In the course of that bleak, frosty January, Mr. Marchmont sent his

mother and his sister Lavinia to make a call at the Grange. The Grange

people had never called upon Mrs. Marchmont; but Paul did not allow any

flimsy ceremonial law to stand in his way when he had a purpose to

achieve. So the ladies went to the Grange, and were politely received;

for Miss Lawford and her mother were a great deal too innocent and

noble-minded to imagine that these pale-faced, delicate-looking women

could have had any part, either directly or indirectly, in that cruel

treatment which had driven Edward's young wife from her home. Mrs.

Marchmont and Mrs. Weston were kindly received, therefore; and in a

little conversation with Belinda about birds, and dahlias, and worsted

work, and the most innocent subjects imaginable, the wily Lavinia

contrived to lead up to Miss Letitia Arundel, and thence, by the

easiest conversational short-cut, to Edward and his lost wife. Mrs.

Weston was obliged to bring her cambric handkerchief out of her muff

when she talked about her cousin Mary; but she was a clever woman, and

she had taken to heart Paul's pet maxim about the folly of

_unnecessary_ lies; and she was so candid as to entirely disarm Miss

Lawford, who had a schoolgirlish notion that every kind of hypocrisy

and falsehood was outwardly visible in a servile and slavish manner.

She was not upon her guard against those practised adepts in the art of

deception, who have learnt to make that subtle admixture of truth and

falsehood which defies detection; like some fabrics in whose woof silk

and cotton are so cunningly blended that only a practised eye can

discover the inferior material.

So when Lavinia dried her eyes and put her handkerchief back in her

muff, and said, betwixt laughing and crying,--

"Now you know, my dear Miss Lawford, you mustn't think that I would for

a moment pretend to be sorry that my brother has come into this

fortune. Of course any such pretence as that would be ridiculous, and

quite useless into the bargain, as it isn't likely anybody would

believe me. Paul is a dear, kind creature, the best of brothers, the

most affectionate of sons, and deserves any good fortune that could

fall to his lot; but I am truly sorry for that poor little girl. I am

truly sorry, believe me, Miss Lawford; and I only regret that Mr.

Weston and I did not come to Kemberling sooner, so that I might have

been a friend to the poor little thing; for then, you know, I might

have prevented that foolish runaway match, out of which almost all the

poor child's troubles arose. Yes, Miss Lawford; I wish I had been able

to befriend that unhappy child, although by my so doing Paul would have

been kept out of the fortune he now enjoys--for some time, at any rate.

I say for some time, because I do not believe that Mary Marchmont would

have lived to be old, under the happiest circumstances. Her mother died

very young; and her father, and her father's father, were consumptive."

Then Mrs. Weston took occasion, incidentally of course, to allude to

her brother's goodness; but even then she was on her guard, and took

care not to say too much.

"The worst actors are those who over-act their parts." That was another

of Paul Marchmont's golden maxims.

"I don't know what my brother may be to the rest of the world," Lavinia

said; "but I know how good he is to those who belong to him. I should

be ashamed to tell you all he has done for Mr. Weston and me. He gave

me this cashmere shawl at the beginning of the winter, and a set of

sables fit for a duchess; though I told him they were not at all the

thing for a village surgeon's wife, who keeps only one servant, and

dusts her own best parlour."

And Mrs. Marchmont talked of her son; with no loud enthusiasm, but with

a tone of quiet conviction that was worth any money to Paul. To have an

innocent person, some one not in the secret, to play a small part in

the comedy of his life, was a desideratum with the artist. His mother

had always been this person, this unconscious performer, instinctively

falling into the action of the play, and shedding real tears, and

smiling actual smiles,--the most useful assistant to a great schemer.

