there is something on her mind,--

I know not what."

"Ah," muttered Harley, "it may be so; but at your age and hers, nothing

rests on the mind long. Observe, I say the mind,--the heart is more

tenacious."

Helen sighed softly, but deeply.

"And therefore," continued Harley, half to himself, "we can detect when

something is on the mind,--some care, some fear, some trouble. But when

the heart closes over its own more passionate sorrow, who can discover,

who conjecture? Yet you at least, my pure, candid Helen,--you might

subject mind and heart alike to the fabled window of glass."

"Oh, no!" cried Helen, involuntarily.

"Oh, yes! Do not let me think that you have one secret I may not know,

or one sorrow I may not share. For, in our relationship, that would be

deceit."

He pressed her hand with more than usual tenderness as he spoke, and

shortly afterwards left the house.

And all that night Helen felt like a guilty thing,--more wretched even

than Violante.

CHAPTER V.

Early the next morning, while Violante was still in her room, a letter

addressed to her came by the post. The direction was in a strange hand.

She opened it, and read, in Italian, what is thus translated:--

I would gladly see you, but I cannot call openly at the house in

which you live. Perhaps I may have it in my power to arrange family

dissensions,--to repair any wrongs your father may have sustained.

Perhaps I may be enabled to render yourself an essential service.

But for all this it is necessary that we should meet and confer

frankly. Meanwhile time presses, delay is forbidden. Will you meet

me, an hour after noon, in the lane, just outside the private gate

of your gardens? I shall be alone, and you cannot fear to meet one

of your own sex, and a kinswoman. Ah, I so desire to see you!

Come, I beseech you.

BEATRICE.

Violante read, and her decision was taken. She was naturally fearless,

and there was little that she would not have braved for the chance of

serving her father. And now all peril seemed slight in comparison with

that which awaited her in Randal's suit, backed by her father's approval.

Randal had said that Madame di Negra alone could aid her in escape from

himself. Harley had said that Madame di Negra had generous qualities;

and who but Madame di Negra would write herself a kinswoman, and sign

herself "Beatrice"?

A little before the appointed hour, she stole unobserved through the

trees, opened the little gate, and found herself in the quiet, solitary

lane. In a few minutes; a female figure came up, with a quick, light

step; and throwing aside her veil, said, with a sort of wild, suppressed

energy, "It is you! I was truly told. Beautiful! beautiful! And oh!

what youth and what bloom!"

The voice dropped mournfully; and Violante, surprised by the tone, and

blushing under the praise, remained a moment silent; then she said, with

some hesitation,

"You are, I presume, the Marchesa di Negra? And I have heard of you

enough to induce me to trust you."

"Of me! From whom?" asked Beatrice, almost fiercely. "From Mr Leslie,

and--and--"

"Go on; why falter?"

"From Lord L'Estrange."

"From no one else?"

"Not that I remember."

Beatrice sighed heavily, and let fall her veil. Some foot-passengers now

came up the lane; and seeing two ladies, of mien so remarkable, turned

round, and gazed curiously.

"We cannot talk here," said Beatrice, impatiently; "and I have so much to

say, so much to know. Trust me yet more; it is for yourself I speak. My

carriage waits yonder. Come home with me,--I will not detain you an

hour; and I will bring you back."

This proposition startled Violante. She retreated towards the gate with

a gesture of dissent. Beatrice laid her hand on the girl's arm, and

again lifting her veil, gazed at her with a look half of scorn, half of

admiration.

"I, too, would once have recoiled from one step beyond the formal line by

which the world divides liberty from woman. Now see how bold I am.

Child, child, do not trifle with your destiny. You may never again have

the same occasion offered to you. It is not only to meet you that I am

here; I must know something of you,--something of your heart. Why

shrink? Is not the heart pure?"

Violante made no answer; but her smile, so sweet and so lofty, humbled

the questioner it rebuked.

"I may restore to Italy your father," said Beatrice, with an altered

voice. "Come!"

Violante approached, but still hesitatingly. "Not by union with your

brother?"

"You dread that so much then?"

"Dread it? No. Why should I dread what is in my, power to reject. But

if you can really restore my father, and by nobler means, you may save me

for--"

Violante stopped abruptly; the marchesa's eyes sparkled.

"Save you for--ah! I can guess what you leave unsaid. But come, come!

more strangers, see; you shall tell me all at my own house. And if you

can make one sacrifice, why, I will save you all else. Come, or farewell

forever!"

Violante placed her hand in Beatrice's, with a frank confidence that

brought the accusing blood into the marchesa's cheek.

"We are women both," said Violante; "we descend from the same noble

House; we have knelt alike to the same Virgin Mother; why should I not

believe and trust you?"

"Why not?" muttered Beatrice, feebly; and she moved on, with her head

bowed on her breast, and all the pride of her step was gone.

They reached a carriage that stood by the angle of the road. Beatrice

spoke a word apart to the driver, who was an Italian, in the pay of the

count; the man nodded, and opened the carriage door. The ladies entered.

Beatrice pulled down the blinds; the man remounted his box, and drove on

rapidly. Beatrice, leaning back, groaned aloud. Violante drew nearer

to her side. "Are you in pain?" said she, with her tender, melodious

voice; "or can I serve you as you would serve me?"

"Child, give me your hand, and be silent while I look at you. Was I ever

so fair as this? Never! And what deeps--what deeps roll between her and

me!"

She said this as of some one absent, and again sank into silence; but

continued still to gaze on Violante, whose eyes, veiled by their long

fringes, drooped beneath the gaze.

Suddenly Beatrice started, exclaiming, "No, it shall not be!" and placed

her hand on the check-string.

"What shall not be?" asked Violante, surprised by the cry and the action.

Beatrice paused; her breast heaved visibly under her dress.

"Stay," she said slowly. "As you say, we are both women of the same

noble House; you would reject the suit of my brother, yet you have seen

him; his the form to please the eye, his the arts that allure the fancy.

He offers to you rank, wealth, your father's pardon and recall. If I

could remove the objections which your father entertains, prove that the

count has less wronged him than he deems, would you still reject the rank

and the wealth and the hand of Giulio Franzini?"

"Oh, yes, yes; were his hand a king's!"

"Still, then, as woman to woman--both, as you say, akin, and sprung from

the same lineage--still, then, answer me, answer me, for you speak to one

who has loved--Is it not that you love another? Speak."

"I do not know. Nay, not love,--it was a romance; it is a thing

impossible. Do not question,--I cannot answer." And the broken words

were choked by sudden tears.

Beatrice's face grew hard and pitiless. Again she lowered her veil, and

withdrew her hand from the check-string; but the coachman had felt the

touch, and halted. "Drive on," said Beatrice, "as you were directed."

Both were now long silent,--Violante with great difficulty recovering

from her emotion, Beatrice breathing hard, and her arms folded firmly

across her breast.

Meanwhile the carriage had entered London; it passed the quarter in which

Madame di Negra's house was situated; it rolled fast over a bridge; it

whirled through a broad thoroughfare, then through defiles of lanes, with

tall blank dreary houses on either side. On it went, and on, till

Violante suddenly took alarm. "Do you live so far?" she said, drawing up

the blind, and gazing in dismay on the strange, ignoble suburb. "I shall

be missed already. Oh, let us turn back, I beseech you!"

"We are nearly there now. The driver has taken this road in order to

avoid those streets in which we might have been seen together,--perhaps

by my brother himself. Listen to me, and talk of-of the lover whom you

rightly associate with a vain romance. 'Impossible,'--yes, it is

impossible!"

Violante clasped her hands before her eyes, and bowed down her head.

"Why are you so cruel?" said she. "This is not what you promised. How

are you to serve my father, how restore him to his country? This is what

you promised!"

"If you consent to one sacrifice, I will fulfil that promise. We are

arrived."

The carriage stopped before a tall, dull house, divided from other houses

by a high wall that appeared to enclose a yard, and standing at the end

of a narrow lane, which was bounded on the one side by the Thames. In

that quarter the river was crowded with gloomy, dark-looking vessels and

craft, all lying lifeless under the wintry sky.

The driver dismounted and rang the bell. Two swarthy Italian faces

presented themselves at the threshold. Beatrice descended lightly, and

gave her hand to Violante. "Now, here we shall be secure," said she;

"and here a few minutes may suffice to decide your fate."

As the door closed on Violante, who, now waking to suspicion, to alarm,

looked fearfully round the dark and dismal hall, Beatrice turned: "Let

the carriage wait."

The Italian who received the order bowed and smiled; but when the two

ladies had ascended the stairs he re-opened the street-door, and said to

the driver, "Back to the count, and say, 'All is safe.'"

The carriage drove off. The man who had given this order barred and

locked the door, and, taking with him the huge key, plunged into the

mystic recesses of the basement and disappeared. The hall, thus left

solitary, had the grim aspect of a prison,--the strong door sheeted with

iron, the rugged stone stairs, lighted by a high window grimed with the

dust of years, and jealously barred, and the walls themselves abutting

out rudely here and there, as if against violence even from within.

CHAPTER VI.

It was, as we have seen, without taking counsel of the faithful Jemima

that the sage recluse of Norwood had yielded to his own fears and

Randal's subtle suggestions, in the concise and arbitrary letter which he

had written to Violante; but at night, when churchyards give up the dead,

and conjugal hearts the secrets hid by day from each other, the wise man

informed his wife of the step he had taken. And Jemima then--who held

English notions, very different from those which prevail in Italy, as to

the right of fathers to dispose of their daughters without reference to

inclination or repugnance--so sensibly yet so mildly represented to the

pupil of Machiavelli that he had not gone exactly the right way to work,

if he feared that the handsome count had made some impression on

Violante, and if he wished her to turn with favour to the suitor he

recommended,--that so abrupt a command could only chill the heart,

revolt the will, and even give to the audacious Peschiera some romantic

attraction which he had not before possessed,--as effectually to destroy

Riccabocca's sleep that night. And the next day he sent Giacomo to Lady

Lansmere's with a very kind letter to Violante and a note to the hostess,

praying the latter to bring his daughter to Norwood for a few hours, as

he much wished to converse with both. It was on Giacomo's arrival at

Knightsbridge that Violante's absence was discovered. Lady Lansmere,

ever proudly careful of the world and its gossip, kept Giacomo from

betraying his excitement to her servants, and stated throughout the

decorous household that the young lady had informed her she was going to

visit some friends that morning, and had no doubt gone through the garden

gate, since it was found open; the way was more quiet there than by the

high-road, and her friends might have therefore walked to meet her by the

lane. Lady Lansmere observed that her only surprise was that Violante

had gone earlier than she had expected. Having said this with a

composure that compelled belief, Lady Lansmere ordered the carriage, and,

taking Giacomo with her, drove at once to consult her son.

Harley's quick intellect had scarcely recovered from the shock upon his

emotions before Randal Leslie was announced. "Ah," said Lady Lansmere,

"Mr. Leslie may know something. He came to her yesterday with a note

from her father. Pray let him enter."

The Austrian prince approached Harley. "I will wait in the next room,"

he whispered. "You may want me if you have cause to suspect Peschiera in

all this."

Lady Lansmere was pleased with the prince's delicacy, and, glancing at

Leonard, said, "Perhaps you, too, sir, may kindly aid us, if you would

retire with the prince. Mr. Leslie may be disinclined to speak of

affairs like these, except to Harley and myself."

"True, madam, but beware of Mr. Leslie."

As the door at one end of the room closed on the prince and Leonard,

Randal entered at the other, seemingly much agitated.

"I have just been to your house, Lady Lansmere. I heard you were here;

pardon me if I have followed you. I have called at Knightsbridge to see

Violante, learned that she had left you. I implore you to tell me how or

wherefore. I have the right to ask: her father has promised me her

hand." Harley's falcon eye had brightened tip at Randal's entrance. It

watched steadily the young man's face. It was clouded for a moment by

his knitted brows at Randal's closing words; but he left it to Lady

Lansmere to reply and explain. This the countess did briefly.

Randal clasped his hands. "And has she not gone to her father's? Are

you sure of that?"

"Her father's servant has just come from Norwood."

"Oh, I am to blame for this! It is my rash suit, her fear of it, her

aversion! I see it all! "Randal's voice was hollow with remorse and

despair. "To save her from Peschiera, her father insisted on her

immediate marriage with myself. His orders were too abrupt, my own

wooing too unwelcome. I knew her high spirit; she has fled to escape

from me. But whither, if not to Norwood,--oh, whither? What other

friends has she, what relations?"

"You throw a new light on this mystery," said Lady Lansmere; "perhaps she

may have gone to her father's after all, and the servant may have

crossed, but missed her on the way. I will drive to Norwood at once."

"Do so,--do; but if she be not there, be careful not to alarm Riccabocca

with the news of her disappearance. Caution Giacomo not to do so. He

would only suspect Peschiera, and be hurried to some act of violence."

"Do not you, then, suspect Peschiera, Mr. Leslie?" asked Harley,

suddenly.

"Ha! is it possible? Yet, no. I called on him this morning with Frank

Hazeldean, who is to marry his sister. I was with him till I went on to

Knightsbridge, at the very time of Violante's disappearance. He could

not then have been a party to it."

"You saw Violante yesterday. Did you speak to her of Madame di Negra?"

asked Harley, suddenly recalling the questions respecting the marchesa

which Violante had addressed to him.

In spite of himself, Randal felt that he changed countenance. "Of Madame

di Negra? I do not think so. Yet I might. Oh, yes, I remember now.

She asked me the marchesa's address; I would not give it."

"The address is easily found. Can she have gone to the marchesa's

house?"

"I will run there, and see," cried Randal, starting up. "And I with you.

Stay, my dear mother. Proceed, as you propose, to Norwood, and take Mr.

Leslie's advice. Spare our friend the news of his daughter's loss--if

lost she be--till she is restored to him. He can be of no use mean

while. Let Giacomo rest here; I may want him."

Harley then passed into the next room, and entreated the prince and

Leonard to await his return, and allow Giacomo to stay in the same room.

He then went quickly back to Randal. Whatever might be his fears or

emotions, Harley felt that he had need of all his coolness of judgment

and presence of mind. The occasion made abrupt demand upon powers which

had slept since boyhood, but which now woke with a vigour that would have

made even Randal tremble, could he have detected the wit, the courage,

the electric energies, masked under that tranquil self-possession. Lord

L'Estrange and Randal soon reached the marchesa's house, and learned that

she had been out since morning in one of Count Peschiera's carriages.

Randal stole an alarmed glance at Harley's face. Harley did not seem to

notice it.

"Now, Mr. Leslie, what do you advise next?"

"I am at a loss. Ah, perhaps, afraid of her father, knowing how despotic

is his belief in paternal rights, and how tenacious he is of his word

once passed, as it has been to me, she may have resolved to take refuge

in the country, perhaps at the Casino, or at Mrs. Dale's, or Mrs.

Hazeldean's. I will hasten to inquire at the coach-office. Meanwhile,

you--"

"Never mind me, Mr. Leslie. Do what you think best. But, if your

surmises be just, you must have been a very rude wooer to the high-born

lady you aspired to win."

"Not so; but perhaps an unwelcome one. If she has indeed fled from me,

need I say that my suit will be withdrawn at once? I am not a selfish

lover, Lord L'Estrange."

"Nor I a vindictive man. Yet, could I discover who has conspired against

this lady, a guest under my father's roof, I would crush him into the

mire as easily as I set my foot upon this glove. Good-day to you, Mr.

Leslie."

Randal stood still for a few moments as Harley strided on; then his lip

sneered as it muttered, "Insolent! But does he love her? If so, I am

avenged already."

CHAPTER VII.

Harley went straight to Peschiera's hotel. He was told that the count

had walked out with Mr. Frank Hazeldean and some other gentlemen who had

breakfasted with him. He had left word, in case any one called, that he

had gone to Tattersall's to look at some horses that were for sale. To

Tattersall's went Harley. The count was in the yard leaning against a

pillar, and surrounded by fashionable friends. Lord L'Estrange paused,

and, with an heroic effort at self-mastery, repressed his rage. "I may

lose all if I show that I suspect him; and yet I must insult and fight

him rather than leave his movements free. Ah, is that young Hazeldean?

A thought strikes me!" Frank was standing apart from the group round the

count, and looking very absent and very sad. Harley touched him on the

shoulder, and drew him aside unobserved by the count.

"Mr. Hazeldean, your uncle Egerton is my dearest friend. Will you be a

friend to me? I want you."

"My Lord--"

"Follow me. Do not let Count Peschiera see us talking together."

Harley quitted the yard, and entered St. James's Park by the little gate

close by. In a very few words he informed Frank of Violante's

disappearance and of his reasons for suspecting the count. Frank's first

sentiment was that of indignant disbelief that the brother of Beatrice

could be so vile; but as he gradually called to mind the cynical and

corrupt vein of the count's familiar conversation, the hints to

Peschiera's prejudice that had been dropped by Beatrice herself, and the

general character for brilliant and daring profligacy which even the

admirers of the count ascribed to him, Frank was compelled to reluctant

acquiescence in Harley's suspicions; and he said, with an earnest gravity

very rare to him,

"Believe me, Lord L'Estrange, if I can assist you in defeating a base and

mercenary design against this poor young lady, you have but to show me

how. One thing is clear, Peschicra was not personally engaged in this

abduction, since I have been with him all day; and--now I think of it--I

begin to hope that you wrong him; for he has invited a large party of us

to make an excursion with him to Boulogne next week, in order to try his

yacht, which he could scarcely do if--"

"Yacht, at this time of the year! a man who habitually resides at Vienna

--a yacht!"

"Spendquick sells it a bargain, on account of the time of year and other

reasons; and the count proposes to spend next summer in cruising about

the Ionian Isles. He has some property on those isles, which he has

never yet visited."

"How long is it since he bought this yacht?"

"Why, I am not sure that it is already bought,--that is, paid for. Levy

was to meet Spendquick this very morning to arrange the matter.

Spendquick complains that Levy screws him."

"My dear Mr. Hazeldean, you are guiding me through the maze. Where shall

I find Lord Spendquick?"

"At this hour, probably in bed. Here is his card."

"Thanks. And where lies the vessel?"

"It was off Blackwall the other day. I went to see it, 'The Flying

Dutchman,'--a fine vessel, and carries guns."

"Enough. Now, heed me. There can be no immediate danger to Violante, so

long as Peschiera does not meet her, so long as we know his movements.

You are about to marry his sister. Avail yourself of that privilege to

keep close by his side. Refuse to be shaken off. Make what excuses for

the present your invention suggests. I will give you an excuse. Be

anxious and uneasy to know where you can find Madame di Negra."

"Madame di Negra!" cried Frank. "What of her? Is she not in Curzon

Street?"

"No; she has gone out in one of the count's carriages. In all

probability the driver of that carriage, or some servant in attendance on

it, will come to the count in the course of the day; and in order to get

rid of you, the count will tell you to see this servant, and ascertain

yourself that his sister is safe. Pretend to believe what the man says,

but make him come to your lodgings on pretence of writing there a letter

for the marchesa. Once at your lodgings, and he will be safe; for I

shall see that the officers of justice secure him. The moment he is

there, send an express for me to my hotel."

"But," said Frank, a little bewildered, "if I go to my lodgings, how can

I watch the count?"

"It will nor then be necessary. Only get him to accompany you to your

lodgings, and part with him at the door."

"Stop, stop! you cannot suspect Madame di Negra of connivance in a

scheme so infamous. Pardon me, Lord L'Estrange; I cannot act in this

matter,--cannot even hear you except as your foe, if you insinuate a word

against the honour of the woman I love."

"Brave gentleman, your hand. It is Madame di Negra I would save, as well

as my friend's young child. Think but of her, while you act as I

entreat, and all will go well. I confide in you. Now, return to the

count."

Frank walked back to join Peschiera, and his brow was thoughtful, and his

lips closed firmly. Harley had that gift which belongs to the genius of

Action. He inspired others with the light of his own spirit and the

force of his own will. Harley next hastened to Lord Spendquick, remained

with that young gentleman some minutes, then repaired to his hotel, where

Leonard, the prince, and Giacomo still awaited him.

"Come with me, both of you. You, too, Giacomo. I must now see the

police. We may then divide upon separate missions."

"Oh, my dear Lord," cried Leonard, "you must have had good news. You

seem cheerful and sanguine."

"Seem! Nay, I am so! If I once paused to despond--even to doubt--I

should go mad. A foe to baffle, and an angel to save! Whose spirits

would not rise high, whose wits would not move quick to the warm pulse of

his heart?"

CHAPTER VIII.

Twilight was dark in the room to which Beatrice had conducted Violante.

A great change had come over Beatrice. Humble and weeping, she knelt

beside Violante, hiding her face, and imploring pardon. And Violante,

striving to resist the terror for which she now saw such cause as no

woman-heart can defy, still sought to soothe, and still sweetly assured

forgiveness.

Beatrice had learned, after quick and fierce questions, which at last

compelled the answers that cleared away every doubt, that her jealousy

had been groundless, that she had no rival in Violante. From that moment

the passions that had made her the tool of guilt abruptly vanished, and

her conscience startled her with the magnitude of her treachery. Perhaps

had Violante's heart been wholly free, or she had been of that mere

commonplace, girlish character which women like Beatrice are apt to

despise, the marchesa's affection for Peschiera, and her dread of him,

might have made her try to persuade her young kinswoman at least to

receive the count's visit,--at least to suffer him to make his own

excuses, and plead his own cause. But there had been a loftiness of

spirit in which Violante had first defied the mareliesa's questions,

followed by such generous, exquisite sweetness, when the girl perceived

how that wild heart was stung and maddened, and such purity of mournful

candour when she had overcome her own virgin bashfulness sufficiently to

undeceive the error she detected, and confess where her own affections

were placed, that Beatrice bowed before her as mariner of old to some

fair saint that had allayed the storm.

"I have deceived you!" she cried, through her sobs; "but I will now save

you at any cost. Had you been as I deemed,--the rival who had despoiled

all the hopes of my future life,--I could without remorse have been the

accomplice I am pledged to be. But now you--Oh, you, so good and so

noble--you can never, be the bride of Peschiera. Nay, start not; he

shall renounce his designs forever, or I will go myself to our emperor,

and expose the dark secrets of his life. Return with me quick to the

home from which I ensnared you."

Beatrice's hand was on the door while she spoke. Suddenly her face fell,

her lips grew white; the door was locked from without. She called,--no

one answered; the bell-pull in the room gave no sound; the windows were

high and barred,--they did not look on the river, nor the street, but on

a close, gloomy, silent yard, high blank walls all round it; no one to

hear the cry of distress, rang it ever so loud and sharp.

Beatrice divined that she herself had been no less ensnared than her

companion; that Peschiera, distrustful of her firmness in evil, had

precluded her from the power of reparation. She was in a house only

tenanted by his hirelings. Not a hope to save Violante from a fate that

now appalled her seemed to remain. Thus, in incoherent self-reproaches

and frenzied tears, Beatrice knelt beside her victim, communicating more

and more the terrors that she felt, as the hours rolled on, and the room

darkened, till it was only by the dull lamp which gleamed through the

grimy windows from the yard without, that each saw the face of the other.

Night came on; they heard a clock from some distant church strike the

hours. The dim fire had long since burned out, and the air became

intensely cold. No one broke upon their solitude,--not a voice was heard

in the house. They felt neither cold nor hunger,--they felt but the

solitude, and the silence, and the dread of something that was to come.

At length, about midnight, a bell rang at the street door; then there was

the quick sound of steps, of sullen bolts withdrawn, of low, murmured

voices. Light streamed through the chinks of the door to the apartment,

the door itself opened. Two Italians bearing tapers entered, and the

Count di Peschiera followed.

Beatrice sprang up, and rushed towards her brother. He laid his hand

gently on her lips, and motioned to the Italians to withdraw. They

placed the lights on the table, and vanished without a word.

Peschiera then, putting aside his sister, approached Violante.

"Fair kinswoman," said he, with an air of easy but resolute assurance,

"there are things which no man can excuse, and no woman can pardon,

unless that love, which is beyond all laws, suggests excuse for the one,

and obtains pardon for the other. In a word, I have sworn to win you,

and I have had no opportunities to woo. Fear not; the worst that can

befall you is to be my bride! Stand aside, my sister, stand aside."

"Giulio Franzini, I stand between you and her; you shall strike me to the

earth before you can touch even the hem of her robe!"

"What, my sister! you turn against me?"

"And unless you instantly retire and leave her free, I will unmask you to

the emperor."

"Too late, /mon enfant!/ You will sail with us. The effects you may

need for the voyage are already on board. You will be witness to our

marriage, and by a holy son of the Church. Then tell the emperor what

you will."

With a light and sudden exertion of his strength, the count put away

Beatrice, and fell on his knee before Violante, who, drawn to her full

height, death-like pale, but untrembling, regarded him with unutterable

disdain.

You scorn me now," said he, throwing into his features an expression of

humility and admiration, "and I cannot wonder at it. But, believe me,

that until the scorn yield to a kinder sentiment, I will take no

advantage of the power I have gained over your fate."

"Power!" said Violante, haughtily. "You have ensnared me into this

house, you have gained the power of a day; but the power over my fate,

--no!"

"You mean that your friends have discovered your disappearance, and are

on your track. Fair one, I provide against your friends, and I defy all

the laws and police of England. The vessel that will bear you from these

shores waits in the river hard by. Beatrice, I warn you,--be still,

unhand me. In that vessel will be a priest who shall join our hands, but

not before you will recognize the truth, that she who flies with Giulio

Peschiera must become his wife or quit him as the disgrace of her House,

and the scorn of her sex."

"O villain! villain!" cried Beatrice.

"Peste, my sister, gentler words. You, too, would marry. I tell no

tales of you. Signorina, I grieve to threaten force. Give me your hand;

we must be gone."

Violante eluded the clasp that would have profaned her, and darting

across the room, opened the door, and closed it hastily behind her.

Beatrice clung firmly to the count to detain him from pursuit. But just

without the door, close, as if listening to what passed within, stood a

man wrapped from head to foot in a large boat cloak. The ray of the lamp

that beamed on the man glittered on the barrel of a pistol which he held

in his right hand.

"Hist!" whispered the man in English, and passing his arm round her; "in

this house you are in that ruffian's power; out of it, safe. Ah, I am by

your side,--I, Violante!"

The voice thrilled to Violante's heart. She started, looked up, but

nothing was seen of the man's face, what with the hat and cloak, save a

mass of raven curls, and a beard of the same hue.

The count now threw open the door, dragging after him his sister, who

still clung round him.

"Ha, that is well!" he cried to the man, in Italian. "Bear the lady

after me, gently; but if she attempt to cry out, why, force enough to

silence her, not more. As for you, Beatrice, traitress that you are,

I could strike you to the earth, but--No, this suffices." He caught his

sister in his arms as he spoke, and regardless of her cries and

struggles, sprang down the stairs.

The hall was crowded with fierce, swarthy men. The count turned to one

of them, and whispered; in an instant the marchesa was seized and gagged.

The count cast a look over his shoulder; Violante was close behind,

supported by the man to whom Peschiera had consigned her, and who was

pointing to Beatrice, and appeared warning Violante against resistance.

Violante was silent, and seemed resigned. Peschiera smiled cynically,

and, preceded by some of his hirelings, who held torches, descended a few

steps that led to an abrupt landing-place between the hall and the

basement story. There a small door stood open, and the river flowed

close by. A boat was moored on the bank, round which grouped four men,

who had the air of foreign sailors. At the appearance of Peschiera,

three of these men sprang into the boat, and got ready their oars. The

fourth carefully re-adjusted a plank thrown from the boat to the wharf,

and offered his arm obsequiously to Peschiera. The count was the first

to enter, and, humming a gay opera air, took his place by the helm. The

two females were next lifted in, and Violante felt her hand pressed

almost convulsively by the man who stood by the plank. The rest

followed, and in another minute the boat bounded swiftly over the waves

towards a vessel that lay several furlongs adown the river, and apart

from all the meaner craft that crowded the stream. The stars struggled

pale through the foggy atmosphere; not a word was heard within the boat,

--no sound save the regular splash of the oars. The count paused from

his lively tune, and gathering round him the ample fold of his fur

pelisse, seemed absorbed in thought. Even by the imperfect light of the

stars, Peschiera's face wore an air of sovereign triumph. The result had

justified that careless and insolent confidence in himself and in

fortune, which was the most prominent feature in the character of the

man, who, both bravo and gamester, had played against the world with his

rapier in one hand and cogged dice in the other. Violante, once in a

vessel filled by his own men, was irretrievably in his power. Even her

father must feel grateful to learn that the captive of Peschiera had

saved name and repute in becoming Peschiera's wife. Even the pride of

sex in Violante herself must induce her to confirm what Peschiera, of

course, intended to state,--namely, that she was a willing partner in a

bridegroom's schemes of flight towards the altar rather than the poor

victim of a betrayer, and receiving his hand but from his mercy. He saw

his fortune secured, his success envied, his very character rehabilitated

by his splendid nuptials. Ambition began to mingle with his dreams of

pleasure and pomp. What post in the Court or the State too high for the

aspirations of one who had evinced the most incontestable talent for

active life,--the talent to succeed in all that the will had undertaken?

Thus mused the count, half-forgetful of the present, and absorbed in the

golden future, till he was aroused by a loud hail from the vessel and the

bustle on board the boat, as the sailors caught at the rope flung forth

to them.

He then rose and moved towards Violante. But the man who was still in

charge of her passed the count lightly, half-leading, half-carrying his

passive prisoner. "Pardon, Excellency," said the man, in Italian, "but

the boat is crowded, and rocks so much that your aid would but disturb

our footing." Before Peschiera could reply, Violante was already on the

steps of the vessel, and the count paused till, with elated smile, he

saw her safely standing on the deck. Beatrice followed, and then

Peschiera himself; but when the Italians in his train also thronged

towards the sides of the boat, two of the sailors got before them, and

let go the rope, while the other two plied their oars vigorously, and

pulled back towards shore. The Italians burst into an amazed and

indignant volley of execra tions. "Silence," said the sailor who had

stood by the plank, "we obey orders. If you are not quiet, we shall

upset the boat. We can swim; Heaven and Monsignore San Giacomo pity you

if you cannot!"

Meanwhile, as Peschiera leaped upon deck, a flood of light poured upon

him from lifted torches. That light streamed full on the face and form

of a man of commanding stature, whose arm was around Violante, and whose

dark eyes flashed upon the count more luminously than the torches. On

one side this man stood the Austrian prince; on the other side (a cloak,

and a profusion of false dark locks, at his feet) stood Lord L'Estrange,

his arms folded, and his lips curved by a smile in which the ironical

humour native to the man was tempered with a calm and supreme disdain.

The count strove to speak, but his voice faltered.

All around him looked ominous and hostile. He saw many Italian faces,

but they scowled at him with vindictive hate; in the rear were English

mariners, peering curiously over the shoulders of the foreigners, and

with a broad grin on their open countenances. Suddenly, as the count

thus stood perplexed, cowering, stupefied, there burst from all the

Italians present a hoot of unutterable scorn, "Il traditore! il

traditore!" (the traitor! the traitor!)

The count was brave, and at the cry he lifted his head with a certain

majesty.

At that moment Harley, raising his hand as if to silence the hoot, came

forth from the group by which he had been hitherto standing, and towards

him the count advanced with a bold stride.

"What trick is this?" he said, in French, fiercely. "I divine that it is

you whom I can single out for explanation and atonement."

"/Pardieu, Monsieur le Comte,/" answered Harley, in the same language,

which lends itself so well to polished sarcasm and high-bred enmity, "let

us distinguish. Explanation should come from me, I allow; but atonement

I have the honour to resign to yourself. This vessel--"

"Is mine!" cried the count. "Those men, who insult me, should be in my

pay."

"The men in your pay, Monsieur le Comte, are on shore, drinking success

to your voyage. But, anxious still to procure you the gratification of

being amongst your own countrymen, those whom I have taken into my pay

are still better Italians than the pirates whose place they supply;

perhaps not such good sailors; but then I have taken the liberty to add

to the equipment of a vessel which cost me too much to risk lightly, some

stout English seamen, who are mariners more practised than even your

pirates. Your grand mistake, Monsieur le Comte, is in thinking that the

'Flying Dutchman' is yours. With many apologies for interfering with

your intention to purchase it, I beg to inform you that Lord Spendquick

has kindly sold it to me. Nevertheless, Monsieur le Comte, for the next

few weeks I place it--men and all--at your service."

Peschiera smiled scornfully.

"I thank your Lordship; but since I presume that I shall no longer have

the travelling companion who alone could make the voyage attractive, I

shall return to shore, and will simply request you to inform me at what

hour you can receive the friend whom I shall depute to discuss that part

of the question yet untouched, and to arrange that the atonement, whether

it be due from me or yourself, may be rendered as satisfactory as you

have condescended to make the explanation."

"Let not that vex you, Monsieur le Comte; the atonement is, in much, made

already; so anxious have I been to forestall all that your nice sense of

honour would induce so complete a gentleman to desire. You have ensnared

a young heiress, it is true; but you see that it was only to restore her

to the arms of her father. You have juggled an illustrious kinsman out

of his heritage; but you have voluntarily come on board this vessel,

first, to enable his Highness the Prince Von ------, of whose rank at the

Austrian Court you are fully aware, to state to your emperor that he

himself has been witness of the manner in which you interpreted his

Imperial Majesty's assent to your nuptials with a child of one of the

first subjects in his Italian realm; and, next, to commence by an

excursion to the seas of the Baltic the sentence of banishment which I

have no doubt will accompany the same act that restores to the chief of

your House his lands and his honours."

The count started.

"That restoration," said the Austrian prince, who had advanced to

Harley's side, "I already guarantee. Disgrace that you are, Giulio

Franzini, to the nobles of the Empire, I will not leave my royal master

till his hand strike your name from the roll. I have here your own

letters, to prove that your kinsman was duped by yourself into the revolt

which you would have headed as a Catiline, if it had not better suited

your nature to betray it as a Judas. In ten days from this time, these

letters will be laid before the emperor and his Council."

"Are you satisfied, Monsieur le Comte," said Harley, "with your atonement

so far? If not, I have procured you the occasion to render it yet more

complete. Before you stands the kinsman you have wronged. He knows now,

that though, for a while, you ruined his fortunes, you failed to sully

his hearth. His heart can grant you pardon, and hereafter his hand may

give you alms. Kneel then, Giulio Franzini, kneel at the feet of

Alphonso, Duke of Serrano."

The above dialogue had been in French, which only a few of the Italians

present understood, and that imperfectly; but at the name with which

Harley concluded his address to the count, a simultaneous cry from those

Italians broke forth.

"Alphonso the Good! Alphonso the Good! Viva, viva, the good Duke of

Serrano!"

And, forgetful even of the count, they crowded round the tall form of

Riccabocca, striving who should first kiss his hand, the very hem of his

garment.

Riccabocca's eyes overflowed. The gaunt exile seemed transfigured into

another and more kingly man. An inexpressible dignity invested him. He

stretched forth his arms, as if to bless his countrymen. Even that rude

cry, from humble men, exiles like himself, consoled him for years of

banishment and penury.

"Thanks, thanks," he continued; "thanks! Some day or other, you will all

perhaps return with me to the beloved land!"

The Austrian prince bowed his head, as if in assent to the prayer.

"Giulio Franzini," said the Duke of Serrano,--for so we may now call the

threadbare recluse of the Casino,--"had this last villanous design of

yours been allowed by Providence, think you that there is one spot on

earth on which the ravisher could have been saved from a father's arm?

But now, Heaven has been more kind. In this hour let me imitate its

mercy;" and with relaxing brow the duke mildly drew near to his guilty

kinsman.

From the moment the Austrian prince had addressed him, the count had

preserved a profound silence, showing neither repentance nor shame.

Gathering himself up, he had stood firm, glaring round him like one at

bay. But as the duke now approached, he waved his hand, and exclaimed,

"Back, pedant; back; you have not triumphed yet. And you, prating

German, tell your tales to our emperor. I shall be by his throne to

answer,--if, indeed, you escape from the meeting to which I will force

you by the way." He spoke, and made a rush towards the side of the

vessel. But Harley's quick wit had foreseen the count's intention, and

Harley's quick eye had given the signal by which it was frustrated.

Seized in the gripe of his own watchful and indignant countrymen, just as

he was about to plunge into the stream, Peschiera was dragged back,

pinioned clown. Then the expression of his whole countenance changed;

the desperate violence of the inborn gladiator broke forth. His great

strength enabled him to break loose more than once, to dash more than one

man to the floor of the deck; but at length, overpowered by numbers,

though still struggling, all dignity, all attempt at presence of mind

gone, uttering curses the most plebeian, gnashing his teeth, and foaming

at the mouth, nothing seemed left of the brilliant Lothario but the

coarse fury of the fierce natural man.

Then still preserving that air and tone of exquisite imperturbable irony,

which the highest comedian might have sought to imitate in vain, Harley

bowed low to the storming count.

"Adieu, Monsieur le Comte, adieu! The vessel which you have honoured me

by entering is bound to Norway. The Italians who accompany you were sent

by yourself into exile, and, in return, they now kindly promise to

enliven you with their society, whenever you feel somewhat tired of your

own. Conduct the count to his cabin. Gently there, gently. Adieu,

Monsieur le Comte, adieu! et bon voyage."

Harley turned lightly on his heel, as Peschiera, in spite of his

struggles, was now fairly carried down to the cabin.

"A trick for the trickster," said L'Estrange to the Austrian prince.

"The revenge of a farce on the would-be tragedian."

"More than that,-he is ruined."

"And ridiculous," quoth Harley. "I should like to see his look when they

land him in Norway." Harley then passed towards the centre of the

vessel, by which, hitherto partially concealed by the sailors, who were

now busily occupied, stood Beatrice,--Frank Hazeldean, who had first

received her on entering the vessel, standing by her side; and Leonard, a

little apart from the two, in quiet observation of all that had passed

around him. Beatrice appeared but little to heed Frank; her dark eyes

were lifted to the dim starry skies, and her lips were moving as if in

prayer; yet her young lover was speaking to her in great emotion, low and

rapidly.

"No, no, do not think for a moment that we suspect you, Beatrice. I will

answer for your honour with my life. Oh, why will you turn from me; why

will you not speak?"

"A moment later," said Beatrice, softly. "Give me one moment yet." She

passed slowly and falteringly towards Leonard, placed her hand, that

trembled, on his arm, and led him aside to the verge of the vessel.

Frank, startled by her movement, made a step as if to follow, and then

stopped short and looked on, but with a clouded and doubtful countenance.

Harley's smile had gone, and his eye was also watchful.

It was but a few words that Beatrice spoke, it was but a sentence or so

that Leonard answered; and then Beatrice extended her hand, which the

young poet bent over, and kissed in silence. She lingered an instant;

and even by the starlight, Harley noted the blush that overspread her

face. The blush faded as Beatrice returned to Frank. Lord L'Estrange

would have retired,--she signed to him to stay.

"My Lord," she said, very firmly, "I cannot accuse you of harshness to my

sinful and unhappy brother. His offence might perhaps deserve a heavier

punishment than that which you inflict with such playful scorn. But

whatever his penance, contempt now or poverty later, I feel that his

sister should be by his side to share it. I am not innocent if he be

guilty; and, wreck though he be, nothing else on this dark sea of life

is now left to me to cling to. Hush, my Lord! I shall not leave this

vessel. All that I entreat of you is, to order your men to respect my

brother, since a woman will be by his side."

"But, Marchesa, this cannot be; and--"

"Beatrice, Beatrice--and me!--our betrothal? Do you forget me?" cried

Frank, in reproachful agony.

"No, young and too noble lover; I shall remember you ever in my prayers.