But during the whole of the visit nothing was said as to Paul's conduct

towards his unhappy cousin; nothing was said either to praise or to

exculpate; and when Mrs. Marchmont and her daughter drove away, in one

of the new equipages which Paul had selected for his mother, they left

only a vague impression in Belinda's breast. She didn't quite know what

to think. These people were so frank and candid, they had spoken of

Paul with such real affection, that it was almost impossible to doubt

them. Paul Marchmont might be a bad man, but his mother and sister

loved him, and surely they were ignorant of his wickedness.

Mrs. Lawford troubled herself very little about this unexpected morning

call. She was an excellent, warm-hearted, domestic creature, and

thought a great deal more about the grand question as to whether she

should have new damask curtains for the drawing-room, or send the old

ones to be dyed; or whether she should withdraw her custom from the

Kemberling grocer, whose "best black" at four-and-sixpence was really

now so very inferior; or whether Belinda's summer silk dress could be

cut down into a frock for Isabella to wear in the winter

evenings,--than about the rights or wrongs of that story of the

horsewhipping which had been administered to Mr. Marchmont.

"I'm sure those Marchmont-Towers people seem very nice, my dear," the

lady said to Belinda; "and I really wish your papa would go and dine

there. You know I like him to dine out a good deal in the winter,

Linda; not that I want to save the housekeeping money,--only it is so

difficult to vary the side-dishes for a man who has been accustomed to

mess-dinners, and a French cook."

But Belinda stuck fast to her colours. She was a soldier's daughter, as

her father said, and she was almost as good as a son. The Major meant

this latter remark for very high praise; for the great grief of his

life had been the want of a boy's brave face at his fireside. She was

as good as a son; that is to say, she was braver and more outspoken

than most women; although she was feminine and gentle withal, and by no

means strong-minded. She would have fainted, perhaps, at the first

sight of blood upon a battle-field; but she would have bled to death

with the calm heroism of a martyr, rather than have been false to a

noble cause.

"I think papa is quite right not to go to Marchmont Towers, mamma," she

said; the artful minx omitted to state that it was by reason of her

entreaties her father had stayed away. "I think he is quite right. Mrs.

Marchmont and Mrs. Weston may be very nice, and of course it isn't

likely _they_ would be cruel to poor young Mrs. Arundel; but I _know_

that Mr. Marchmont must have been unkind to that poor girl, or Mr.

Arundel would never have done what he did."

It is in the nature of good and brave men to lay down their masculine

rights when they leave their hats in the hall, and to submit themselves

meekly to feminine government. It is only the whippersnapper, the

sneak, the coward out of doors who is a tyrant at home. See how meekly

the Conqueror of Italy went home to his charming Creole wife! See how

pleasantly the Liberator of Italy lolls in the carriage of his

golden-haired Empress, when the young trees in that fair wood beyond

the triumphal arch are green in the bright spring weather, and all the

hired vehicles in Paris are making towards the cascade! Major Lawford's

wife was too gentle, and too busy with her store-room and her domestic

cares, to tyrannise over her lord and master; but the Major was duly

henpecked by his blue-eyed daughters, and went here and there as they

dictated.

So he stayed away from Marchmont Towers to please Belinda; and only

said, "Haw," "Yes," "'Pon my honour, now!" "Bless my soul!" when his

friends told him of the magnificence of Paul's dinners.

But although the Major and his eldest daughter did not encounter Mr.

Marchmont in his own house, they met him sometimes on the neutral

ground of other people's dining-rooms, and upon one especial evening at

a pleasant little dinner-party given by the rector of the parish in

which the Grange was situated.

Paul made himself particularly agreeable upon this occasion; but in the

brief interval before dinner he was absorbed in a conversation with Mr.