But listen. I have been deceived, hurried on, I might say, by others,

but also, and far more, by my own mad and blinded heart,--deceived,

hurried on, to wrong you and to belie myself. My shame burns into me

when I think that I could have inflicted on you the just anger of your

family, linked you to my own ruined fortunes,--my own--"

"Your own generous, loving heart!--that is all I asked!" cried Frank.

"Cease, cease! that heart is mine still!" Tears gushed from the Italian's

eyes.

"Englishman, I never loved you; this heart was dead to you, and it will

be dead to all else forever. Farewell. You will forget me sooner than

you think for,--sooner than I shall forget you, as a friend, as a

brother--if brothers had natures as tender and as kind as yours! Now, my

Lord, will you give me your arm? I would join the count."

"Stay; one word, Madame," said Frank, very pale, and through his set

teeth, but calmly, and with a pride on his brow which had never before

dignified its habitual careless expression,--"one word. I may not be

worthy of you in anything else, but an honest love, that never doubted,

never suspected, that would have clung to you though all the world were

against,--such a love makes the meanest man of worth. One word, frank

and open. By all that you hold most sacred in your creed, did you speak

the truth when you said that you never loved me?"

Beatrice bent down her head; she was abashed before this manly nature

that she had so deceived, and perhaps till then undervalued.

"Pardon, pardon," she said, in reluctant accents, half-choked by the

rising of a sob.

At her hesitation, Frank's face lighted as if with sudden hope. She

raised her eyes, and saw the change in him, then glanced where Leonard

stood, mournful and motionless. She shivered, and added firmly,

"Yes, pardon; for I spoke the truth, and I had no heart to give. It

might have been as wax to another,--it was of granite to you." She

paused, and muttered inly, "Granite, and--broken!"

Frank said not a word more. He stood rooted to the spot, not even gazing

after Beatrice as she passed on, leaning on the arm of Lord L'Estrange.

He then walked resolutely away, and watched the boat that the men were

now lowering from the side of the vessel. Beatrice stopped when she came

near the place where Violante stood, answering in agitated whispers her

father's anxious questions. As she stopped, she leaned more heavily upon

Harley. "It is your arm that trembles now, Lord L'Estrange," said she,

with a mournful smile, and, quitting him ere he could answer, she bowed

down her head meekly before Violante. "You have pardoned me already,"

she said, in a tone that reached only the girl's ear, "and my last words

shall not be of the past. I see your future spread bright before me

under those steadfast stars. Love still; hope and trust. These are the

last words of her who will soon die to the world. Fair maid, they are

prophetic!"

Violante shrunk back to her father's breast, and there hid her glowing

face, resigning her hand to Beatrice, who pressed it to her bosom. The

marchesa then came back to Harley, and disappeared with him in the

interior of the vessel.

When Harley again came on deck, he seemed much flurried and disturbed.

He kept aloof from the duke and Violante, and was the last to enter the

boat, that was now lowered into the water.

As he and his companions reached the land, they saw the vessel in

movement, gliding slowly down the river. "Courage, Leonard, courage!"

murmured Harley. "You grieve, and nobly. But you have shunned the worst

and most vulgar deceit in civilized life; you have not simulated love.

Better that yon poor lady should be, awhile, the sufferer from a harsh

truth, than the eternal martyr of a flattering lie! Alas, my Leonard!

with the love of the poet's dream are linked only the Graces; with the

love of the human heart come the awful Fates!"

"My Lord, poets do not dream when they love. You will learn how the

feelings are deep in proportion as the fancies are vivid, when you read

that confession of genius and woe which I have left in your hands."

Leonard turned away. Harley's gaze followed him with inquiring interest,

and suddenly encountered the soft dark grateful eyes of Violante. "The

Fates, the Fates!" murmured Harley.

CHAPTER IX.

We are at Norwood in the sage's drawing-room. Violante has long since

retired to rest. Harley, who had accompanied the father and daughter to

their home, is still conversing with the former.

"Indeed, my dear Duke," said Harley

"Hush, hush! Diavolo, don't call me Duke yet; I am at home here once

more as Dr. Riccabocca."

"My dear doctor, then, allow me to assure you that you overrate my claim

to your thanks. Your old friends, Leonard and Frank Hazeldean, must come

in for their share. Nor is the faithful Giacomo to be forgotten."

"Continue your explanation."

"In the first place, I learned, through Frank, that one Baron Levy, a

certain fashionable money-lender, and general ministrant to the affairs

of fine gentlemen, was just about to purchase a yacht from Lord

Spendquick on behalf of the count. A short interview with Spendquick

enabled me to outbid the usurer, and conclude a bargain by which the

yacht became mine,--a promise to assist Spendquick in extricating himself

from the claws of the money-lender (which I trust to do by reconciling

him with his father, who is a man of liberality and sense) made

Spendquick readily connive at my scheme for outwitting the enemy. He

allowed Levy to suppose that the count might take possession of the

vessel; but affecting an engagement, and standing out for terms,

postponed the final settlement of the purchase-money till the next day.

I was thus master of the vessel, which I felt sure was destined to serve

Peschiera's infamous design. But it was my business not to alarm the

count's suspicions; I therefore permitted the pirate crew he had got

together to come on board. I knew I could get rid of them when

necessary. Meanwhile, Frank undertook to keep close to the count until

he could see and cage within his lodgings the servant whom Peschiera had

commissioned to attend his sister. If I could but apprehend this

servant, I had a sanguine hope that I could discover and free your

daughter before Peschiera could even profane her with his presence. But

Frank, alas! was no pupil of Machiavelli. Perhaps the count detected his

secret thoughts under his open countenance, perhaps merely wished to get

rid of a companion very much in his way; but, at all events, he contrived

to elude our young friend as cleverly as you or I could have done,--told

him that Beatrice herself was at Roehampton, had borrowed the count's

carriage to go there, volunteered to take Frank to the house, took him.

Frank found himself in a drawing-room; and after waiting a few minutes,

while the count went out on pretence of seeing his sister, in pirouetted

a certain distinguished opera-dancer! Meanwhile the count was fast back

on the road to London, and Frank had to return as he could. He then

hunted for the count everywhere, and saw him no more. It was late in the

day when Frank found me out with this news. I became seriously alarmed.

Peschiera might perhaps learn my counter-scheme with the yacht, or he

might postpone sailing until he had terrified or entangled Violante into

some---In short, everything was to be dreaded from a man of the count's

temper. I had no clew to the place to which your daughter was taken, no

excuse to arrest Peschiera, no means even of learning where he was. He

had not returned to Mivart's. The Police was at fault, and useless,

except in one valuable piece of information. They told me where some of

your countrymen, whom Peschiera's perfidy had sent into exile, were to be

found. I commissioned Giacomo to seek these men out, and induce them to

man the vessel. It might be necessary, should Peschiera or his

confidential servants come aboard, after we had expelled or drawn off the

pirate crew, that they should find Italians whom they might well mistake

for their own hirelings. To these foreigners I added some English

sailors who had before served in the same vessel, and on whom Spendquick

assured me I could rely. Still these precautions only availed in case

Peschiera should resolve to sail, and defer till then all machinations

against his captives. While, amidst my fears and uncertainties, I was

struggling still to preserve presence of mind, and rapidly discussing

with the Austrian prince if any other steps could be taken, or if our

sole resource was to repair to the vessel and take the chance of what

might ensue, Leonard suddenly and quietly entered my room. You know his

countenance, in which joy or sadness is not betrayed so much by the

evidence of the passions as by variations in the intellectual expression.

It was but by the clearer brow and the steadier eye that I saw he had

good tidings to impart."

"Ah," said Riccabocca,--for so, obeying his own request, we will yet call

the sage,--"ah, I early taught that young man the great lesson inculcated

by Helvetius. 'All our errors arise from our ignorance or our passions.'

Without ignorance and without passions, we should be serene, all-

penetrating intelligences."

"Mopsticks," quoth Harley, "have neither ignorance nor passions; but as

for their intelligence--"

"Pshaw!" interrupted Riccabocca,--"proceed."

"Leonard had parted from us some hours before. I had commissioned him to

call at Madame di Negra's, and, as he was familiarly known to her

servants, seek to obtain quietly all the information he could collect,

and, at all events, procure (what in my haste I had failed to do) the

name and description of the man who had driven her out in the morning,

and make what use he judged best of every hint he could gather or glean

that might aid our researches. Leonard only succeeded in learning the

name and description of the coachman, whom he recognized as one Beppo, to

whom she had often given orders in his presence. None could say where he

then could be found, if not at the count's hotel. Leonard went next to

that hotel. The man had not been there all the day. While revolving

what next he should do, his eye caught sight of your intended son-in-law,

gliding across the opposite side of the street. One of those luminous,

inspiring conjectures, which never occur to you philosophers, had from

the first guided Leonard to believe that Randal Leslie was mixed up in

this villanous affair."

"Ha! He?" cried Riccabocca. "Impossible! For what interest, what

object?"

"I cannot tell, neither could Leonard; but we had both formed the same

conjecture. Brief: Leonard resolved to follow Randal Leslie, and track

all his movements. He did then follow him, unobserved,--and at a

distance, first to Audley Egerton's house, then to Eaton Square, thence

to a house in Bruton Street, which Leonard ascertained to be Baron

Levy's. Suspicious that, my clear sage?"

"Diavolo, yes!" said Riccabocca, thoughtfully.

"At Levy's, Randal stayed till dusk. He then came out, with his cat-

like, stealthy step, and walked quickly into the neighbourhood of

Leicester Square. Leonard saw him enter one of those small hotels which

are appropriated to foreigners. Wild, outlandish fellows were loitering

about the door and in the street. Leonard divined that the count or the

count's confidants were there."

"If that can be proved," cried Riccabocca, "if Randal could have been

thus in communication with Peschiera, could have connived at such

perfidy, I am released from my promise. Oh, to prove it!"

"Proof will come later, if we are on the right track. Let me go on.

While waiting near the door of this hotel, Beppo himself, the very man

Leonard was in search of, came forth, and, after speaking a few words to

some of the loitering foreigners, walked briskly towards Piccadilly.

Leonard here resigned all further heed of Leslie, and gave chase to

Beppo, whom he recognized at a glance. Coming up to him, he said

quietly, 'I have a letter for the Marchesa di Negra. She told

me I was to send it to her by you. I have been searching for you the

whole day.' The man fell into the trap, and the more easily, because--as

he since owned in excuse for a simplicity which, I dare say, weighed on

his conscience more than any of the thousand-and-one crimes he may have

committed in the course of his illustrious life--he had been employed by

the marchesa as a spy upon Leonard, and, with an Italian's acumen in

affairs of the heart, detected her secret."

"What secret?" asked the innocent sage.

"Her love for the handsome young poet. I betray that secret, in order to

give her some slight excuse for becoming Peschiera's tool. She believed

Leonard to be in love with your daughter, and jealousy urged her to

treason. Violante, no doubt, will explain this to you. Well, the man

fell into the trap. 'Give me the letter, Signor, and quick.'

"'It is at a hotel close by; come there, and you will have a guinea for

your trouble.'

"So Leonard walked our gentleman into my hotel; and having taken him into

my dressing-room, turned the key and there left him. On learning this

capture, the prince and myself hastened to see our prisoner. He was at

first sullen and silent; but when the prince disclosed his rank and name

(you know the mysterious terror the meaner Italians feel for an Austrian

magnate), his countenance changed, and his courage fell. What with

threats and what with promises, we soon obtained all that we sought to

know; and an offered bribe, which I calculated at ten times the amount

the rogue could ever expect to receive from his spendthrift master,

finally bound him cheerfully to our service, soul and body. Thus we

learned the dismal place to which your noble daughter had been so

perfidiously ensnared. We learned also that the count had not yet

visited her, hoping much from the effect that prolonged incarceration

might have in weakening her spirit and inducing her submission.

Peschiera was to go to the house at midnight, thence to transport her to

the vessel. Beppo had received orders to bring the carriage to Leicester

Square, where Peschiera would join him. The count (as Leonard surmised)

had taken skulking refuge at the hotel in which Randal Leslie had

disappeared. The prince, Leonard, Frank (who was then in the hotel), and

myself held a short council. Should we go at once to the house, and, by

the help of the police, force an entrance, and rescue your daughter?

This was a very hazardous resource. The abode, which, at various times,

had served for the hiding-place of men haunted by the law, abounded,

according to our informant, in subterranean vaults and secret passages,

and had more than one outlet on the river. At our first summons at the

door, therefore, the ruffians within might not only escape themselves,

but carry off their prisoner. The door was strong, and before our

entrance could be forced, all trace of her we sought might be lost.

Again, too, the prince was desirous of bringing Peschiera's guilty design

home to him,--anxious to be able to state to the emperor, and to the

great minister his kinsman, that he himself had witnessed the count's

vile abuse of the emperor's permission to wed your daughter. In short,

while I only thought of Violante, the prince thought also of her father's

recall to his dukedom. Yet, still to leave Violante in that terrible

house, even for an hour, a few minutes, subjected to the actual presence

of Peschiera, unguarded save by the feeble and false woman who had

betrayed and might still desert her--how contemplate that fearful risk?

What might not happen in the interval between Peschiera's visit to the

house and his appearance with his victim on the vessel? An idea flashed

on me: Beppo was to conduct the count to the house; if I could accompany

Beppo in disguise, enter the house, myself be present?--I rushed back to

our informant, now become our agent; I found the plan still more feasible

than I had at first supposed. Beppo had asked the count's permission to

bring with him a brother accustomed to the sea, and who wished to quit

England. I might personate that brother. You know that the Italian

language, in most of its dialects and varieties of patois--Genoese,

Piedmontese, Venetian--is as familiar tome as Addison's English! Alas!

rather more so. Presto! the thing was settled. I felt my heart, from

that moment, as light as a feather, and my sense as keen as the dart

which a feather wings. My plans now were formed in a breath, and

explained in a sentence. It was right that you should be present on

board the vessel, not only to witness your foe's downfall, but to receive

your child in a father's arms. Leonard set out to Norwood for you,

cautioned not to define too precisely for what object you were wanted,

till on board.

"Frank, accompanied by Beppo (for there was yet time for these

preparations before midnight), repaired to the yacht, taking Giacomo by

the way. There our new ally, familiar to most of that piratical crew,

and sanctioned by the presence of Frank, as the count's friend and

prospective brother-in-law, told Peschiera's hirelings that they were to

quit the vessel, and wait on shore under Giacomo's auspices till further

orders; and as soon as the decks were cleared of these ruffians (save a

few left to avoid suspicion, and who were afterwards safely stowed down

in the hold), and as soon as Giacomo had lodged his convoy in a public

house, where he quitted them drinking his health over unlimited rations

of grog, your inestimable servant quietly shipped on board the Italians

pressed into the service, and Frank took charge of the English sailors.

"The prince, promising to be on board in due time, then left me to make

arrangements for his journey to Vienna by the dawn. I hastened to a

masquerade warehouse, where, with the help of an ingenious stagewright

artificer, I disguised myself into a most thorough-paced-looking cut-

throat, and then waited the return of my friend Beppo with the most

perfect confidence."

"Yet, if that rascal had played false, all these precautions were lost.

/Cospetto!/ you were not wise," said the prudent philosopher.

"Very likely not. You would have been so wise, that by this time your

daughter would have been lost to you forever."

"But why not employ the police?"

"First, Because I had already employed them to little purpose; secondly,

Because I no longer wanted them; thirdly, Because to use them for my

final catastrophe would be to drag your name, and your daughter's

perhaps, before a police court,--at all events, before the tribunal of

public gossip; and lastly, Because, having decided upon the proper

punishment, it had too much of equity to be quite consistent with law;

and in forcibly seizing a man's person, and shipping him off to Norway,

my police would have been sadly in the way. Certainly my plan rather

savours of Lope de Vega than of Blackstone. However, you see success

atones for all irregularities. I resume: Beppo came back in time to

narrate all the arrangements that had been made, and to inform me that a

servant from the count had come on board just as our new crew were

assembled there, to order the boat to be at the place where we found it.

The servant it was deemed prudent to detain and secure. Giacomo

undertook to manage the boat.

"I am nearly at the close of my story. Sure of my disguise, I got on the

coach-box with Beppo. The count arrived at the spot appointed, and did

not even honour myself with a question or glance. 'Your brother?' he

said to Beppo; 'one might guess that; he has the family likeness. Not a

handsome race yours! Drive on.'

"We arrived at the house. I dismounted to open the carriage-door. The

count gave me one look. 'Beppo says you have known the sea.'

"'Excellency, yes. I am a Genoese.'

"'Ha! how is that? Beppo is a Lombard.'--Admire the readiness with which

I redeemed my blunder.

"'Excellency, it pleased Heaven that Beppo should be born in Lombardy,

and then to remove my respected parents to Genoa, at which city they were

so kindly treated that my mother, in common gratitude, was bound to

increase its population. It was all she could do, poor woman. You see

she did her best.'

"The count smiled, and said no more. The door opened, I followed him;

your daughter can tell you the rest."

"And you risked your life in that den of miscreants! Noble friend!"

"Risked my life,--no; but I risked the count's. There was one moment

when my hand was on my trigger, and my soul very near the sin of

justifiable homicide. But my tale is done. The count is now on the

river, and will soon be on the salt seas, though not bound to Norway, as

I had first intended. I could not inflict that frigid voyage on his

sister. So the men have orders to cruise about for six days, keeping

aloof from shore, and they will then land the count and the marchesa, by

boat, on the French coast. That delay will give time for the prince to

arrive at Vienna before the count could follow him."

"Would he have that audacity?"

"Do him more justice! Audacity, faith! he does not want for that. But

I dreaded not his appearance at Vienna with such evidence against him.

I dreaded his encountering the prince on the road, and forcing a duel,

before his character was so blasted that the prince could refuse it; and

the count is a dead shot of course,--all such men are!"

"He will return, and you--"

"I! Oh, never fear; he has had enough of me. And now, my dear friend,

--now that Violante is safe once more under your own roof; now that my

honoured mother must long ere this have been satisfied by Leonard, who

left us to go to her, that our success has been achieved without danger,

and, what she will value almost as much, without scandal; now that your

foe is powerless as a reed floating on the water towards its own rot,

and the Prince Von -------is perhaps about to enter his carriage on the

road to Dover, charged with the mission of restoring to Italy her

worthiest son,--let me dismiss you to your own happy slumbers, and allow

me to wrap myself in my cloak, and snatch a short sleep on the sofa, till

yonder gray dawn has mellowed into riper day. My eyes are heavy, and if

you stay here three minutes longer, I shall be out of reach of hearing,

in the land of dreams. /Buona notte!/"

"But there is a bed prepared for you."

Harley shook his head in dissent, and composed himself at length on the

sofa.

Riccabocca, bending, wrapped the cloak round his guest, kissed him on the

forehead, and crept out of the room to rejoin Jemima, who still sat up

for him, nervously anxious to learn from him those explanations which her

considerate affection would not allow her to ask from the agitated and

exhausted Violante. "Not in bed!" cried the sage, on seeing her. "Have

you no feelings of compassion for my son that is to be? Just, too, when

there is a reasonable probability that we can afford a son?"

Riccabocca here laughed merrily, and his wife threw herself on his

shoulder, and cried for joy.

But no sleep fell on the lids of Harley L'Estrange. He started up when

his host had left him, and paced the apartment, with noiseless but rapid

strides. All whim and levity had vanished from his face, which, by the

light of the dawn, seemed death-like pale. On that pale face there was

all the struggle and all the anguish of passion.

"These arms have clasped her," he murmured; "these lips have inhaled her

breath! I am under the same roof, and she is saved,--saved evermore from

danger and from penury, and forever divided from me. Courage, courage!

Oh, honour, duty; and thou, dark memory of the past,--thou that didst

pledge love at least to a grave,--support, defend me! Can I be so weak!"

The sun was in the wintry skies when Harley stole from the house. No one

was stirring except Giacomo, who stood by the threshold of the door,

which he had just unbarred, feeding the house-dog. "Good-day," said the

servant, smiling. "The dog has not been of much use, but I don't think

the padrone will henceforth grudge him a breakfast. I shall take him to

Italy, and marry him there, in the hope of improving the breed of our

native Lombard dogs."

"Ah," said Harley, "you will soon leave our cold shores. May sunshine

settle on you all!" He paused, and looked up at the closed windows

wistfully.

"The signorina sleeps there," said Giacomo, in a husky voice, "just over

the room in which you slept."

"I knew it," muttered Harley. "An instinct told me of it. Open the

gate; I must go home. My excuses to your lord, and to all."

He turned a deaf ear to Giacomo's entreaties to stay till at least the

signorina was up,--the signorina whom he had saved. Without trusting

himself to speak further, he quitted the demesne, and walked with swift

strides towards London.

CHAPTER X.

Harley had not long reached his hotel, and was still seated before his

untasted breakfast, when Mr. Randal Leslie was announced. Randal, who

was in the firm belief that Violante was now on the wide seas with

Peschiera, entered, looking the very personation of anxiety and fatigue.

For like the great Cardinal Richelieu, Randal had learned the art how to

make good use of his own delicate and somewhat sickly aspect. The

cardinal, when intent on some sanguinary scheme requiring unusual

vitality and vigour, contrived to make himself look a harmless sufferer

at death's door. And Randal, whose nervous energies could at that moment

have whirled him from one end of this huge metropolis to the other, with

a speed that would have outstripped a prize pedestrian, now sank into a

chair with a jaded weariness that no mother could have seen without

compassion. He seemed since the last night to have galloped towards the

last stage of consumption.

"Have you discovered no trace, my Lord? Speak, speak!"

"Speak! certainly. I am too happy to relieve your mind, Mr. Leslie.

What fools we were! Ha, ha!"

"Fools--how?" faltered Randal.

"Of course; the young lady was at her father's house all the time."

"Eh? what?"

"And is there now."

"It is not possible!" said Randal, in the hollow, dreamy tone of a

somnambulist. "At her father's house, at Norwood! Are you sure?"

"Sure."

Randal made a desperate and successful effort at self-control. "Heaven

be praised!" he cried. "And just as I had begun to suspect the count,

the marchesa; for I find that neither of them slept at home last night;

and Levy told me that the count had written to him, requesting the baron

to discharge his bills, as he should be for some time absent from

England."

"Indeed! Well, that is nothing to us,--very much to Baron Levy, if he

executes his commission, and discharges the bills. What! are you going

already?"

"Do you ask such a question? How can I stay? I must go to Norwood,--

must see Violante with my own eyes! Forgive my emotion--I--I--"

Randal snatched at his hat and hurried away. The low scornful laugh of

Harley followed him as he went.

"I have no more doubt of his guilt than Leonard has. Violante at least

shall not be the prize of that thin-lipped knave. What strange

fascination can he possess, that he should thus bind to him the two men I

value most,--Audley Egerton and Alphonso di Serrano? Both so wise too!--

one in books, one in action. And both suspicious men! While I, so

imprudently trustful and frank--Ah, that is the reason; our natures are

antipathetic; cunning, simulation, falsehood, I have no mercy, no pardon

for these. Woe to all hypocrites if I were a grand Inquisitor!"

"Mr. Richard Avenel," said the waiter, throwing open the door.

Harley caught at the arm of the chair on which he sat, and grasped it

nervously, while his eyes became fixed intently on the form of the

gentleman who now advanced into the room. He rose with an effort.

"Mr. Avenel!" he said falteringly. "Did I hear your name aright?

Avenel!"

"Richard Avenel, at your service, my Lord," answered Dick. "My family is

not unknown to you; and I am not ashamed of my family, though my parents

were small Lansmere tradesfolks, and I am--ahem!--a citizen of the world,

and well-to-do!" added Dick, dropping his kid gloves into his hat, and

then placing the hat on the table, with the air of an old acquaintance

who wishes to make himself at home. Lord L'Estrange bowed and said, as

be reseated himself (Dick being firmly seated already), "You are most

welcome, sir; and if there be anything I can do for one of your name--"

"Thank you, my Lord," interrupted Dick. "I want nothing of any man. A

bold word to say; but I say it. Nevertheless, I should not have presumed

to call on your Lordship, unless, indeed, you had done me the honour to

call first at my house, Eaton Square, No. --- I should not have presumed

to call if it had not been on business,--public business, I may say--

NATIONAL business!"

Harley bowed again. A faint smile flitted for a moment to his lip, but,

vanishing, gave way to a mournful, absent expression of countenance, as

he scanned the handsome features before him, and, perhaps, masculine and

bold though they were, still discovered something of a family likeness to

one whose beauty had once been his ideal of female loveliness; for

suddenly he stretched forth his hand, and said, with more than his usual

cordial sweetness, "Business or not business, let us speak to each other

as friends,--for the sake of a name that takes me back to Lansmere, to my

youth. I listen to you with interest."

Richard Avenel, much surprised by this unexpected kindliness, and

touched, he knew not why, by the soft and melancholy tone of Harley's

voice, warmly pressed the hand held out to him; and seized with a rare

fit of shyness, coloured and coughed and hemmed and looked first down,

then aside, before he could find the words which were generally ready

enough at his command.

"You are very good, Lord L'Estrange; nothing can be handsomer. I feel it

here, my Lord," striking his buff waistcoat,--"I do, 'pon my honour. But

not to waste your time (time's money), I come to the point. It is about

the borough of Lansmere. Your family interest is very strong in that

borough; but excuse me if I say that I don't think you are aware that I

too have cooked up a pretty considerable interest on the other side. No

offence,--opinions are free. And the popular tide runs strong with us--

I mean with me--at the impending crisis,--that is, at the next election.

Now, I have a great respect for the earl your father, and so have those

who brought me into the world--my father, John, was always a regular good

Blue,--and my respect for yourself since I came into this room has gone

up in the market a very great rise indeed,--considerable. So I should

just like to see if we could set our heads together, and settle the

borough between us two, in a snug private way, as public men ought to do

when they get together, nobody else by, and no necessity for that sort of

humbug, which is so common in this rotten old country. Eh, my Lord?"

"Mr. Avenel," said Harley, slowly, recovering himself from the

abstraction with which he had listened to Dick's earlier sentences, "I

fear I do not quite understand you; but I have no other interest in the

next election for the borough of Lansmere than as may serve one whom,

whatever be your politics, you must acknowledge to be--"

"A humbug!"

"Mr. Avenel, you cannot mean the person I mean. I speak of one of the

first statesmen of our time,--of Mr. Audley Egerton, of--"

"A stiff-necked, pompous--"

"My earliest and dearest friend."

The rebuke, though gently said, sufficed to silence Dick for a moment;

and when he spoke again, it was in an altered tone.

"I beg your pardon, my Lord, I am sure. Of course, I can say nothing

disrespectful of your friend,--very sorry that he is your friend. In

that case, I am almost afraid that nothing is to be done. But Mr. Audley

Egerton has not a chance.

"Let me convince you of this." And Dick pulled out a little book, bound

neatly in red.

"Canvass book, my Lord. I am no aristocrat. I don't pretend to carry a

free and independent constituency in my breeches' pocket. Heaven forbid!

But as a practical man of business, what I do is done properly. Just

look at this book.

"Well kept, eh? Names, promises, inclinations, public opinions, and

private interests of every individual Lansmere elector! Now, as one man

of honour to another, I show you this book, and I think you will see that

we have a clear majority of at least eighty votes as against Mr.

Egerton."

"That is your view of the question," said Harley, taking the book and

glancing over the names catalogued and ticketed therein. But his

countenance became serious as he recognized many names familiar to his

boyhood as those of important electors on the Lansmere side, and which he

now found transferred to the hostile. "But surely there are persons here

in whom you deceive yourself,--old friends of my family, stanch

supporters of our party."

"Exactly so. But this new question has turned all old things topsy-

turvy. No relying on any friend of yours. No reliance except in this

book!" said Dick, slapping the red cover with calm but ominous emphasis.

"Now, what I want to propose is this: Don't let the Lansmere interest be

beaten; it would vex the old earl,--go to his heart, I am sure."

Harley nodded.

"And the Lansmere interest need not be beaten, if you'll put up another

man instead of this red-tapist. (Beg pardon.) You see I only want to get

in one man, you want to get in another. Why not? Now, there 's a smart

youth,--connection of Mr. Egerton's,--Randal Leslie. I have no objection

to him, though he is of your colours. Withdraw Mr. Egerton, and I 'll

withdraw my second man before it comes to the poll; and so we shall halve

the borough slick between us. That's the way to do business,--eh, my

Lord?"

"Randal Leslie! Oh, you wish to bring in Mr. Leslie? But he stands with

Egerton, not against him."

"Ah," said Dick, smiling as if to himself, "so I hear; and we could bring

him in over Egerton without saying a word to you. But all our family

respect yours, and so I have wished to do the thing handsome and open.

Let the earl and your party be content with young Leslie."

"Young Leslie has spoken to you?"

"Not as to my coming here. Oh, no, that's a secret,--private and

confidential, my Lord. And now, to make matters still more smooth, I

propose that my man shall be one to your Lordship's own heart. I find

you have been very kind to my nephew; does you credit, my Lord,--a

wonderful young man, though I say it. I never guessed there was so much

in him. Yet all the time he was in my house, he had in his desk the very

sketch of an invention that is now saving me from ruin,--from positive

ruin,--Baron Levy, the King's Bench, and almighty smash! Now, such a

young man ought to be in parliament. I like to bring forward a

relation,--that is, when he does one credit; 't is human nature and

sacred ties--one's own flesh and blood; and besides, one hand rubs the

other, and one leg helps on the other, and relations get on best in the

world when they pull together; that is, supposing that they are the

proper sort of relations, and pull one on, not down. I had once thought

of standing for Lansmere myself,--thought of it very lately. The country

wants men like me, I know that; but I have an idea that I had better see

to my own business. The country may, or may not, do without me, stupid

old thing that she is! But my mill and my new engines--there is no doubt

that they cannot do without me. In short, as we are quite alone, and, as

I said before, there 's no kind of necessity for that sort of humbug

which exists when other people are present, provide elsewhere for Mr.

Egerton, whom I hate like poison,--I have a right to do that, I suppose,

without offence to your Lordship,--and the two younkers, Leonard

Fairfield and Randal Leslie, shall be members for the free and

independent borough of Lansmere!"

"But does Leonard wish to come into parliament?"

"No, he says not; but that's nonsense. If your Lordship will just

signify your wish that he should not lose this noble opportunity to raise

himself in life, and get something handsome out of the nation, I'm sure

he owes you too much to hesitate,--'specially when 't is to his own

advantage. And besides, one of us Avenels ought to be in parliament; and

if I have not the time and learning, and so forth, and he has, why, it

stands to reason that he should be the man. And if he can do something

for me one day--not that I want anything--but still a baronetcy or so

would be a compliment to British Industry, and be appreciated as such by

myself and the public at large,--I say, if he could do something of that

sort, it would keep up the whole family; and if he can't, why, I'll

forgive him."

"Avenel," said Harley, with that familiar and gracious charm of manner

which few ever could resist, "Avenel, if as a great personal favour to

myself--to me your fellow-townsman (I was born at Lansmere)--if I asked

you to forego your grudge against Audley Egerton, whatever that grudge

be, and not oppose his election, while our party would not oppose your

nephew's, could you not oblige me? Come, for the sake of dear Lansmere,

and all the old kindly feelings between your family and mine, say 'yes,

so shall it be.'"

Richard Avenel was almost melted. He turned away his face; but there

suddenly rose to his recollection the scornful brow of Audley Egerton,

the lofty contempt with which he, then the worshipful Mayor of

Screwstown, had been shown out of the minister's office-room; and the

blood rushing over his cheeks, he stamped his foot on the floor, and

exclaimed angrily, "No; I swore that Audley Egerton should smart for his

insolence to me, as sure as my name be Richard Avenel; and all the soft

soap in the world will not wash out that oath. So there is nothing for

it but for you to withdraw that man, or for me to defeat him. And I

would do so, ay,--and in the way that could most gall him,--if it cost me

half my fortune. But it will not cost that," said Dick, cooling, "nor

anything like it; for when the popular tide runs in one's favour, 't is

astonishing how cheap an election may be. It will cost him enough

though, and all for nothing,--worse than nothing. Think of it, my Lord."

"I will, Mr. Avenel. And I say, in my turn, that my friendship is as

strong as your hate; and that if it costs me, not half, but my whole

fortune, Audley Egerton shall come in without a shilling of expense to

himself, should we once decide that he stand the contest."

"Very well, my Lord,--very well," said Dick, stiffly, and drawing on his

kid gloves; "we'll see if the aristocracy is always to ride over the free

choice of the people in this way. But the people are roused, my Lord.

The March of Enlightenment is commenced, the Schoolmaster is abroad, and

the British Lion--"

"Nobody here but ourselves, my dear Avenel. Is not this rather what you

call--humbug?"

Dick started, stared, coloured, and then burst out laughing, "Give us

your hand again, my Lord. You are a good fellow, that you are. And for

your sake--"

"You'll not oppose Egerton?"

"Tooth and nail, tooth and nail!" cried Dick, clapping his hands to his

ears, and fairly running out of the room.

There passed over Harley's countenance that change so frequent to it,--

more frequent, indeed, to the gay children of the world than those of

consistent tempers and uniform habits might suppose. There is many a man

whom we call friend, and whose face seems familiar to us as our own; yet,

could we but take a glimpse of him when we leave his presence, and he

sinks back into his chair alone, we should sigh to see how often the

smile on the frankest lip is but a bravery of the drill, only worn when

on parade.

What thoughts did the visit of Richard Avenel bequeath to Harley? It

were hard to define them.

In his place, an Audley Egerton would have taken some comfort from the

visit, would have murmured, "Thank Heaven! I have not to present to the

world that terrible man as my brother-in-law." But probably Harley had

escaped, in his revery, from Richard Avenel altogether. Even as the

slightest incident in the daytime causes our dreams at night, but is

itself clean forgotten, so the name, so the look of the visitor, might

have sufficed but to influence a vision, as remote from its casual

suggester as what we call real life is from that life much more real,

that we imagine, or remember, in the haunted chambers of the brain. For

what is real life? How little the things actually doing around us affect

the springs of our sorrow or joy; but the life which our dulness calls

romance,--the sentiment, the remembrance, the hope, or the fear, that are

never seen in the toil of our hands, never heard in the jargon on our

lips,--from that life all spin, as the spider from its entrails, the web

by which we hang in the sunbeam, or glide out of sight into the shelter

of home.

"I must not think," said Harley, rousing himself with a sigh, "either of

past or present. Let me hurry on to some fancied future. 'Happiest are

the marriages,' said the French philosopher, and still says many a sage,

'in which man asks only the mild companion, and woman but the calm

protector.' I will go to Helen."

He rose; and as he was about to lock up his escritoire, he remembered the

papers which Leonard had requested him to read. He took them from their

deposit, with a careless hand, intending to carry them with him to his

father's house. But as his eye fell upon the characters, the hand

suddenly trembled, and he recoiled some paces, as if struck by a violent

blow. Then, gazing more intently on the writing, a low cry broke from

his lips. He reseated himself, and began to read.

CHAPTER XI.

Randal--with many misgivings at Lord L'Estrange's tone, in which he was

at no loss to detect a latent irony--proceeded to Norwood. He found

Riccabocca exceedingly cold and distant; but he soon brought that sage to

communicate the suspicions which Lord L'Estrange had instilled into his

mind, and these Randal was as speedily enabled to dispel. He accounted

at once for his visits to Levy and Peschiera. Naturally he had sought

Levy, an acquaintance of his own,--nay, of Audley Egerton's,--but whom he

knew to be professionally employed by the count. He had succeeded in

extracting from the baron Peschiera's suspicious change of lodgment from

Mivart's Hotel to the purlieus of Leicester Square; had called there on

the count, forced an entrance, openly accused him of abstracting

Violante; high words had passed between them,--even a challenge. Randal

produced a note from a military friend of his, whom he had sent to the

count an hour after quitting the hotel. This note stated that

arrangements were made for a meeting near Lord's Cricket Ground, at seven

o'clock the next morning. Randal then submitted to Riccabocca another

formal memorandum from the same warlike friend, to the purport that

Randal and himself had repaired to the ground, and no count had been

forthcoming. It must be owned that Randal had taken all suitable

precautions to clear himself. Such a man is not to blame for want of

invention, if he be sometimes doomed to fail.

"I, then, much alarmed," continued Randal, "hastened to Baron Levy, who

informed me that the count had written him word that he should be for

some time absent from England. Rushing thence, in despair, to your

friend Lord L'Estrange, I heard that your daughter was safe with you.

And though, as I have just proved, I would have risked my life against so

notorious a duellist as the count, on the mere chance of preserving

Violante from his supposed designs, I am rejoiced to think that she had

no need of my unskilful arm. But how and why can the count have left

England after accepting a challenge? A man so sure of his weapon, too,--

reputed to be as fearless of danger as he is blunt in conscience.

Explain,--you who know mankind so well,--explain. I cannot." The

philosopher could not resist the pleasure of narrating the detection and

humiliation of his foe, the wit, ingenuity, and readiness of his friend.

So Randal learned, by little and little, the whole drama of the preceding

night. He saw, then, that the exile had all reasonable hope of speedy

restoration to rank and wealth. Violante, indeed; would be a brilliant

prize,--too brilliant, perhaps, for Randal, but not to be sacrificed

without an effort. Therefore wringing convulsively the hand of his

meditated father-in-law, and turning away his head as if to conceal his

emotions, the ingenuous young suitor faltered forth that now Dr.

Riccabocca was so soon to vanish into the Duke di Serrano, he--Randal

Leslie of Rood, born a gentleman, indeed, but of fallen fortunes--had no

right to claim the promise which had been given to him while a father had

cause to fear for a daughter's future; with the fear ceased the promise.

Alight Heaven bless father and daughter both!

This address touched both the heart and honour of the exile. Randal

Leslie knew his man. And though, before Randal's visit, Riccabocca was

not quite so much a philosopher but what he would have been well pleased

to have found himself released, by proof of the young man's treachery,

from an alliance below the rank to which he had all chance of early

restoration, yet no Spaniard was ever more tenacious of plighted word

than this inconsistent pupil of the profound Florentine. And Randal's

probity being now clear to him, he repeated, with stately formalities,

his previous offer of Violante's hand.

"But," still falteringly sighed the provident and far-calculating Randal

--"but your only child, your sole heiress! Oh, might not your consent to

such a marriage (if known before your recall) jeopardize your cause?

Your lands, your principalities, to devolve on the child of an humble

Englishman! I dare not believe it. Ah, would Violante were not your

heiress!"

"A noble wish," said Riccabocca, smiling blandly, "and one that the Fates

will realize. Cheer up; Violante will not be my heiress."

"Ah," cried Randal, drawing a long breath--"ah, what do I hear?"

"Hist! I shall soon a second time be a father. And, to judge by the

unerring researches of writers upon that most interesting of all

subjects, parturitive science, I shall be the father of a son. He will,

of course, succeed to the titles of Serrano. And Violante--"

"Will have nothing, I suppose?" exclaimed Randal, trying his best to look

overjoyed till he had got his paws out of the trap into which he had so

incautiously thrust them.

"Nay, her portion by our laws--to say nothing of my affection--would far

exceed the ordinary dower which the daughters of London merchants bring

to the sons of British peers. Whoever marries Violante, provided I

regain my estates, must submit to the cares which the poets assure us

ever attend on wealth."

"Oh!" groaned Randal, as if already bowed beneath the cares, and

sympathizing with the poets.