Davenant, the rector, upon the subject of ecclesiastical

architecture,--he knew everything, and could talk about everything,

this dear Paul,--and made no attempt to approach Miss Lawford. He only

looked at her now and then, with a furtive, oblique glance out of his

almond-shaped, pale-grey eyes; a glance that was wisely hidden by the

light auburn lashes, for it had an unpleasant resemblance to the leer

of an evil-natured sprite. Mr. Marchmont contented himself with keeping

this furtive watch upon Belinda, while she talked gaily with the

Rector's two daughters in a pleasant corner near the piano. And as the

artist took Mrs. Davenant down to the dining-room, and sat next her at

dinner, he had no opportunity of fraternising with Belinda during that

meal; for the young lady was divided from him by the whole length of

the table and, moreover, very much occupied by the exclusive attentions

of two callow-looking officers from the nearest garrison-town, who were

afflicted with extreme youth, and were painfully conscious of their

degraded state, but tried notwithstanding to carry it off with a high

hand, and affected the opinions of used-up fifty.

Mr. Marchmont had none of his womankind with him at this dinner; for

his mother and invalid sister had neither of them felt strong enough to

come, and Mr. and Mrs. Weston had not been invited. The artist's

special object in coming to this dinner was the conquest of Miss

Belinda Lawford: she sided with Edward Arundel against him: she must be

made to believe Edward wrong, and himself right; or she might go about

spreading her opinions, and doing him mischief. Beyond that, he had

another idea about Belinda; and he looked to this dinner as likely to

afford him an opportunity of laying the foundation of a very diplomatic

scheme, in which Miss Lawford should unconsciously become his tool. He

was vexed at being placed apart from her at the dinner-table, but he

concealed his vexation; and he was aggravated by the Rector's

old-fashioned hospitality, which detained the gentlemen over their wine

for some time after the ladies left the dining-room. But the

opportunity that he wanted came nevertheless, and in a manner that he

had not anticipated.

The two callow defenders of their country had sneaked out of the

dining-room, and rejoined the ladies in the cosy countrified

drawing-rooms. They had stolen away, these two young men; for they were

oppressed by the weight of a fearful secret. _They couldn't drink

claret!_ No; they had tried to like it; they had smacked their lips and

winked their eyes--both at once, for even winking with _one_ eye is an

accomplishment scarcely compatible with extreme youth--over vintages

that had seemed to them like a happy admixture of red ink and

green-gooseberry juice. They had perjured their boyish souls with

hideous falsehoods as to their appreciation of pale tawny port, light

dry wines, '42-ports, '45-ports, Kopke Roriz, Thompson and Croft's, and

Sandemann's; when, in the secret recesses of their minds, they affected

sweet and "slab" compounds, sold by publicans, and facetiously called

"Our prime old port, at four-and-sixpence." They were very young, these

beardless soldiers. They liked strawberry ices, and were on the verge

of insolvency from a predilection for clammy bath-buns, jam-tarts, and

cherry-brandy. They liked gorgeous waistcoats; and varnished boots in a

state of virgin brilliancy; and little bouquets in their button-holes;

and a deluge of _millefleurs_ upon their flimsy handkerchiefs. They

were very young. The men they met at dinner-parties to-day had tipped

them at Eton or Woolwich only yesterday, as it seemed, and remembered

it and despised them. It was only a few months since they had been

snubbed for calling the Douro a mountain in Switzerland, and the

Himalayas a cluster of islands in the Pacific, at horrible

examinations, in which the cold perspiration had bedewed their pallid

young cheeks. They were delighted to get away from those elderly

creatures in the Rector's dining-room to the snug little back

drawing-room, where Belinda Lawford and the two Misses Davenant were

murmuring softly in the firelight, like young turtles in a sheltered

dove-cote; while the matrons in the larger apartment sipped their

coffee, and conversed in low awful voices about the iniquities of

housemaids, and the insubordination of gardeners and grooms.

Belinda and her two companions were very polite to the helpless young

wanderers from the dining-room; and they talked pleasantly enough of

all manner of things; until somehow or other the conversation came

round to the Marchmont-Towers scandal, and Edward's treatment of his

lost wife's kinsman.

One of the young men had been present at the hunting-breakfast on that

bright October morning, and he was not a little proud of his superior

acquaintance with the whole business.