"And now, let me present you to your betrothed." Although poor Randal

had been remorselessly hurried along what Schiller calls the "gamut of

feeling," during the last three minutes, down to the deep chord of

despair at the abrupt intelligence that his betrothed was no heiress

after all; thence ascending to vibrations of pleasant doubt as to the

unborn usurper of her rights, according to the prophecies of parturitive

science; and lastly, swelling into a concord of all sweet thoughts at the

assurance that, come what might, she would be a wealthier bride than a

peer's son could discover in the matrimonial Potosi of Lombard Street,--

still the tormented lover was not there allowed to repose his exhausted

though ravished soul. For, at the idea of personally confronting the

destined bride--whose very existence had almost vanished from his mind's

eye, amidst the golden showers that it saw falling divinely round her--

Randal was suddenly reminded of the exceeding bluntness with which, at

their last interview, it had been his policy to announce his suit, and of

the necessity of an impromptu falsetto suited to the new variations that

tossed him again to and fro on the merciless gamut. However, he could

not recoil from her father's proposition, though, in order to prepare

Riccabocca for Violante's representation, he confessed pathetically that

his impatience to obtain her consent and baffle Peschiera had made him

appear a rude and presumptuous wooer. The philosopher, who was disposed

to believe one kind of courtship to be much the same as another, in cases

where the result of all courtships was once predetermined, smiled

benignly, patted Randal's thin cheek, with a "Pooh, pooh, /pazzie!/" and

left the room to summon Violante.

"If knowledge be power," soliloquized Randal, "ability is certainly good

luck, as Miss Edgeworth shows in that story of Murad the Unlucky, which I

read at Eton; very clever story it is, too. So nothing comes amiss to

me. Violante's escape, which has cost me the count's L10,000, proves to

be worth to me, I dare say, ten times as much. No doubt she'll have a

hundred thousand pounds at the least. And then, if her father have no

other child, after all, or the child he expects die in infancy, why, once

reconciled to his Government and restored to his estates, the law must

take its usual course, and Violante will be the greatest heiress in

Europe. As to the young lady herself, I confess she rather awes me;

I know I shall be henpecked. Well, all respectable husbands are. There

is something scampish and ruffianly in not being henpecked." Here

Randal's smile might have harmonized well with Pluto's "iron tears;" but,

iron as the smile was, the serious young man was ashamed of it. "What am

I about," said he, half aloud, "chuckling to myself and wasting time,

when I ought to be thinking gravely how to explain away my former

cavalier courtship? Such a masterpiece as I thought it then! But who

could foresee the turn things would take? Let me think; let me think.

Plague on it, here she comes."

But Randal had not the fine ear of your more romantic lover; and, to his

great relief, the exile entered the room unaccompanied by Violante.

Riccabocca looked somewhat embarrassed.

"My dear Leslie, you must excuse my daughter to-day; she is still

suffering from the agitation she has gone through, and cannot see you."

The lover tried not to look too delighted.

"Cruel!" said he; "yet I would not for worlds force myself on her

presence. I hope, Duke, that she will not find it too difficult to obey

the commands which dispose of her hand, and intrust her happiness to my

grateful charge."

"To be plain with you, Randal, she does at present seem to find it more

difficult than I foresaw. She even talks of--"

"Another attachment--Oh, heavens!"

"Attachment, /pazzie!/ Whom has she seen? No, a convent! But leave it

to me. In a calmer hour she will comprehend that a child must know no

lot more enviable and holy than that of redeeming a father's honour. And

now, if you are returning to London, may I ask you to convey to young Mr.

Hazeldean my assurances of undying gratitude for his share in my

daughter's delivery from that poor baffled swindler."

It is noticeable that, now Peschiera was no longer an object of dread to

the nervous father, he became but an object of pity to the philosopher,

and of contempt to the grandee.

"True," said Randal, "you told me Frank had a share in Lord L'Estrange's

very clever and dramatic device. My Lord must be by nature a fine

actor,--comic, with a touch of melodrame! Poor Frank! apparently he has

lost the woman he adored,--Beatrice di Negra. You say she has

accompanied the count. Is the marriage that was to be between her and

Frank broken off?"

"I did not know such a marriage was contemplated. I understood her to be

attached to another. Not that that is any reason why she would not have

married Mr. Hazeldean. Express to him my congratulations on his escape."

"Nay, he must not know that I have inadvertently betrayed his confidence;

but you now guess, what perhaps puzzled you before,--namely, how I came

to be so well acquainted with the count and his movements. I was so

intimate with my relation Frank, and Frank was affianced to the

marchesa."

"I am glad you give me that explanation; it suffices. After all, the

marchesa is not by nature a bad woman,--that is, not worse than women

generally are, so Harley says, and Violante forgives and excuses her."

"Generous Violante! But it is true. So much did the marchesa appear to

me possessed of fine, though ill-regulated qualities, that I always

considered her disposed to aid in frustrating her brother's criminal

designs. So I even said, if I remember right, to Violante."

Dropping this prudent and precautionary sentence, in order to guard

against anything Violante might say as to that subtle mention of Beatrice

which had predisposed her to confide in the marchesa, Randal then hurried

on, "But you want repose. I leave you the happiest, the most grateful of

men. I will give your courteous message to Frank."

CHAPTER XII.

Curious to learn what had passed between Beatrice and Frank, and deeply

interested in all that could oust Frank out of the squire's goodwill, or

aught that could injure his own prospects by tending to unite son and

father, Randal was not slow in reaching his young kinsman's lodgings. It

might be supposed that having, in all probability, just secured so great

a fortune as would accompany Violante's hand, Randal might be indifferent

to the success of his scheme on the Hazeldean exchequer. Such a

supposition would grievously wrong this profound young man. For, in the

first place, Violante was not yet won, nor her father yet restored to the

estates which would defray her dower; and, in the next place, Randal,

like Iago, loved villany for the genius it called forth in him. The sole

luxury the abstemious aspirer allowed to himself was that which is found

in intellectual restlessness. Untempted by wine, dead to love, unamused

by pleasure, indifferent to the arts, despising literature save as means

to some end of power, Randal Leslie was the incarnation of thought

hatched out of the corruption of will. At twilight we see thin airy

spectral insects, all wing and nippers, hovering, as if they could never

pause, over some sullen mephitic pool. Just so, methinks, hover over

Acheron such gnat-like, noiseless soarers into gloomy air out of Stygian

deeps, as are the thoughts of spirits like Randal Leslie's. Wings have

they, but only the better to pounce down,--draw their nutriment from

unguarded material cuticles; and just when, maddened, you strike, and

exulting exclaim, "Caught, by Jove!" wh-irr flies the diaphanous, ghostly

larva, and your blow falls on your own twice-offended cheek.

The young men who were acquainted with Randal said he had not a vice!

The fact being that his whole composition was one epic vice, so

elaborately constructed that it had not an episode which a critic could

call irrelevant. Grand young man!

"But, my dear fellow," said Randal, as soon as he had learned from Frank

all that had passed on board the vessel between him and Beatrice, "I

cannot believe this. 'Never loved you'? What was her object, then, in

deceiving not only you, but myself? I suspect her declaration was but

some heroical refinement of generosity. After her brother's dejection

and probable ruin, she might feel that she was no match for you. Then,

too, the squire's displeasure! I see it all; just like her,--noble,

unhappy woman!"

Frank shook his head. "There are moments," said he, with a wisdom that

comes out of those instincts which awake from the depths of youth's first

great sorrow,--"moments when a woman cannot feign, and there are tones in

the voice of a woman which men cannot misinterpret. She does not love

me,--she never did love me; I can see that her heart has been elsewhere.

No matter,--all is over. I don't deny that I am suffering an intense

grief; it gnaws like a kind of sullen hunger; and I feel so broken, too,

as if I had grown old, and there was nothing left worth living for. I

don't deny all that."

"My poor, dear friend, if you would but believe--"

"I don't want to believe anything, except that I have been a great fool.

I don't think I can ever commit such follies again. But I'm a man. I

shall get the better of this; I should despise myself if I could not.

And now let us talk of my dear father. Has he left town?"

"Left last night by the mail. You can write and tell him you have given

up the marchesa, and all will be well again between you."

"Give her up! Fie, Randal! Do you think I should tell such a lie? She

gave me up; I can claim no merit out of that."

"Oh, yes! I can make the squire see all to your advantage. Oh, if it

were only the marchesa! but, alas! that cursed postobit! How could Levy

betray you? Never trust to usurers again; they cannot resist the

temptation of a speedy profit.

"They first buy the son, and then sell him to the father. And the squire

has such strange notions on matters of this kind."

"He is right to have them. There, just read this letter from my mother.

It came to me this morning. I could hang myself if I were a dog; but I'm

a man, and so I must bear it."

Randal took Mrs. Hazeldean's letter from Frank's trembling hand. The

poor mother had learned, though but imperfectly, Frank's misdeeds from

some hurried lines which the squire had despatched to her; and she wrote

as good, indulgent, but sensible, right-minded mothers alone can write.

More lenient to an imprudent love than the squire, she touched with

discreet tenderness on Frank's rash engagements with a foreigner, but

severely on his own open defiance of his father's wishes. Her anger was,

however, reserved for that unholy post-obit. Here the hearty genial

wife's love overcame the mother's affection. To count, in cold blood, on

that husband's death, and to wound his heart so keenly, just where its

jealous, fatherly fondness made it most susceptible!

"O Frank, Frank!" wrote Mrs. Hazeldean, "were it not for this, were

it only for your unfortunate attachment to the Italian lady, only

for your debts, only for the errors of hasty, extravagant youth, I

should be with you now, my arms round your neck, kissing you,

chiding you back to your father's heart. But--but the thought that

between you and his heart has been the sordid calculation of his

death,--that is a wall between us. I cannot come near you. I

should not like to look on your face, and think how my William's

tears fell over it, when I placed you, new born, in his arms, and

bade him welcome his heir. What! you a mere boy still, your father

yet in the prime of life, and the heir cannot wait till nature

leaves him fatherless. Frank; Frank this is so unlike you. Can

London have ruined already a disposition so honest and

affectionate?--No; I cannot believe it. There must be some mistake.

Clear it up, I implore you; or, though as a mother I pity you, as a

wife I cannot forgive."

Even Randal was affected by the letter; for, as we know, even Randal felt

in his own person the strength of family ties. The poor squire's choler

and bluffness had disguised the parental heart from an eye that, however

acute, had not been willing to search for it; and Randal, ever affected

through his intellect, had despised the very weakness on which he had

preyed. But the mother's letter, so just and sensible (allowing that the

squire's opinions had naturally influenced the wife to take what men of

the world would call a very exaggerated view of the every-day occurrence

of loans raised by a son, payable only at a father's death),--this

letter, I say, if exaggerated according to fashionable notions, so

sensible if judged by natural affections, touched the dull heart of the

schemer, because approved by the quick tact of his intelligence.

"Frank," said he, with a sincerity that afterwards amazed himself, "go

down at once to Hazeldean; see your mother, and explain to her how this

transaction really happened. The woman you loved, and wooed as wife, in

danger of an arrest, your distraction of mind, Levy's counsels, your hope

to pay off the debt, so incurred to the usurer, from the fortune you

would shortly receive with the marchesa. Speak to your mother,--she is a

woman; women have a common interest in forgiving all faults that arise

from the source of their power over us men,--I mean love. Go!"

"No, I cannot go; you see she would not like to look on my face. And I

cannot repeat what you say so glibly. Besides, somehow or other, as I am

so dependent upon my father,--and he has said as much,--I feel as if it

would be mean in me to make any excuses. I did the thing, and must

suffer for it. But I'm a in--an--no--I 'm not a man here." Frank burst

into tears.

At the sight of those tears, Randal gradually recovered from his strange

aberration into vulgar and low humanity. His habitual contempt for his

kinsman returned; and with contempt came the natural indifference to the

sufferings of the thing to be put to use. It is contempt for the worm

that makes the angler fix it on the hook, and observe with complacency

that the vivacity of its wriggles will attract the bite. If the worm

could but make the angler respect, or even fear it, the barb would find

some other bait. Few anglers would impale an estimable silkworm, and

still fewer the anglers who would finger into service a formidable

hornet.

"Pooh, my--dear Frank," said Randal; "I have given you my advice; you

reject it. Well, what then will you do?"

"I shall ask for leave of absence, and run away some where," said Frank,

drying his tears. "I can't face London; I can't mix with others. I want

to be by myself, and wrestle with all that I feel here--in my heart.

Then I shall write to my mother, say the plain truth, and leave her to

judge as kindly of me as she can."

"You are quite right. Yes, leave town! Why not go abroad? You have

never been abroad. New scenes will distract your mind. Run over to

Paris."

"Not to Paris--I don't want gayeties; but I did intend to go abroad

somewhere,--any dull dismal hole of a place. Good-by! Don't think of me

any more for the present."

"But let me know where you go; and meanwhile I will see the squire."

"Say as little of me as you can to him. I know you mean most kindly, but

oh, how I wish there never had been any third person between me and my

father! There: you may well snatch away your hand. What an ungrateful

wretch to you I am. I do believe I am the wickedest fellow. What! you

shake hands with me still! My dear Randal, you have the best heart--God

bless you!" Frank turned away, and disappeared within his dressing-room.

"They must be reconciled now, sooner or later,--squire and son," said

Randal to himself, as he left the lodgings. "I don't see how I can

prevent that,--the marchesa being withdrawn,--unless Frank does it for

me. But it is well he should be abroad,--something maybe made out of

that; meanwhile I may yet do all that I could reasonably hope to do,--

even if Frank had married Beatrice,--since he was not to be disinherited.

Get the squire to advance the money for the Thornhill purchase, complete

the affair; this marriage with Violante will help; Levy must know that;

secure the borough;--well thought of. I will go to Avenel's. By-the-by,

by-the-by, the squire might as well keep me still in the entail after

Frank, supposing Frank die childless. This love affair may keep him long

from marrying. His hand was very hot,--a hectic colour; those strong-

looking fellows often go off in rapid decline, especially if anything

preys on their minds,--their minds are so very small.

"Ah, the Hazeldean parson,--and with Avenel! That young man, too, who is

he? I have seen him before some where.--My dear Mr. Dale, this is a

pleasant surprise. I thought you had returned to Hazeldean with our

friend the squire?"

MR. DALE.--"The squire! Has he left town, and without telling me?"

RANDAL (taking aside the parson).--"He was anxious to get back to Mrs.

Hazeldean, who was naturally very uneasy about her son and this foolish

marriage; but I am happy to tell you that that marriage is effectually

and permanently broken off."

MR. DALE.---"How, how? My poor friend told me he had wholly failed to

make any impression on Frank,--forbade me to mention the subject. I was

just going to see Frank myself. I always had some influence with him.

But, Mr. Leslie, explain this very sudden and happy event. The marriage

broken off!"

RANDAL.--"It is a long story, and I dare not tell you my humble share in

it. Nay, I must keep that secret. Frank might not forgive me. Suffice

it that you have my word that the fair Italian has left England, and

decidedly refused Frank's addresses. But stay, take my advice, don't go

to him; you see it was not only the marriage that has offended the

squire, but some pecuniary transactions,--an unfortunate post-obit bond

on the Casino property. Frank ought to be left to his own repentant

reflections. They will be most salutary; you know his temper,--he don't

bear reproof; and yet it is better, on the other hand, not to let him

treat too lightly what has passed. Let us leave him to himself for a few

days He is in an excellent frame of mind."

MR. DALE (shaking Randal's hand warmly).--"You speak admirably--a post-

obit!--so often as he has heard his father's opinion on such

transactions. No, I will not see him; I should be too angry--"

RANDAL (leading the parson back, resumes, after an exchange of

salutations with Avenel, who, meanwhile, had been conferring with his

nephew).--"You should not be so long away from your rectory, Mr. Dale.

What will your parish do without you?"

MR. DALE.--"The old fable of the wheel and the fly. I am afraid the

wheel rolls on the same. But if I am absent from my parish, I am still

in the company of one who does me honour as an old parishioner. You

remember Leonard Fairfield, your antagonist in the Battle of the Stocks?"

MR. AVENEL.--"My nephew, I am proud to say, sir." Randal bowed with

marked civility, Leonard with a reserve no less marked.

MR. AVENEL (ascribing his nephew's reserve to shyness).--"You should be

friends, you two youngsters. Who knows but you may run together in the

same harness? Ah, that reminds me, Leslie, I have a word or two to say

to you. Your servant, Mr. Dale. Shall be happy to present you to Mrs.

Avenel. My card,--Eaton Square, Number ---. You will call on me

to-morrow, Leonard. And mind, I shall be very angry if you persist in

your refusal. Such an opening!" Avenel took Randal's arm, while the

parson and Leonard walked on.

"Any fresh hints as to Lansmere?" asked Randal.

"Yes; I have now decided on the plan of contest. You must fight two and

two,--you and Egerton against me and (if I can get him to stand, as I

hope) my nephew, Leonard."

"What!" said Randal, alarmed; "then, after all, I can hope for no support

from you?"

"I don't say that; but I have reason to think Lord L'Estrange will bestir

himself actively in favour of Egerton. If so, it will be a very sharp

contest; and I must manage the whole election on our side, and unite all

our shaky votes, which I can best do by standing myself in the first

instance, reserving it to after consideration whether I shall throw up at

the last; for I don't particularly want to come in, as I did a little

time ago, before I had found out my nephew. Wonderful young man! with

such a head,--will do me credit in the rotten old House; and I think I

had best leave London, go to Screwstown, and look to my business. No, if

Leonard stand, I roust first see to get him in; and next, to keep Egerton

out. It will probably, therefore, end in the return of one and one or

either side, as we thought of before,--Leonard on our side; and Egerton

sha'n't be the man on the other. You understand?"

"I do, my dear Avenel. Of course, as I before said, I can't dictate to

your party whom they should prefer,--Egerton or myself. And it will be

obvious to the public that your party would rather defeat so eminent an

adversary as Mr. Egerton than a tyro in politics like me. Of course I

cannot scheme for such a result; it would be misconstrued, and damage my

character. But I rely equally on your friendly promise."

"Promise! No, I don't promise. I must first see how the cat jumps; and

I don't know yet how our friends may like you, nor how they can be

managed. All I can say is, that Audley Egerton sha'n't be M.P. for

Lansmere. Meanwhile, you will take care not to commit yourself in

speaking so that our party can't vote for you consistently; they must

count on having you--when you get into the House."

"I am not a violent party-man at present," answered Randal, prudently.

"And if public opinion prove on your side, it is the duty of a statesman

to go with the times."

"Very sensibly said; and I have a private bill or two, and some other

little jobs, I want to get through the House, which we can discuss later,

should it come to a frank understanding between us. We must arrange how

to meet privately at Lansmere, if necessary. I'll see to that. I shall

go down this week. I think of taking a hint from the free and glorious

land of America, and establishing secret caucuses. Nothing like 'em."

"Caucuses?"

"Small sub-committees that spy on their men night and day, and don't

suffer them to be intimidated to vote the other way."

"You have an extraordinary head for public affairs, Avenel. You should

come into parliament yourself; your nephew is so very young."

"So are you."

"Yes; but I know the world. Does he?"

"The world knows him, though not by name, and he has been the making of

me."

"How? You surprise me."

Avenel first explained about the patent which Leonard had secured to him;

and next confided, upon honour, Leonard's identity with the anonymous

author whom the parson had supposed to be Professor Moss.

Randal Leslie felt a jealous pang. What! then--had this village boy,

this associate of John Burley (literary vagabond, whom he supposed had

long since gone to the dogs, and been buried at the expense of the

parish)--had this boy so triumphed over birth, rearing, circumstance,

that, if Randal and Leonard had met together in any public place, and

Leonard's identity with the rising author had been revealed, every eye

would have turned from Randal to gaze on Leonard? The common consent of

mankind would have acknowledged the supreme royalty of genius when it

once leaves its solitude, and strides into the world. What! was this

rude villager the child of Fame, who, without an effort, and

unconsciously, had inspired in the wearied heart of Beatrice di Negra a

love that Randal knew, by an instinct, no arts, no craft, could ever

create for him in the heart of woman? And now, did this same youth stand

on the same level in the ascent to power as he, the well-born Randal

Leslie, the accomplished protege of the superb Audley Egerton? Were they

to be rivals in the same arena of practical busy life? Randal gnawed his

quivering lip.