"I was the-aw, Miss Lawford," he said. "I was on the tew-wace after

bweakfast,--and a vewy excellent bweakfast it was, I ass-haw you; the

still Moselle was weally admiwable, and Marchmont has some Medewa that

immeasuwably surpasses anything I can indooce my wine-merchant to send

me;--I was on the tew-wace, and I saw Awundel comin' up the steps,

awful pale, and gwasping his whip; and I was a witness of all the west

that occurred; and if I had been Marchmont I should have shot Awundel

befaw he left the pawk, if I'd had to swing for it, Miss Lawford; for I

should have felt, b'Jove, that my own sense of honaw demanded the

sacwifice. Howevaw, Marchmont seems a vewy good fella; so I suppose

it's all wight as far as he goes; but it was a bwutal business

altogethaw, and that fella Awundel must be a scoundwel."

Belinda could not bear this. She had borne a great deal already. She

had been obliged to sit by very often, and hear Edward Arundel's

conduct discussed by Thomas, Richard, and Henry, or anybody else who

chose to talk about it; and she had been patient, and had held her

peace, with her heart bumping indignantly in her breast, and passionate

crimson blushes burning her cheeks. But she could _not_ submit to hear

a beardless, pale-faced, and rather weak-eyed young ensign--who had

never done any greater service for his Queen and country than to cry

"SHUDDRUPH!" to a detachment of raw recruits in a barrack-yard, in the

early bleakness of a winter's morning--take upon himself to blame

Edward Arundel, the brave soldier, the noble Indian hero, the devoted

lover and husband, the valiant avenger of his dead wife's wrongs.

"I don't think you know anything of the real story, Mr. Palliser,"

Belinda said boldly to the half-fledged ensign. "If you did, I'm sure

you would admire Mr. Arundel's conduct instead of blaming it. Mr.

Marchmont fully deserved the disgrace which Edward--which Mr. Arundel

inflicted upon him."

The words were still upon her lips, when Paul Marchmont himself came

softly through the flickering firelight to the low chair upon which

Belinda sat. He came behind her, and laying his hand lightly upon the

scroll-work at the back of her chair, bent over her, and said, in a low

confidential voice,--

"You are a noble girl, Miss Lawford. I am sorry that you should think

ill of me: but I like you for having spoken so frankly. You are a most

noble girl. You are worthy to be your father's daughter."

This was said with a tone of suppressed emotion; but it was quite a

random shot. Paul didn't know anything about the Major, except that he

had a comfortable income, drove a neat dog-cart, and was often seen

riding on the flat Lincolnshire roads with his eldest daughter. For all

Paul knew to the contrary, Major Lawford might have been the veriest

bully and coward who ever made those about him miserable; but Mr.

Marchmont's tone as good as expressed that he was intimately acquainted

with the old soldier's career, and had long admired and loved him. It

was one of Paul's happy inspirations, this allusion to Belinda's

father; one of those bright touches of colour laid on with a skilful

recklessness, and giving sudden brightness to the whole picture; a

little spot of vermilion dabbed upon the canvas with the point of the

palette-knife, and lighting up all the landscape with sunshine.

"You know my father?" said Belinda, surprised.

"Who does not know him?" cried the artist. "Do you think, Miss Lawford,

that it is necessary to sit at a man's dinner-table before you know

what he is? I know your father to be a good man and a brave soldier, as

well as I know that the Duke of Wellington is a great general, though I

never dined at Apsley House. I respect your father, Miss Lawford; and I

have been very much distressed by his evident avoidance of me and

mine."

This was coming to the point at once. Mr. Marchmont's manner was

candour itself. Belinda looked at him with widely-opened, wondering

eyes. She was looking for the evidence of his wickedness in his face. I

think she half-expected that Mr. Marchmont would have corked eyebrows,

and a slouched hat, like a stage ruffian. She was so innocent, this

simple young Belinda, that she imagined wicked people must necessarily

look wicked.

Paul Marchmont saw the wavering of her mind in that half-puzzled

expression, and he went on boldly.