All the while, however, the young man whom he so envied was a prey to

sorrows deeper far than could ever find room or footing in the narrow and

stony heart of the unloving schemer.

As Leonard walked through the crowded streets with the friend and monitor

of his childhood, confiding the simple tale of his earlier trials,--when,

amidst the wreck of fortune and in despair of fame, the Child-angel

smiled by his side, like Hope,--all renown seemed to him so barren, all

the future so dark! His voice trembled, and his countenance became so

sad, that his benignant listener, divining that around the image of Helen

there clung some passionate grief that overshadowed all worldly success,

drew Leonard gently and gently on, till the young man, long yearning for

some confidant, told him all,--how, faithful through long years to one

pure and ardent memory, Helen had been seen once more, the child ripened

to woman, and the memory revealing itself as love.

The parson listened with a mild and thoughtful brow, which expanded into

a more cheerful expression as Leonard closed his story.

"I see no reason to despond," said Mr. Dale. "You fear that Miss Digby

does not return your attachment; you dwell upon her reserve, her distant,

though kindly manner. Cheer up! All young ladies are under the

influence of what phrenologists call the organ of Secretiveness, when

they are in the society of the object of their preference. Just as you

describe Miss Digby's manner to you, was my Carry's manner to myself."

The parson here indulged in a very appropriate digression upon female

modesty, which he wound up by asserting that that estimable virtue became

more and more influenced by the secretive organ, in proportion as the

favoured suitor approached near and nearer to a definite proposal. It

was the duty of a gallant and honourable lover to make that proposal in

distinct and orthodox form, before it could be expected that a young lady

should commit herself and the dignity of her sex by the slightest hint as

to her own inclinations.

"Next," continued the parson, "you choose to torment yourself by

contrasting your own origin and fortunes with the altered circumstances

of Miss Digby,--the ward of Lord L'Estrange, the guest of Lady Lansmere.

You say that if Lord L'Estrange could have countenanced such a union, he

would have adopted a different tone with you,--sounded your heart,

encouraged your hopes, and so forth. I view things differently. I have

reason to do so; and from all you have told me of this nobleman's

interest in your fate, I venture to make you this promise, that if Miss

Digby would accept your hand, Lord L'Estrange shall ratify her choice."

"My dear Mr. Dale," cried Leonard, transported, "you make me that

promise?"

"I do,--from what you have said, and from what I myself know of Lord

L'Estrange. Go, then, at once to Knightsbridge, see Miss Digby, show her

your heart, explain to her, if you will, your prospects, ask her

permission to apply to Lord L'Estrange (since he has constituted himself

her guardian); and if Lord L'Estrange hesitate,--which, if your happiness

be set on this union, I think he will not,--let me know, and leave the

rest to me."

Leonard yielded himself to the parson's persuasive eloquence. Indeed,

when he recalled to mind those passages in the manuscripts of the ill-

fated Nora, which referred to the love that Harley had once borne to

her,--for he felt convinced that Harley and the boy suitor of Nora's

narrative were one and the same; and when all the interest that Harley

had taken in his own fortunes was explained by his relationship to her

(even when Lord L'Estrange had supposed it less close than he would now

discover it to be), the young man, reasoning by his own heart, could not

but suppose that the noble Harley would rejoice to confer happiness upon

the son of her, so beloved by his boyhood.

"And to thee, perhaps, O my mother!" thought Leonard, with swimming eyes

--"to thee, perhaps, even in thy grave, I shall owe the partner of my

life, as to the mystic breath of thy genius I owe the first pure

aspirations of my soul."

It will be seen that Leonard had not confided to the parson his discovery

of Nora's manuscripts, nor even his knowledge of his real birth; for the

proud son naturally shrank from any confidence that implicated Nora's

fair name, until at least Harley, who, it was clear from those papers,

must have intimately known his father, should perhaps decide the question

which the papers themselves left so terribly vague,--namely, whether he

were the offspring of a legal marriage, or Nora had been the victim of

some unholy fraud.

While the parson still talked, and while Leonard still mused and

listened, their steps almost mechanically took the direction towards

Knightsbridge, and paused at the gates of Lord Lansmere's house.

"Go in, my young friend; I will wait without to know the issue," said the

parson, cheeringly. "Go, and with gratitude to Heaven, learn how to bear

the most precious joy that can befall mortal man; or how to submit to

youth's sharpest sorrow, with the humble belief that even sorrow is but

some mercy concealed."

CHAPTER XIII.

Leonard was shown into the drawing-room, and it so chanced that Helen was

there alone. The girl's soft face was sadly changed, even since Leonard

had seen it last; for the grief of natures mild and undemonstrative as

hers, gnaws with quick ravages; but at Leonard's unexpected entrance, the

colour rushed so vividly to the pale cheeks that its hectic might be

taken for the lustre of bloom and health. She rose hurriedly, and in

great confusion faltered out, "that she believed Lady Lansmere was in her

room,--she would go for her," and moved towards the door, without seeming

to notice the hand tremulously held forth to her; when Leonard exclaimed

in uncontrollable emotions which pierced to her very heart, in the keen

accent of reproach,--

"Oh, Miss Digby--oh, Helen--is it thus that you greet me,--rather thus

that you shun me? Could I have foreseen this when we two orphans stood

by the mournful bridge,--so friendless, so desolate, and so clinging each

to each? Happy time!" He seized her hand suddenly as he spoke the last

words, and bowed his face over it.

"I must not hear you. Do not talk so, Leonard, you break my heart. Let

me go, let me go!"

"Is it that I am grown hateful to you; is it merely that you see my love

and would discourage it? Helen, speak to me,--speak!"

He drew her with tender force towards him; and, holding her firmly by

both hands, sought to gaze upon the face that she turned from him,--

turned in such despair.

"You do not know," she said at last, struggling for composure,--"you do

not know the new claims on me, my altered position, how I am bound, or

you would be the last to speak thus to me, the first to give me courage,

and bid me--bid me--"

"Bid you what?"

"Feel nothing here but duty!" cried Helen, drawing from his clasp both

her hands, and placing them firmly on her breast.

"Miss Digby," said Leonard, after a short pause of bitter reflection, in

which he wronged, while he thought to divine, her meaning, "you speak of

new claims on you, your altered position--I comprehend. You may retain

some tender remembrance of the past; but your duty now is to rebuke my

presumption. It is as I thought and feared. This vain reputation which

I have made is but a hollow sound,--it gives me no rank, assures me no

fortune. I have no right to look for the Helen of old in the Helen of

to-day. Be it so--forget what I have said, and forgive me."

This reproach stung to the quick the heart to which it appealed. A flash

brightened the meek, tearful eyes, almost like the flash of resentment;

her lips writhed in torture, and she felt as if all other pain were light

compared with the anguish that Leonard could impute to her motives which

to her simple nature seemed so unworthy of her, and so galling to

himself.

A word rushed as by inspiration to her lip, and that word calmed and

soothed her.

"Brother!" she said touchingly, "brother!"

The word had a contrary effect on Leonard. Sweet as it was, tender as

the voice that spoke it, it imposed a boundary to affection, it came as

a knell to hope. He recoiled, shook his head mournfully: "Too late to

accept that tie,--too late even for friendship. Henceforth--for long

years to come--henceforth, till this heart has ceased to beat at your

name to thrill at your presence, we two--are strangers."

"Strangers! Well--yes, it is right--it must be so; we must not meet.

Oh, Leonard Fairfield, who was it that in those days that you recall to

me, who was it that found you destitute and obscure; who, not degrading

you by charity, placed you in your right career; opened to you, amidst

the labyrinth in which you were well-nigh lost, the broad road to

knowledge, independence, fame? Answer me,--answer! Was it not the same

who reared, sheltered your sister orphan? If I could forget what I have

owed to him, should I not remember what he has done for you? Can I hear

of your distinction, and not remember it? Can I think how proud she may

be who will one day lean on your arm, and bear the name you have already

raised beyond all the titles of an hour,--can I think of this, and not

remember our common friend, benefactor, guardian? Would you forgive me,

if I failed to do so?"

"But," faltered Leonard, fear mingling with the conjectures these words

called forth--"but is it that Lord L'Estrange would not consent to our

union? Or of what do you speak? You bewilder me."

Helen felt for some moments as if it were impossible to reply; and the

words at length were dragged forth as if from the depth of her very soul.

"He came to me, our noble friend. I never dreamed of it. He did not

tell me that he loved me. He told me that he was unhappy, alone; that in

me, and only in me, he could find a comforter, a soother--He, he! And I

had just arrived in England, was under his mother's roof, had not then

once more seen you; and--and--what could I answer? Strengthen me,

strengthen me, you whom I look up to and revere. Yes, yes, you are

right. We must see each other no more. I am betrothed to another,--to

him! Strengthen me!"

All the inherent nobleness of the poet's nature rose at once at this

appeal.

"Oh, Helen--sister--Miss Digby, forgive me. You need no strength from

me; I borrow it from you. I comprehend you, I respect. Banish all

thought of me. Repay our common benefactor. Be what he asks of you,--

his comforter, his soother; be more,--his pride and his joy. Happiness

will come to you, as it comes to those who confer happiness and forget

self. God comfort you in the passing struggle; God bless you, in the

long years to come. Sister, I accept the holy name now, and will claim

it hereafter, when I too can think more of others than myself."

Helen had covered her face with her hands, sobbing; but with that soft,

womanly constraint which presses woe back into the heart. A strange

sense of utter solitude suddenly pervaded her whole being, and by that

sense of solitude she knew that he was gone.

CHAPTER XIV.

In another room in that same house sat, solitary as Helen, a stern,

gloomy, brooding man, in whom they who had best known him from his

childhood could scarcely have recognized a trace of the humane,

benignant, trustful, but wayward and varying Harley, Lord L'Estrange.

He had read that fragment of a memoir, in which, out of all the chasms of

his barren and melancholy past, there rose two malignant truths that

seemed literally to glare upon him with mocking and demon eyes. The

woman whose remembrance had darkened all the sunshine of his life had

loved another; the friend in whom he had confided his whole affectionate

loyal soul had been his perfidious rival. He had read from the first

word to the last, as if under a spell that held him breathless; and when

he closed the manuscript, it was without a groan or sigh; but over his

pale lips there passed that withering smile, which is as sure an index of

a heart overcharged with dire and fearful passions, as the arrowy flash

of the lightning is of the tempests that are gathered within the cloud.

He then thrust the papers into his bosom, and, keeping his hand over

them, firmly clenched, he left the room, and walked slowly on towards his

father's house. With every step by the way, his nature, in the war of

its elements, seemed to change and harden into forms of granite. Love,

humanity, trust, vanished away. Hate, revenge, misanthropy, suspicion,

and scorn of all that could wear the eyes of affection, or speak with the

voice of honour, came fast through the gloom of his thoughts, settling

down in the wilderness, grim and menacing as the harpies of ancient

song--

"Uncaeque manus, et pallida semper Ora."

"Hands armed with fangs, and lips forever pale."

Thus the gloomy man had crossed the threshold of his father's house, and

silently entered the apartments still set apart for him. He had arrived

about an hour before Leonard; and as he stood by the hearth, with his

arms folded on his breast, and his eyes fixed lead-like on the ground,

his mother came in to welcome and embrace him. He checked her eager

inquiries after Violante, he recoiled from the touch of her hand.

"Hold, madam," said he, startling her ear with the cold austerity of his

tone. "I cannot heed your questions,--I am filled with the question I

must put to yourself. You opposed my boyish love for Leonora Avenel.

I do not blame you,--all mothers of equal rank would have done the same.

Yet, had you not frustrated all frank intercourse with her, I might have

taken refusal from her own lips,--survived that grief, and now been a

happy man. Years since then have rolled away,--rolled over her quiet

slumbers, and my restless waking life. All this time were you aware that

Audley Egerton had been the lover of Leonora Avenel?"

"Harley, Harley! do not speak to me in that cruel voice, do not look at

me with those hard eyes!"

"You knew it, then,--you, my mother!" continued Harley, unmoved by her

rebuke; "and why did you never say, 'Son, you are wasting the bloom and

uses of your life in sorrowful fidelity to a lie! You are lavishing

trust and friendship on a perfidious hypocrite.'"

"How could I speak to you thus; how could I dare to do so, seeing you

still so cherished the memory of that unhappy girl, still believed that

she had returned your affection? Had I said to you what I knew (but not

till after her death), as to her relations with Audley Egerton--"

"Well? You falter; go on; had you done so?"

"Would you have felt no desire for revenge? Might there not have been

strife between you, danger, bloodshed? Harley, Harley! Is not such

silence pardonable in a mother? And why deprive you too of the only

friend you seemed to prize; who alone had some influence over you; who

concurred with me in the prayer and hope, that some day you would find a

living partner worthy to replace this lost delusion, arouse your

faculties,--be the ornament your youth promised to your country?

For you wrong Audley,--indeed you do!"

"Wrong him! Ah, let me not do that. Proceed."

"I do not excuse him his rivalship, nor his first concealment of it. But

believe me, since then, his genuine remorse, his anxious tenderness for

your welfare, his dread of losing your friendship--"

"Stop! It was doubtless Audley Egerton who induced you yourself to

conceal what you call his 'relations' with her whom I can now so calmly

name,--Leonora Avenel?"

"It was so, in truth; and from motives that--"

"Enough! let me hear no more."

"But you will not think too sternly of what is past? You are about to

form new ties. You cannot be wild and wicked enough to meditate what

your brow seems to threaten. You cannot dream of revenge,--risk Audley's

life or your own?"

"Tut, tut, tut! What cause here for duels? Single combats are out of

date; civilized men do not slay each other with sword and pistol. Tut!

revenge! Does it look like revenge, that one object which brings me

hither is to request my father's permission to charge myself with the

care of Audley Egerton's election? What he values most in the world is

his political position; and here his political existence is at stake.

You know that I have had through life the character of a weak, easy,

somewhat over-generous man. Such men are not revengeful. Hold! You lay

your hand on my arm,--I know the magic of that light touch, Mother; but

its power over me is gone. Countess of Lansmere, hear me! Ever from

infancy (save in that frantic passion for which I now despise myself),

I have obeyed you, I trust, as a duteous son. Now, our relative

positions are somewhat altered. I have the right to exact--I will not

say to command--the right which wrong and injury bestow upon all men.

Madam, the injured man has prerogatives that rival those of kings. I now

call upon you to question me no more; not again to breathe the name of

Leonora Avenel, unless I invite the subject; and not to inform Audley

Egerton by a hint, by a breath, that I have discovered--what shall I call

it?--his 'pardonable deceit.' Promise me this, by your affection as

mother, and on your faith as gentlewoman; or I declare solemnly, that

never in life will you look upon my face again."

Haughty and imperious though the countess was, her spirit quailed before

Harley's brow and voice.

"Is this my son,--this my gentle Harley?" she said falteringly. "Oh, put

your arms round my neck; let me feel that I have not lost my child!"

Harley looked softened, but he did not obey the pathetic prayer;

nevertheless, he held out his hand, and turning away his face, said, in a

milder voice, "Have I your promise?"

"You have, you have; but on condition that there pass no words between

you and Audley that can end but in the strife which--"

"Strife!" interrupted Harley. "I repeat that the idea of challenge and

duel between me and my friend from our school days, and on a quarrel that

we could explain to no seconds, would be a burlesque upon all that is

grave in the realities of life and feeling. I accept your promise and

seal it thus--"

He pressed his lips to his mother's forehead, and passively received her

embrace.

"Hush," he said, withdrawing from her arms, "I hear my father's voice."

Lord Lansmere threw open the door widely, and with a certain

consciousness that a door by which an Earl of Lansmere entered ought to

be thrown open widely. It could not have been opened with more majesty

if a huissier or officer of the Household had stood on either side. The

countess passed by her lord with a light step, and escaped.

"I was occupied with my architect in designs for the new infirmary, of

which I shall make a present to our county. I have only just heard that

you were here, Harley. What is all this about our fair Italian guest?

Is she not coming back to us? Your mother refers me to you for

explanations."

"You shall have them later, my dear father; at present I can think only

of public affairs."

"Public affairs! they are indeed alarming. I am rejoiced to hear you

express yourself so worthily. An awful crisis, Harley! And, gracious

Heaven! I have heard that a low man, who was born in Lansmere, but made

a fortune in America, is about to contest the borough. They tell me he

is one of the Avenels,--a born Blue; is it possible?"

"I have come here on that business. As a peer you cannot, of course,

interfere; but I propose, with your leave, to go down myself to Lansmere,

and undertake the superintendence of, the election. It would be better,

perhaps, if you were not present; it would give us more liberty of

action."

"My dear Harley, shake hands; anything you please. You know how I have

wished to see you come forward, and take that part in life which becomes

your birth."

"Ah, you think I have sadly wasted my existence hitherto."

"To be frank with you, yes, Harley," said the earl, with a pride that was

noble in its nature, and not without dignity in its expression. "The

more we take from our country, the more we owe to her. From the moment

you came into the world as the inheritor of lands and honours, you were

charged with a trust for the benefit of others, that it degrades one of

our order of gentleman not to discharge."

Harley listened with a sombre brow, and made no direct reply.

"Indeed," resumed the earl, "I would rather you were about to canvass for

yourself than for your friend Egerton. But I grant he is an example that

it is never too late to follow. Why, who that had seen you both as

youths, notwithstanding Audley had the advantage of being some years your

senior--who could have thought that he was the one to become

distinguished and eminent, and you to degenerate into the luxurious

idler, averse to all trouble and careless of all fame? You, with such

advantages, not only of higher fortunes, but, as every one said, of

superior talents; you, who had then so much ambition, so keen a desire

for glory, sleeping with Plutarch's Lives under your pillow, and only, my

wild son, only too much energy. But you are a young man still; it is not

too late to redeem the years you have thrown away."

"The years are nothing,--mere dates in an almanac; but the feelings, what

can give me back those?--the hope, the enthusiasm, the--No matter!

feelings do not, help men to rise in the world. Egerton's feelings are

not too lively. What I might have been, leave it to me to remember; let

us talk of the example you set before me,--of Audley Egerton."

"We must get him in," said the earl, sinking his voice into a whisper.

"It is of more importance to him than I even thought for. But you know

his secrets. Why did you not confide to me frankly the state of his

affairs?"

"His affairs? Do you mean that they are seriously embarrassed? This

interests me much. Pray speak; what do you know?"

"He has discharged the greater part of his establishment. That in itself

is natural on quitting office; but still it set people talking; and it

has got wind that his estates are not only mortgaged for more than they

are worth, but that he has been living upon the discount of bills; in

short, he has been too intimate with a man whom we all know by sight,--

a man who drives the finest horses in London, and they tell me (but that

I cannot believe) lives in the familiar society of the young puppies he

snares to perdition. What's the man's name? Levy, is it not?--yes,

Levy."

"I have seen Levy with him," said Harley; and a sinister joy lighted up

his falcon eyes. "Levy--Levy--it is well."

"I hear but the gossip of the clubs," resumed the earl; but they do say

that Levy makes little disguise of his power over our very distinguished

friend, and rather parades it as a merit with our party (and, indeed,

with all men--for Egerton has personal friends in every party) that he

keeps sundry bills locked up in his desk until Egerton is once more safe

in parliament. Nevertheless if, after all, our friend were to lose his

election, and Levy were then to seize on his effects, and proclaim his

ruin, it would seriously damage, perhaps altogether destroy, Audley's

political career."

"So I conclude," said Harley. "A Charles Fox might be a gamester, and a

William Pitt be a pauper. But Audley Egerton is not of their giant

stature; he stands so high because he stands upon heaps of respectable

gold. Audley Egerton, needy and impoverished, out of parliament, and, as

the vulgar slang has it, out at elbows, skulking from duns, perhaps in

the Bench--"

"No, no; our party would never allow that; we would subscribe--"

"Worse than all, living as the pensioner of the party he aspired to lead!

You say truly, his political prospects would be blasted. A man whose

reputation lay in his outward respectability! Why, people would say that

Audley Egerton has been--a solemn lie; eh, my father?"