"I like your father, Miss Lawford," he said; "I like him, and I respect

him; and I want to know him. Other people may misunderstand me, if they

please. I can't help their opinions. The truth is generally strongest

in the end; and I can afford to wait. But I can_not_ afford to forfeit

the friendship of a man I esteem; I cannot afford to be misunderstood

by your father, Miss Lawford; and I have been very much pained--yes,

very much pained--by the manner in which the Major has repelled my

little attempts at friendliness."

Belinda's heart smote her. She knew that it was her influence that had

kept her father away from Marchmont Towers. This young lady was very

conscientious. She was a Christian, too; and a certain sentence

touching wrongful judgments rose up against her while Mr. Marchmont was

speaking. If she had wronged this man; if Edward Arundel has been

misled by his passionate grief for Mary; if she had been deluded by

Edward's error,--how very badly Mr. Marchmont had been treated between

them! She didn't say anything, but sat looking thoughtfully at the

fire; and Paul saw that she was more and more perplexed. This was just

what the artist wanted. To talk his antagonist into a state of

intellectual fog was almost always his manner of commencing an

argument.

Belinda was silent, and Paul seated himself in a chair close to hers.

The callow ensigns had gone into the lamp-lit front drawing-room, and

were busy turning over the leaves--and never turning them over at the

right moment--of a thundering duet which the Misses Davenant were

performing for the edification of their papa's visitors. Miss Lawford

and Mr. Marchmont were alone, therefore, in that cosy inner chamber,

and a very pretty picture they made: the rosy-cheeked girl and the

pale, sentimental-looking artist sitting side by side in the glow of

the low fire, with a background of crimson curtains and gleaming

picture-frames; winter flowers piled in grim Indian jars; the fitful

light flickering now and then upon one sharp angle of the high carved

mantelpiece, with all its litter of antique china; and the rest of the

room in sombre shadow. Paul had the field all to himself, and felt that

victory would be easy. He began to talk about Edward Arundel.

If he had said one word against the young soldier, I think this

impetuous girl, who had not yet learned to count the cost of what she

did, would have been passionately eloquent in defence of her friend's

brother--for no other reason than that he was the brother of her

friend, of course; what other reason should she have for defending Mr.

Arundel?

But Paul Marchmont did not give her any occasion for indignation. On

the contrary, he spoke in praise of the hot-headed young soldier who

had assaulted him, making all manner of excuses for the young man's

violence, and using that tone of calm superiority with which a man of

the world might naturally talk about a foolish boy.

"He has been very unreasonable, Miss Lawford," Paul said by-and-by; "he

has been very unreasonable, and has most grossly insulted me. But, in

spite of all, I believe him to be a very noble young fellow, and I

cannot find it in my heart to be really angry with him. What his

particular grievance against me may be, I really do not know."

The furtive glance from the long narrow grey eyes kept close watch upon

Belinda's face as Paul said this. Mr. Marchmont wanted to ascertain

exactly how much Belinda knew of that grievance of Edward's; but he

could see only perplexity in her face. She knew nothing definite,

therefore; she had only heard Edward talk vaguely of his wrongs. Paul

Marchmont was convinced of this; and he went on boldly now, for he felt

that the ground was all clear before him.

"This foolish young soldier chooses to be angry with me because of a

calamity which I was as powerless to avert, as to prevent that accident

upon the South-Western Railway by which Mr. Arundel so nearly lost his

life. I cannot tell you how sincerely I regret the misconception that

has arisen in his mind. Because I have profited by the death of John

Marchmont's daughter, this impetuous young husband imagines--what? I

cannot answer that question; nor can he himself, it seems, since he has

made no definite statement of his wrongs to any living being."

The artist looked more sharply than ever at Belinda's listening face.

There was no change in its expression; the same wondering look, the

same perplexity,--that was all.

"When I say that I regret the young man's folly, Miss Lawford," Paul

continued, "believe me, it is chiefly on his account rather than my

own. Any insult which he can inflict upon me can only rebound upon

himself, since everybody in Lincolnshire knows that I am in the right,

and he in the wrong."