"How can you talk with such coolness of your friend? You need say

nothing to interest me in his election--if you mean that. Once in

parliament, he must soon again be in office,--and learn to live on his

salary. You must get him to submit to me the schedule of his

liabilities. I have a head for business, as you know. I will arrange

his affairs for him. And I will yet bet five to one, though I hate

wagers, that he will be prime minister in three years. He is not

brilliant, it is true; but just at this crisis we want a safe, moderate,

judicious, conciliatory man; and Audley has so much tact, such experience

of the House, such knowledge of the world, and," added the earl,

emphatically summing up his eulogies, "he is so thorough a gentleman!"

"A thorough gentleman, as you say,--the soul of honour! But, my dear

father, it is your hour for riding; let me not detain you. It is

settled, then; you do not come yourself to Lansmere. You put the house

at my disposal, and allow me to invite Egerton, of course, and what other

guests I may please; in short, you leave all to me?"

"Certainly; and if you cannot get in your friend, who can? That borough,

it is an awkward, ungrateful place, and has been the plague of my life.

So much as I have spent there, too,--so much as I have done to its trade!

"And the earl, with an indignant sigh, left the room.

Harley seated himself deliberately at his writing-table, leaning his face

on his hand, and looking abstractedly into space from under knit and

lowering brows.

Harley L'Estrange was, as we have seen, a man singularly tenacious of

affections and impressions. He was a man, too, whose nature was

eminently bold, loyal, and candid; even the apparent whim and levity

which misled the world, both as to his dispositions and his powers, might

be half ascribed to that open temper which, in its over-contempt for all

that seemed to savour of hypocrisy, sported with forms and ceremonials,

and extracted humour, sometimes extravagant, sometimes profound, from

"the solemn plausibilities of the world." The shock he had now received

smote the very foundations of his mind, and, overthrowing all the airier

structures which fancy and wit had built upon its surface, left it clear

as a new world for the operations of the darker and more fearful

passions. When a man of a heart so loving and a nature so irregularly

powerful as Harley's suddenly and abruptly discovers deceit where he had

most confided, it is not (as with the calmer pupils of that harsh

teacher, Experience) the mere withdrawal of esteem and affection from the

one offender; it is, that trust in everything seems gone; it is, that the

injured spirit looks back to the Past, and condemns all its kindlier

virtues as follies that conduced to its own woe; and looks on to the

Future as to a journey beset with smiling traitors, whom it must meet

with an equal simulation, or crush with a superior force. The guilt of

treason to men like these is incalculable,--it robs the world of all the

benefits they would otherwise have lavished as they passed; it is

responsible for all the ill that springs from the corruption of natures

whose very luxuriance, when the atmosphere is once tainted, does but

diffuse disease,--even as the malaria settles not over thin and barren

soils, not over wastes that have been from all time desolate, but over

the places in which southern suns had once ripened delightful gardens,

or the sites of cities, in which the pomp of palaces has passed away.

It was not enough that the friend of his youth, the confidant of his

love, had betrayed his trust,--been the secret and successful rival; not

enough that the woman his boyhood had madly idolized, and all the while

be had sought her traces with pining, remorseful heart-believing she but

eluded his suit from the emulation of a kindred generosity, desiring

rather to sacrifice her own love than to cost to his the sacrifice of all

which youth rashly scorns and the world so highly estimates,--not enough

that all this while her refuge had been the bosom of another. This was

not enough of injury. His whole life had been wasted on a delusion; his

faculties and aims, the wholesome ambition of lofty minds, had been

arrested at the very onset of fair existence; his heart corroded by a

regret for which there was no cause; his conscience charged with the

terror that his wild chase had urged a too tender victim to the grave,

over which he had mourned. What years that might otherwise have been to

himself so serene, to the world so useful, had been consumed in

objectless, barren, melancholy dreams! And all this while to whom had

his complaints been uttered?--to the man who knew that his remorse was

an idle spectre and his faithful sorrow a mocking self-deceit. Every

thought that could gall man's natural pride, every remembrance that could

sting into revenge a heart that had loved too deeply not to be accessible

to hate, conspired to goad those maddening Furies who come into every

temple which is once desecrated by the presence of the evil passions.

In that sullen silence of the soul, vengeance took the form of justice.

Changed though his feelings towards Leonora Avenel were, the story of her

grief and her wrongs embittered still more his wrath against his rival.

The fragments of her memoir left naturally on Harley's mind the

conviction that she had been the victim of an infamous fraud, the dupe of

a false marriage. His idol had not only been stolen from the altar,--it

had been sullied by the sacrifice; broken with remorseless hand, and

thrust into dishonoured clay; mutilated, defamed; its very memory a thing

of contempt to him who had ravished it from worship. The living Harley

and the dead Nora--both called aloud to their joint despoiler, "Restore

what thou hast taken from us, or pay the forfeit!"

Thus, then, during the interview between Helen and Leonard, thus Harley

L'Estrange sat alone! and as a rude irregular lump of steel, when wheeled

round into rapid motion, assumes the form of the circle it describes, so

his iron purpose, hurried on by his relentless passion, filled the space

into which he gazed with optical delusions, scheme after scheme revolving

and consummating the circles that clasped a foe.

CHAPTER XV.

The entrance of a servant, announcing a name which Harley, in the

absorption of his gloomy revery, did not hear, was followed by that of a

person on whom he lifted his eyes in the cold and haughty surprise with

which a man much occupied greets and rebukes the intrusion of an

unwelcome stranger.

"It is so long since your Lordship has seen me," said the visitor, with

mild dignity, "that I cannot wonder you do not recognize my person, and

have forgotten my name."

"Sir," answered Harley, with an impatient rudeness, ill in harmony with

the urbanity for which he was usually distinguished,--"sir, your person

is strange to me, and your name I did not hear; but, at all events, I am

not now at leisure to attend to you. Excuse my plainness."

"Yet pardon me if I still linger. My name is Dale. I was formerly

curate at Lansmere; and I would speak to your Lordship in the name and

the memory of one once dear to you,--Leonora Avenel."

HARLEY (after a short pause).--"Sir, I cannot conjecture your business.

But be seated. I remember you now, though years have altered both, and

I have since heard much in your favour from Leonard Fairfield. Still let

me pray, that you will be brief."

MR. DALE.---"May I assume at once that you have divined the parentage of

the young man you call Fairfield? When I listened to his grateful

praises of your beneficence, and marked with melancholy pleasure the

reverence in which he holds you, my heart swelled within me. I

acknowledged the mysterious force of nature."

HARLEY.---"Force of nature! You talk in riddles."

MR. DALE (indignantly).--"Oh, my Lord, how can you so disguise your

better self? Surely in Leonard Fairfield you have long since recognized

the son of Nora Avenel?"

Harley passed his hand over his face. "Ah," thought he, "she lived to

bear a son then,--a son to Egerton! Leonard is that son. I should have

known it by the likeness, by the fond foolish impulse that moved me to

him. This is why he confided to me these fearful memoirs. He seeks his

father,--he shall find him."

MR. DALE (mistaking the cause of Harley's silence).--"I honour your

compunction, my Lord. Oh, let your heart and your conscience continue to

speak to your worldly pride."

HARLEY.--"My compunction, heart, conscience! Mr. Dale, you insult me!"

MR. DALE (sternly).---"Not so; I am fulfilling my mission, which bids me

rebuke the sinner. Leonora Avenel speaks in me, and commands the guilty

father to acknowledge the innocent child!"

Harley half rose, and his eyes literally flashed fire; but he calmed his

anger into irony. "Ha!" said he, with a sarcastic smile, "so you suppose

that I was the perfidious seducer of Nora Avenel,--that I am the callous

father of the child who came into the world without a name. Very well,

sir, taking these assumptions for granted, what is it you demand from me

on behalf of this young man?"

"I ask from you his happiness," replied Mr. Dale, imploringly; and

yielding to the compassion with which Leonard inspired him, and persuaded

that Lord L'Estrange felt a father's love for the boy whom he had saved

from the whirlpool of London, and guided to safety and honourable

independence, he here, with simple eloquence, narrated all Leonard's

feelings for Helen,--his silent fidelity to her image, though a child's,

his love when he again beheld her as a woman, the modest fears which the

parson himself had combated, the recommendation that Mr. Dale had forced

upon him, to confess his affection to Helen, and plead his cause.

"Anxious, as you may believe, for his success," continued the parson,

"I waited without your gates till he came from Miss Digby's presence.

And oh, my Lord, had you but seen his face!--such emotion and such

despair! I could not learn from him what had passed. He escaped from me

and rushed away. All that I could gather was from a few broken words,

and from those words I formed the conjecture (it may be erroneous) that

the obstacle to his happiness was not in Helen's heart, my Lord, but

seemed to me as if it were in yourself. Therefore, when he had vanished

from my sight, I took courage, and came at, once to you. If he be your

son, and Helen Digby be your ward,--she herself an orphan, dependent on

your bounty,--why should they be severed? Equals in years, united by

early circumstance, congenial, it seems, in simple habits and refined

tastes,--what should hinder their union, unless it be the want of

fortune? And all men know your wealth, none ever questioned your

generosity. My Lord, my Lord, your look freezes me. If I have offended,

do not visit my offence on him,--on Leonard!"

"And so," said Harley, still controlling his rage, "so this boy--whom, as

you say, I saved from that pitiless world which has engulfed many a

nobler genius--so, in return for all, he has sought to rob me of the last

affection, poor and lukewarm though it was, that remained to me in life?

He presume to lift his eyes to my affianced bride! He! And for aught I

know, steal from me her living heart, and leave to me her icy hand!"

"Oh, my Lord, your affianced bride! I never dreamed of this. I implore

your pardon. The very thought is so terrible, so unnatural! the son to

woo the father's! Oh, what sin have I fallen into! The sin was mine,--I

urged and persuaded him to it. He was ignorant as myself. Forgive him,

forgive him!"

"Mr. Dale," said Harley, rising, and extending his hand, which the poor

parson felt himself--unworthy to take,--"Mr. Dale, you are a good man,--

if, indeed, this universe of liars contains some man who does not cheat

our judgment when we deem him honest. Allow me only to ask why you

consider Leonard Fairfield to be my son."

"Was not your youthful admiration for poor Nora evident to me? Remember

I was a frequent guest at Lansmere Park; and it was so natural that you,

with all your brilliant gifts, should captivate her refined fancy, her

affectionate heart."

"Natural--you think so,--go on."

"Your mother, as became her, separated you. It was not unknown to me

that you still cherished a passion which your rank forbade to be lawful.

Poor girl! she left the roof of her protectress, Lady Jane. Nothing was

known of her till she came to her father's house to give birth to a

child, and die. And the same day that dawned on her corpse, you hurried

from the place. Ah, no doubt your conscience smote you; you have never

returned to Lansmere since."

Harley's breast heaved, he waved his hand; the parson resumed,

"Whom could I suspect but you? I made inquiries: they confirmed my

suspicions."

"Perhaps you inquired of my friend, Mr. Egerton? He was with me when--

when--as you say, I hurried from the place."

"I did, my Lord." "And he?"

"Denied your guilt; but still, a man of honour so nice, of heart so

feeling, could not feign readily. His denial did not deceive me."

"Honest man!" said Harley; and his hand griped at the breast over which

still rustled, as if with a ghostly sigh, the records of the dead. "He

knew she had left a son, too?"

"He did, my Lord; of course, I told him that."

"The son whom I found starving in the streets of London! Mr. Dale, as

you see, your words move me very much. I cannot deny that he who

wronged, it may be with no common treachery, that young mother--for Nora

Avenel was not one to be lightly seduced into error--"

"Indeed, no!"

"And who then thought no more of the offspring of her anguish and his own

crime--I cannot deny that that man deserves some chastisement,--should

render some atonement. Am I not right here? Answer with the plain

speech which becomes your sacred calling."

"I cannot say otherwise, my Lord," replied the parson, pitying what

appeared to him such remorse. "But if he repent--"

"Enough," interrupted Harley. "I now invite you to visit me at Lansmere;

give me your address, and I will apprise you of the day on which I will

request your presence. Leonard Fairfield shall find a father--I was

about to say, worthy of himself. For the rest--stay; reseat yourself.

For the rest"--and again the sinister smile broke from Harley's eye and

lip--"I will not yet say whether I can, or ought to, resign to a younger

and fairer suitor the lady who has accepted my own hand. I have no

reason yet to believe that she prefers him. But what think you,

meanwhile, of this proposal? Mr. Avenel wishes his nephew to contest the

borough of Lansmere, has urged me to obtain the young man's consent.

True, that he may thus endanger the seat of Mr. Audley Egerton. What

then? Mr. Audley Egerton is a great man, and may find another seat; that

should not stand in the way. Let Leonard obey his uncle. If he win the

election, why, he 'll be a more equal match, in the world's eye, for Miss

Digby, that is, should she prefer him to myself; and if she do not,

still, in public life, there is a cure for all private sorrow. That is a

maxim of Mr. Audley Egerton's; and he, you know, is a man not only of the

nicest honour, but the deepest worldly wisdom. Do you like my

proposition?"

"It seems to me most considerate, most generous."

"Then you shall take to Leonard the lines I am about to write."

LORD L'ESTRANGE TO LEONARD FAIRFIELD.

I have read the memoir you intrusted to me. I will follow up all

the clews that it gives me. Meanwhile I request you to suspend all

questions; forbear all reference to a subject which, as you may well

conjecture, is fraught with painful recollections to myself. At

this moment, too, I am compelled to concentre my thoughts upon

affairs of a public nature, and yet which may sensibly affect

yourself. There are reasons why I urge you to comply with your

uncle's wish, and stand for the borough of Lansmere at the

approaching election. If the exquisite gratitude of your nature so

overrates what I may have done for you that you think you owe me

some obligations, you will richly repay them on the day in which I

bear you hailed as member for Lansmere. Relying on that generous

principle of self-sacrifice, which actuates all your conduct,

I shall count upon your surrendering your preference to private

life, and entering the arena of that noble ambition which has

conferred such dignity on the name of my friend Audley Egerton. He,

it is true, will be your opponent; but he is too generous not to

pardon my zeal for the interests of a youth whose career I am vain

enough to think that I have aided. And as Mr. Randal Leslie stands

in coalition with Egerton, and Mr. Avenel believes that two

candidates of the same party cannot both succeed, the result may be

to the satisfaction of all the feelings which I entertain for Audley

Egerton, and for you, who, I have reason to think, will emulate his

titles to my esteem.

Yours, L'ESTRANGE.

"There, Mr. Dale," said Harley, sealing his letter, and giving it into

the parson's hands,--"there, you shall deliver this note to your friend.

But no; upon second thoughts, since he does not yet know of your visit to

me, it is best that he should be still in ignorance of it. For should

Miss Digby resolve to abide by her present engagements, it were surely

kind to save Leonard the pain of learning that you had communicated to me

that rivalry he himself had concealed. Let all that has passed between

us be kept in strict confidence."

"I will obey you, my Lord," answered the parson, meekly, startled to

find that he who had come to arrogate authority was now submitting to

commands; and all at fault what judgment he could venture to pass upon

the man whom he had regarded as a criminal, who had not even denied the

crime imputed to him, yet who now impressed the accusing priest with

something of that respect which Mr. Dale had never before conceded but to

Virtue. Could he have then but looked into the dark and stormy heart,

which he twice misread!

"It is well,--very well," muttered Harley, when the door had closed upon

the parson. "The viper and the viper's brood! So it was this man's son

that I led from the dire Slough of Despond; and the son unconsciously

imitates the father's gratitude and honour--Ha, ha!" Suddenly the bitter

laugh was arrested; a flash of almost celestial joy darted through the

warring elements of storm and darkness. If Helen returned Leonard's

affection, Harley L'Estrange was free! And through that flash the face

of Violante shone upon him as an angel's. But the heavenly light and the

angel face vanished abruptly, swallowed up in the black abyss of the rent

and tortured soul.

"Fool!" said the unhappy man, aloud, in his anguish--"fool! what then?

Were I free, would it be to trust my fate again to falsehood? If, in all

the bloom and glory of my youth, I failed to win the heart of a village

girl; if, once more deluding myself, it is in vain that I have tended,

reared, cherished, some germ of woman's human affection in the orphan I

saved from penury,--how look for love in the brilliant princess, whom all

the sleek Lotharios of our gaudy world will surround with their homage

when once she alights on their sphere! If perfidy be my fate--what hell

of hells, in the thought!--that a wife might lay her head in my bosom,

and--oh, horror! horror! No! I would not accept her hand were it

offered, nor believe in her love were it pledged to me. Stern soul of

mine, wise at last, love never more,--never more believe in truth!"

CHAPTER XVI.

As Harley quitted the room, Helen's pale sweet face looked forth from a

door in the same corridor. She advanced towards him timidly.

"May I speak with you?" she said, in almost inaudible accents; "I have

been listening for your footstep."

Harley looked at her steadfastly. Then, without a word, he followed her

into the room she had left, and closed the door.

"I, too," said he, "meant to seek an interview with yourself--but later.

You would speak to me, Helen,--say on. Ah, child, what mean you? Why

this?"--for Helen was kneeling at his feet.

"Let me kneel," she said, resisting the hand that sought to raise her.

"Let me kneel till I have explained all, and perhaps won your pardon.

You said something the other evening. It has weighed on my heart and my

conscience ever since. You said 'that I should have no secret from you;

for that, in our relation to each other, would be deceit.' I have had a

secret; but oh, believe me! it was long ere it was clearly visible to

myself. You honoured me with a suit so far beyond my birth, my merits.

You said that I might console and comfort you. At those words, what

answer could I give,--I, who owe you so much more than a daughter's duty?

And I thought that my affections were free,--that they would obey that

duty. But--but--but--" continued Helen, bowing her head still lowlier,

and in a voice far fainter--"I deceived myself. I again saw him who had

been all in the world to me, when the world was so terrible, and then--

and then--I trembled. I was terrified at my own memories, my own

thoughts. Still I struggled to banish the past, resolutely, firmly.

Oh, you believe me, do you not? And I hoped to conquer. Yet ever since

those words of yours, I felt that I ought to tell you even of the

struggle. This is the first time we have met since you spoke them. And

now--now--I have seen him again, and--and--though not by a word could she

you had deigned to woo as your bride encourage hope in another; though

there--there where you now stand--he bade me farewell, and we parted as

if forever,--yet--yet O Lord L'Estrange! in return for your rank, wealth,

your still nobler gifts of nature, what should I bring?--Something more

than gratitude, esteem; reverence,--at least an undivided heart, filled

with your image, and yours alone. And this I cannot give. Pardon me,--

not for what I say now, but for not saying it before. Pardon me, O my

benefactor, pardon me!"

"Rise, Helen," said Harley, with relaxing brow, though still unwilling to

yield to one softer and holier emotion. "Rise!" And he lifted her up,

and drew her towards the light. "Let me look at your face. There seems

no guile here. These tears are surely honest. If I cannot be loved, it

is my fate, and not your crime. Now, listen to me. If you grant me

nothing else, will you give me the obedience which the ward owes to the

guardian, the child to the parent?"

"Yes, oh, yes!" murmured Helen.

"Then while I release you from all troth to me, I claim the right to

refuse, if I so please it, my assent to the suit of--of the person you

prefer. I acquit you of deceit, but I reserve to myself the judgment I

shall pass on him. Until I myself sanction that suit, will you promise

not to recall in any way the rejection which, if I understand you

rightly, you have given to it?"

"I promise."

"And if I say to you, 'Helen, this man is not worthy of you '"

"No, no! do not say that,--I could not believe you." Harley frowned,

but resumed calmly, "If, then, I say, 'Ask me not wherefore, but I forbid

you to be the wife of Leonard Fairfield, I what would be your answer?'"

"Ah, my Lord, if you can but comfort him, do with me as you will! but do

not command me to break his heart."