Mr. Marchmont was going on very smoothly; but at this point Miss

Lawford, who had by no means deserted her colours, interrupted his easy

progress.

"It remains to be proved who is right and who wrong, Mr. Marchmont,"

she said. "Mr. Arundel is the brother of my friend. I cannot easily

believe him to have done wrong."

Paul looked at her with a smile--a smile that brought hot blushes to

her face; but she returned his look without flinching. The brave girl

looked full into the narrow grey eyes sheltered under pale auburn

lashes, and her steadfast gaze did not waver.

"Ah, Miss Lawford," said the artist, still smiling, "when a young man

is handsome, chivalrous, and generous-hearted, it is very difficult to

convince a woman that he can do wrong. Edward Arundel has done wrong.

His ultra-quixotism has made him blind to the folly of his own acts. I

can afford to forgive him. But I repeat that I regret his infatuation

about this poor lost girl far more upon his account than on my own; for

I know--at least I venture to think--that a way lies open to him of a

happier and a better life than he could ever have known with my poor

childish cousin Mary Marchmont. I have reason to know that he has

formed another attachment, and that it is only a chivalrous delusion

about that poor girl--whom he was never really in love with, and whom

he only married because of some romantic notion inspired by my cousin

John--that withholds him from that other and brighter prospect."

He was silent for a few moments, and then he said hastily,--

"Pardon me, Miss Lawford; I have been betrayed into saying much that I

had better have left unsaid, more especially to you. I----"

He hesitated a little, as if embarrassed; and then rose and looked into

the next room, where the duet had been followed by a solo.

One of the Rector's daughters came towards the inner drawing-room,

followed by a callow ensign.

"We want Belinda to sing," exclaimed Miss Davenant. "We want you to

sing, you tiresome Belinda, instead of hiding yourself in that dark

room all the evening."

Belinda came out of the darkness, with her cheeks flushed and her

eyelids drooping. Her heart was beating so fast as to make it quite

impossible to speak just yet, or to sing either. But she sat down

before the piano, and, with hands that trembled in spite of herself,

began to play one of her pet sonatas.

Unhappily, Beethoven requires precision of touch in the pianist who is

bold enough to seek to interpret him; and upon this occasion I am

compelled to admit that Miss Lawford's fingering was eccentric, not to

say ridiculous,--in common parlance, she made a mess of it; and just as

she was going to break down, friendly Clara Davenant cried out,--

"That won't do, Belinda! We want you to sing, not to play. You are

trying to cheat us. We would rather have one of Moore's melodies than

all Beethoven's sonatas."

So Miss Lawford, still blushing, with her eyelids still drooping,

played Sir John Stevenson's simple symphony, and in a fresh swelling

voice, that filled the room with melody, began:

"Oh, the days are gone when beauty bright

My heart's chain wove;

When my dream of life, from morn till night,

Was love, still love!"

And Paul Marchmont, sitting at the other end of the room turning over

Miss Davenant's scrap-book, looked up through his auburn lashes, and

smiled at the beaming face of the singer. He felt that he had improved

the occasion.

"I am not afraid of Miss Lawford now," he thought to himself.

This candid, fervent girl was only another piece in the schemer's game

of chess; and he saw a way of making her useful in the attainment of

that great end which, in the strange simplicity of cunning, he believed

to be the one purpose of _every_ man's life,--Self-Aggrandisement.

It never for a moment entered into his mind that Edward Arundel was any

more _real_ than he was himself. There can be no perfect comprehension

where there is no sympathy. Paul believed that Edward had tried to

become master of Mary Marchmont's heritage; and had failed; and was

angry because of his failure. He believed this passionate young man to

be a schemer like himself; only a little more impetuous and blundering

in his manner of going to work.

CHAPTER V.

THE RETURN OF THE WANDERER.

The March winds were blowing amongst the oaks in Dangerfield Park, when

Edward Arundel went back to the house which had never been his home

since his boyhood. He went back because he had grown weary of lonely

wanderings in that strange Breton country. He had grown weary of

himself and of his own thoughts. He was worn out by the eager desire

that devoured him by day and by night,--the passionate yearning to be

far away beyond that low Eastern horizon line; away amid the carnage

and riot of an Indian battle-field.

So he went back at last to his mother, who had written to him again and

again, imploring him to return to her, and to rest, and to be happy in

the familiar household where he was beloved. He left his luggage at the

little inn where the coach that had brought him from Exeter stopped,

and then he walked quietly homewards in the gloaming. The early spring

evening was bleak and chill. The blacksmith's fire roared at him as he

went by the smithy. All the lights in the queer latticed windows

twinkled and blinked at him, as if in friendly welcome to the wanderer.

He remembered them all: the quaint, misshapen, lopsided roofs; the

tumble-down chimneys; the low doorways, that had sunk down below the

level of the village street, until all the front parlours became

cellars, and strange pedestrians butted their heads against the

flower-pots in the bedroom windows; the withered iron frame and pitiful

oil-lamp hung out at the corner of the street, and making a faint spot

of feeble light upon the rugged pavement; mysterious little shops in

diamond-paned parlour windows, where Dutch dolls and stationery, stale

gingerbread and pickled cabbage, were mixed up with wooden pegtops,

squares of yellow soap, rickety paper kites, green apples, and string;

they were all familiar to him.

It had been a fine thing once to come into this village with Letitia,

and buy stale gingerbread and rickety kites of a snuffy old pensioner

of his mother's. The kites had always stuck in the upper branches of

the oaks, and the gingerbread had invariably choked him; but with the

memory of the kites and gingerbread came back all the freshness of his

youth, and he looked with a pensive tenderness at the homely little

shops, the merchandise flickering in the red firelight, that filled

each quaint interior with a genial glow of warmth and colour.

He passed unquestioned by a wicket at the side of the great gates. The

firelight was rosy in the windows of the lodge, and he heard a woman's

voice singing a monotonous song to a sleepy child. Everywhere in this

pleasant England there seemed to be the glow of cottage-fires, and

friendliness, and love, and home. The young man sighed as he remembered

that great stone mansion far away in dismal Lincolnshire, and thought

how happy he might have been in this bleak spring twilight, if he could

have sat by Mary Marchmont's side in the western drawing-room, watching

the firelight and the shadows trembling on her fair young face.

It never had been; and it never was to be. The happiness of a home; the

sweet sense of ownership; the delight of dispensing pleasure to others;

all the simple domestic joys which make life beautiful,--had never been

known to John Marchmont's daughter, since that early time in which she

shared her father's lodging in Oakley Street, and went out in the cold

December morning to buy rolls for Edward Arundel's breakfast. From the

bay-window of his mother's favourite sitting-room the same red light

that he had seen in every lattice in the village streamed out upon the

growing darkness of the lawn. There was a half-glass door leading into

a little lobby near this sitting-room. Edward Arundel opened it and

went in, very quietly. He expected to find his mother and his sister in

the room with the bay-window.

The door of this familiar apartment was ajar; he pushed it open, and

went in. It was a very pretty room, and all the womanly litter of open

books and music, needlework and drawing materials, made it homelike.

The firelight flickered upon everything--on the pictures and

picture-frames, the black oak paneling, the open piano, a cluster of

snowdrops in a tall glass on the table, the scattered worsteds by the

embroidery-frame, the sleepy dogs upon the hearth-rug. A young lady

stood in the bay-window with her back to the fire. Edward Arundel crept

softly up to her, and put his arm round her waist.

"Letty!"

It was not Letitia, but a young lady with very blue eyes, who blushed

scarlet, and turned upon the young man rather fiercely; and then

recognising him, dropped into the nearest chair and began to tremble

and grow pale.

"I am sorry I startled you, Miss Lawford," Edward said, gently; "I

really thought you were my sister. I did not even know that you were

here."