"Oh, silly child," cried Harley, laughing scornfully, "hearts are not

found in the race from which that man sprang. But I take your promise,

with its credulous condition. Helen, I pity you. I have been as weak as

you, bearded man though I be. Some day or other, you and I may live to

laugh at the follies at which you weep now. I can give you no other

comfort, for I know of none."

He moved to the door, and paused at the threshold: "I shall not see you

again for some days, Helen. Perhaps I may request my mother to join me

at Lansmere; if so, I shall pray you to accompany her. For the present,

let all believe that our position is unchanged. The time will soon come

when I may--"

Helen looked up wistfully through her tears.

"I may release you from all duties to me," continued Harley, with grave

and severe coldness; "or I may claim your promise in spite of the

condition; for your lover's heart will not be broken. Adieu!"

CHAPTER XVII.

As Harley entered London, he came suddenly upon Randal Leslie, who was

hurrying from Eaton Square, having not only accompanied Mr. Avenel in his

walk, but gone home with him, and spent half the day in that gentleman's

society. He was now on his way to the House of Commons, at which some

disclosure as to the day for the dissolution of parliament was expected.

"Lord L'Estrange," said Randal, "I must stop you. I have been to

Norwood, and seen our noble friend. He has confided to me, of course,

all that passed. How can I express my gratitude to you! By what rare

talent, with what signal courage, you have saved the happiness--perhaps

even the honour--of my plighted bride!"

"Your bride! The duke, then, still holds to the promise you were

fortunate enough to obtain from Dr. Riccabocca?"

"He confirms that promise more solemnly than ever. You may well be

surprised at his magnanimity."

"No; he is a philosopher,--nothing in him can surprise me. But he seemed

to think, when I saw him, that there were circumstances you might find it

hard to explain."

"Hard! Nothing so easy. Allow me to tender to you the same explanations

which satisfied one whom philosophy itself has made as open to truth as

he is clear-sighted to imposture."

"Another time, Mr. Leslie. If your bride's father be satisfied, what

right have I to doubt? By the way, you stand for Lansmere. Do me the

favour to fix your quarters at the Park during the election. You will,

of course, accompany Mr. Egerton."

"You are most kind," answered Randal, greatly surprised.

"You accept? That is well. We shall then have ample opportunity for

those explanations which you honour me by offering; and, to make your

visit still more agreeable, I may perhaps induce our friends at Norwood

to meet you. Good-day." Harley walked on, leaving Randal motionless in

amaze, but tormented with suspicion. What could such courtesies in Lord

L'Estrange portend? Surely no good.

"I am about to hold the balance of justice," said Harley to himself.

"I will cast the light-weight of that knave into the scale. Violante

never can be mine; but I did not save her from a Peschiera to leave her

to a Randal Leslie. Ha, ha! Audley Egerton has some human feeling,--

tenderness for that youth whom he has selected from the world, in which

he left Nora's child to the jaws of Famine. Through that side I can

reach at his heart, and prove him a fool like myself, where he esteemed

and confided! Good."

Thus soliloquizing, Lord L'Estrange gained the corner of Bruton Street,

when he was again somewhat abruptly accosted.

"My dear Lord L'Estrange, let me shake you by the hand; for Heaven knows

when I may see you again, and you have suffered me to assist in one good

action."

"Frank Hazeldean, I am pleased indeed to meet you. Why do you indulge in

that melancholy doubt as to the time when I may see you again?"

"I have just got leave of absence. I am not well, and I am rather

hipped, so I shall go abroad for a few weeks."

In spite of himself, the sombre, brooding man felt interest and sympathy

in the dejection that was evident in Frank's voice and countenance.

"Another dupe to affection," thought he, as if in apology to himself,--

"of course, a dupe; he is honest and artless--at present." He pressed

kindly on the arm which he had involuntarily twined within his own. "I

conceive how you now grieve, my young friend," said he; "but you will

congratulate yourself hereafter on what this day seems to you an

affliction."

"My dear Lord--"

"I am much older than you, but not old enough for such formal ceremony.

Pray call me L'Estrange."

"Thank you; and I should indeed like to speak to you as a friend. There

is a thought on my mind which haunts me. I dare say it is foolish

enough, but I am sure you will not laugh at me. You heard what Madame di

Negra said to me last night. I have been trifled with and misled, but I

cannot forget so soon how dear to me that woman was. I am not going to

bore you with such nonsense; but from what I can understand, her brother

is likely to lose all his fortune; and, even if not, he is a sad

scoundrel. I cannot bear the thought that she should be so dependent on

him, that she may come to want. After all, there must be good in her,--

good in her to refuse my hand if she did not love me. A mercenary woman

so circumstanced would not have done that."

"You are quite right. But do not torment yourself with such generous

fears. Madame di Negra shall not come to want, shall not be dependent on

her infamous brother. The first act of the Duke of Serrano, on regaining

his estates, will be a suitable provision for his kinswoman. I will

answer for this."

"You take a load off my mind. I did mean to ask you to intercede with

Riccabocca,--that is, the duke (it is so hard to think he can be a

duke!)--I, alas! have nothing in my power to bestow upon Madame di

Negra. I may, indeed, sell my commission; but then I have a debt which I

long to pay off, and the sale of the commission would not suffice even

for that; and perhaps my father might be still more angry if I do sell

it. Well, good-by. I shall now go away happy,--that is, comparatively.

One must bear things like--a man!"

"I should like, however, to see you again before you go abroad. I will

call on you. Meanwhile, can you tell me the number of one Baron Levy?

He lives in this street, I know."

"Levy! Oh, have no dealings with him, I advise, I entreat you! He is

the most plausible, dangerous rascal; and, for Heaven's sake! pray be

warned by me, and let nothing entangle you into--a POST-OBIT!"

"Be re-assured, I am more accustomed to lend money than borrow it; and as

to a post-obit, I have a foolish prejudice against such transactions."

"Don't call it foolish, L'Estrange; I honour you for it. How I wish I

had known you earlier--so few men of the world are like you. Even Randal

Leslie, who is so faultless in most things, and never gets into a scrape

himself, called my own scruples foolish. However--"

"Stay--Randal Leslie! What! He advised you to borrow on a post-obit,

and probably shared the loan with you?"

"Oh, no; not a shilling."

"Tell me all about it, Frank. Perhaps, as I see that Levy is mixed up in

the affair, your information may be useful to myself, and put me on my

guard in dealing with that popular gentleman."

Frank, who somehow or other felt himself quite at home with Harley, and

who, with all his respect for Randal Leslie's talents, had a vague notion

that Lord L'Estrange was quite as clever, and, from his years and

experience, likely to be a safer and more judicious counsellor, was

noways loath to impart the confidence thus pressed for.

He told Harley of his debts, his first dealings with Levy, the unhappy

post-obit into which he had been hurried by the distress of Madame di

Negra; his father's anger, his mother's letter, his own feelings of

mingled shame and pride, which made him fear that repentance would but

seem self-interest, his desire to sell his commission, and let its sale

redeem in part the post-obit; in short, he made what is called a clean

breast of it. Randal Leslie was necessarily mixed up with this recital;

and the subtle cross-questionings of Harley extracted far more as to that

young diplomatist's agency in all these melancholy concerns than the

ingenuous narrator himself was aware of.

"So then," said Harley, "Mr. Leslie assured you of Madame di Negra's

affection, when you yourself doubted of it?"

"Yes; she took him in, even more than she did me."

"Simple Mr. Leslie! And the same kind friend?--who is related to you,

did you say?"

"His grandmother was a Hazeldean."

"Humph. The same kind relation led you to believe that you could pay off

this bond with the marchesa's portion, and that he could obtain the

consent of your parents to your marriage with that lady?"

"I ought to have known better; my father's prejudices against foreigners

and Papists are so strong."

"And now Mr. Leslie concurs with you, that it is best for you to go

abroad, and trust to his intercession with your father. He has

evidently, then, gained a great influence over Mr. Hazeldean."

"My father naturally compares me with him,--he so clever, so promising,

so regular in his habits, and I such a reckless scapegrace."

"And the bulk of your father's property is unentailed; Mr. Hazeldean

might disinherit you?"

"I deserve it. I hope he will."

"You have no brothers nor sisters,--no relation, perhaps, after your

parents, nearer to you than your excellent friend Mr. Randal Leslie?"

"No; that is the reason he is so kind to me, otherwise I am the last

person to suit him. You have no idea how well-informed and clever he

is," added Frank, in a tone between admiration and awe.

"My dear Hazeldean, you will take my advice, will you not?"

"Certainly. You are too good."

"Let all your family, Mr. Leslie included, suppose you to be gone abroad;

but stay quietly in England, and within a day's journey of Lansmere Park.

I am obliged to go thither for the approaching election. I may ask you

to come over. I think I see a way to serve you; and if so, you will soon

hear from me. Now, Baron Levy's number?"

"That is the house with the cabriolet at the door. How such a fellow can

have such a horse!--'t is out of all keeping!"

"Not at all; horses are high-spirited, generous, unsuspicious animals.

They never know if it is a rogue who drives them. I have your promise,

then, and you will send me your address?"

"I will. Strange that I feel more confidence in you than I do even in

Randal. Do take care of Levy."

Lord L'Estrange and Frank here shook hands, and Frank, with an anxious

groan, saw L'Estrange disappear within the portals of the sleek

destroyer.

CHAPTER XVII.

Lord L'Estrange followed the spruce servant into Baron Levy's luxurious

study.

The baron looked greatly amazed at his unexpected visitor; but he got up,

handed a chair to my Lord with a low bow. "This is an honour," said he.

"You have a charming abode here," said Lord L'Estrange, looking round.

"Very fine bronzes,--excellent taste. Your reception-rooms above are,

doubtless, a model to all decorators?"

"Would your Lordship condescend to see them?" said Levy, wondering, but

flattered.

"With the greatest pleasure."

"Lights!" cried Levy, to the servant who answered his bell. "Lights in

the drawing-rooms,--it is growing dark." Lord L'Estrange followed the

usurer upstairs; admired everything,--pictures, draperies, Sevres china,

to the very shape of the downy fauteuils, to the very pattern of the

Tournay carpets. Reclining then on one of the voluptuous sofas, Lord

L'Estrange said smilingly, "You are a wise man: there is no advantage in

being rich, unless one enjoys one's riches."

"My own maxim, Lord L'Estrange."

"And it is something, too, to have a taste for good society. Small pride

would you have, my dear baron, in these rooms, luxurious though they are,

if filled with guests of vulgar exterior and plebeian manners. It is

only in the world in which we move that we find persons who harmonize, as

it were, with the porcelain of Sevres, and these sofas that might have

come from Versailles."

"I own," said Levy, "that I have what some may call a weakness in a

/parvenu/ like myself. I have a love for the /beau monde/. It is indeed

a pleasure to me when I receive men like your Lordship."

"But why call yourself a /parvenu/? Though you are contented to honour

the name of Levy, we, in society, all know that you are the son of a

long-descended English peer. Child of love, it is true; but the Graces

smile on those over whose birth Venus presided. Pardon my old-fashioned

mythological similes,--they go so well with these rooms--Louis Quinze."

"Since you have touched on my birth," said Levy, his colour rather

heightening, not with shame, but with pride, "I don't deny that it has

had some effect on my habits and tastes in life. In fact--"

"In fact, own that you would be a miserable man, in spite of all your

wealth, if the young dandies, who throng to your banquets, were to cut

you dead in the streets; if, when your high-stepping horse stopped at

your club, the porter shut the door in your face; if, when you lounged

into the opera-pit, handsome dog that you are, each spendthrift rake in

'Fop's Alley,' who now waits but the scratch of your pen to endorse

/billets doux/ with the charm that can chain to himself for a month some

nymph of the Ballet, spinning round in a whirlwind of tulle, would shrink

from the touch of your condescending forefinger with more dread of its

contact than a bailiff's tap in the thick of Pall Mall could inspire; if,

reduced to the company of city clerks, parasite led-captains--"

"Oh, don't go on, my dear Lord," cried Levy, laughing affectedly.

"Impossible though the picture be, it is really appalling. Cut me off

from May Fair and St. James's, and I should go into my strong closet and

hang myself."

"And yet, my dear baron, all this may happen if I have the whim just to

try; all this will happen, unless, ere I leave your house, you concede

the conditions I come here to impose."

"My Lord!" exclaimed Levy, starting up, and pulling down his waistcoat

with nervous passionate fingers, "if you were not under my own roof, I

would--"

"Truce with mock heroics. Sit down, sir, sit down. I will briefly state

my threat, more briefly my conditions. You will be scarcely more prolix

in your reply. Your fortune I cannot touch, your enjoyment of it I can

destroy. Refuse my conditions, make me your enemy,--and war to the

knife! I will interrogate all the young dupes you have ruined. I will

learn the history of all the transactions by which you have gained the

wealth that it pleases you to spend in courting the society and sharing

the vices of men who--go with these rooms, Louis Quinze. Not a roguery

of yours shall escape me, down even to your last notable connivance with

an Italian reprobate for the criminal abduction of an heiress. All these

particulars I will proclaim in the clubs to which you have gained

admittance, in every club in London which you yet hope to creep into;

all these I will impart to some such authority in the Press as Mr. Henry

Norreys; all these I will, upon the voucher of my own name, have so

published in some journals of repute, that you must either tacitly submit

to the revelations that blast you, or bring before a court of law actions

that will convert accusations into evidence. It is but by sufferance

that you are now in society; you are excluded when one man like me comes

forth to denounce you. You try in vain to sneer at my menace--your white

lips show your terror. I have rarely in life drawn any advantage from my

rank and position; but I am thankful that they give me the power to make

my voice respected and my exposure triumphant. Now, Baron Levy, will you

go into your strong closet and hang yourself, or will you grant me my

very moderate conditions? You are silent. I will relieve you, and state

those conditions. Until the general election, about to take place, is

concluded, you will obey me to the letter in all that I enjoin,--no demur

and no scruple. And the first proof of obedience I demand is, your

candid disclosure of all Mr. Audley Egerton's pecuniary affairs."

"Has my client, Mr. Egerton, authorized you to request of me that

disclosure?"

"On the contrary, all that passes between us you will conceal from your

client."

"You would save him from ruin? Your trusty friend, Mr. Egerton!" said

the baron, with a livid sneer.

"Wrong again, Baron Levy. If I would save him from ruin, you are

scarcely the man I should ask to assist me."

"Ah, I guess. You have learned how he--"

"Guess nothing, but obey in all things. Let us descend to your business

room."

Levy said not a word until he had reconducted his visitor into his den of

destruction, all gleaming with /spoliaria/ in rosewood. Then he said

this: "If, Lord L'Estrange, you seek but revenge on Audley Egerton, you

need not have uttered those threats. I too--hate the man."

Harley looked at him wistfully, and the nobleman felt a pang that he had

debased himself into a single feeling which the usurer could share.

Nevertheless, the interview appeared to close with satisfactory

arrangements, and to produce amicable understanding. For as the baron

ceremoniously followed Lord L'Estrange through the hall, his noble

visitor said, with marked affability,

"Then I shall see you at Lansmere with Mr. Egerton, to assist in

conducting his election. It is a sacrifice of your time worthy of your

friendship; not a step farther, I beg. Baron, I have the honour to wish

you good-evening."

As the street door opened on Lord L'Estrange he again found himself face

to face with Randal Leslie, whose hand was already lifted to the knocker.

"Ha, Mr. Leslie!--you too a client of Baron Levy's,--a very useful,

accommodating man."

Randal stared and stammered. "I come in haste from the House of Commons

on Mr. Egerton's business. Don't you hear the newspaper vendors crying

out 'Great News, Dissolution of Parliament'?"

"We are prepared. Levy himself consents to give us the aid of his

talents. Kindly, obliging, clever person!" Randal hurried into Levy's

study, to which the usurer had shrunk back, and was now wiping his brow

with his scented handkerchief, looking heated and haggard, and very

indifferent to Randal Leslie.

"How is this?" cried Randal. "I come to tell you first of Peschiera's

utter failure, the ridiculous coxcomb, and I meet at your door the last

man I thought to find there,--the man who foiled us all, Lord L'Estrange.

What brought him to you? Ah, perhaps his interest in Egerton's

election?"

"Yes," said Levy, sulkily. "I know all about Peschiera. I cannot talk

to you now; I must make arrangements for going to Lansmere."

"But don't forget my purchase from Thornhill. I shall have the money

shortly from a surer source than Peschiera."

"The squire?"

"Or a rich father-in-law."

In the mean while, as Lord L'Estrange entered Bond Street, his ears were

stunned by vociferous cries from the Stentors employed by "Standard,"

"Sun," and "Globe,"

--"Great News! Dissolution of Parliament--Great News!" The gas-lamps

were lighted; a brown fog was gathering over the streets, blending itself

with the falling shades of night. The forms of men loomed large through

the mist. The lights from the shops looked red and lurid. Loungers

usually careless as to politics were talking eagerly and anxiously of

King, Lords, Commons, "Constitution at stake," "Triumph of liberal

opinions,"--according to their several biases. Hearing, and scorning--

unsocial, isolated--walked on Harley L'Estrange. With his direr passions

had been roused up all the native powers that made them doubly dangerous.

He became proudly conscious of his own great faculties, but exulted in

them only so far as they could minister to the purpose which had invoked

them.

"I have constituted myself a Fate," he said inly; "let the gods be but

neutral, while I weave the meshes. Then, as Fate itself when it has

fulfilled its mission, let me pass away into shadow, with the still and

lonely stride that none may follow,--

"'Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness.'

How weary I am of this world of men!" And again the cry "Great News--

National Crisis--Dissolution of Parliament--Great News!" rang through the

jostling throng. Three men, arm-in-arm, brushed by Harley, and were

stopped at the crossing by a file of carriages. The man in the centre

was Audley Egerton. His companions were an ex-minister like himself, and

one of those great proprietors who are proud of being above office, and

vain of the power to make and unmake Governments.

"You are the only man to lead us, Egerton," said this last personage.

"Do but secure your seat, and as soon as this popular fever has passed

away, you must be something more than the leader of Opposition,--you must

be the first man in England."

"Not a doubt of that," chimed in the fellow ex-minister, a worthy man,

perfect red-tapist, but inaudible in the reporters' gallery. "And your

election is quite safe, eh? All depends on that. You must not be thrown

out at such a time, even for a month or two. I hear that you will have a

contest--some townsmen of the borough, I think. But the Lansmere

interest must be all-powerful; and I suppose L'Estrange will come out and

canvass for you. You are not the man to have lukewarm friends!"

"Don't be alarmed about my election. I am as sure of that as of

L'Estrange's friendship."

Harley heard, with a grim smile, and passing his hand within his vest,

laid it upon Nora's memoir.

"What could we do in parliament without you?" said the great proprietor,

almost piteously.

"Rather what could I do without parliament? Public life is the only

existence I own. Parliament is all in all to me. But we may cross now."

Harley's eye glittered cold as it followed the tall form of the

statesman, towering high above all other passers-by. "Ay," he muttered,

"ay, rest as sure of my friendship as I was of thine! And be Lansmere

our field of Philippi! There where thy first step was made in the only

life that thou own'st as existence, shall the ladder itself rot from

under thy footing. There, where thy softer victim slunk to death from

the deceit of thy love, shall deceit like thine own dig a grave for thy

frigid ambition. I borrow thy quiver of fraud; its still arrows shall

strike thee; and thou too shalt say, when the barb pierces home, 'This

comes from the hand of a friend.' Ay, at Lansmere, at Lansmere, shall

the end crown the whole! Go, and dot on the canvas the lines for a

lengthened perspective, where my eyes note already the vanishing point

of the picture."

Then through the dull fog and under the pale gas-lights Harley L'Estrange

pursued his noiseless way, soon distinguished no more amongst the

various, motley, quick-succeeding groups, with their infinite sub-

divisions of thought, care, and passion; while, loud over all their low

murmurs, or silent hearts, were heard the tramp of horses and din of

wheels, and the vociferous discordant cry that had ceased to attract and

interest in the ears it vexed, "Great News, Great News--Dissolution of

Parliament--Great News!"