"No, of course not. I--you didn't startle me much, Mr. Arundel; only

you were not expected home. I thought you were far away in Brittany. I

had no idea that there was any chance of your returning. I thought you

meant to be away all the summer--Mrs. Arundel told me so."

Belinda Lawford said all this in that fresh girlish voice which was

familiar to Mr. Arundel; but she was still very pale, and she still

trembled a little, and there was something almost apologetic in the way

in which she assured Edward that she had believed he would be abroad

throughout the summer. It seemed almost as if she had said: "I did not

come here because I thought I should see you. I had no thought or hope

of meeting you."

But Edward Arundel was not a coxcomb, and he was very slow to

understand any such signs as these. He saw that he had startled the

young lady, and that she had turned pale and trembled as she recognised

him; and he looked at her with a half-wondering, half-pensive

expression in his face.

She blushed as he looked at her. She went to the table and began to

gather together the silks and worsteds, as if the arrangement of her

workbasket were a matter of vital importance, to be achieved at any

sacrifice of politeness. Then, suddenly remembering that she ought to

say something to Mr. Arundel, she gave evidence of the originality of

her intellect by the following remark:

"How surprised Mrs. Arundel and Letitia will be to see you!"

Even as she said this her eyes were still bent upon the skeins of

worsted in her hand.

"Yes; I think they will be surprised. I did not mean to come home until

the autumn. But I got so tired of wandering about a strange country

alone. Where are they--my mother and Letitia?"

"They have gone down the village, to the school. They will be back to

tea. Your brother is away; and we dine at three o'clock, and drink tea

at eight. It is so much pleasanter than dining late."

This was quite an effort of genius; and Miss Lawford went on sorting

the skeins of worsted in the firelight. Edward Arundel had been

standing all this time with his hat in his hand, almost as if he had

been a visitor making a late morning call upon Belinda; but he put his

hat down now, and seated himself near the table by which the young lady

stood, busy with the arrangement of her workbasket.

Her heart was beating very fast, and she was straining her arithmetical

powers to the uttermost, in the endeavour to make a very abstruse

calculation as to the time in which Mrs. Arundel and Letitia could walk

to the village schoolhouse and back to Dangerfield, and the delay that

might arise by reason of sundry interruptions from obsequious gaffers

and respectful goodies, eager for a word of friendly salutation from

their patroness.

The arrangement of the workbasket could not last for ever. It had

become the most pitiful pretence by the time Miss Lawford shut down the

wicker lid, and seated herself primly in a low chair by the fireplace.

She sat looking down at the fire, and twisting a slender gold chain in

and out between her smooth white fingers. She looked very pretty in

that fitful firelight, with her waving brown hair pushed off her

forehead, and her white eyelids hiding the tender blue eyes. She sat

twisting the chain in her fingers, and dared not lift her eyes to Mr.

Arundel's face; and if there had been a whole flock of geese in the

room, she could not have said "Bo!" to one of them.

And yet she was not a stupid girl. Her father could have indignantly

refuted any such slander as that against the azure-eyed Hebe who made

his home pleasant to him. To the Major's mind Belinda was all that man

could desire in the woman of his choice, whether as daughter or wife.

She was the bright genius of the old man's home, and he loved her with

that chivalrous devotion which is common to brave soldiers, who are the

simplest and gentlest of men when you chain them to their firesides,

and keep them away from the din of the camp and the confusion of the

transport-ship.

Belinda Lawford was clever; but only just clever enough to be charming.

I don't think she could have got through "Paradise Lost," or Gibbon's

"Decline and Fall," or a volume by Adam Smith or McCulloch, though you

had promised her a diamond necklace when she came conscientiously to

"Finis." But she could read Shakespeare for the hour together, and did

read him aloud to her father in a fresh, clear voice, that was like

music on the water. And she read Macaulay's "History of England," with

eyes that kindled with indignation against cowardly, obstinate James,

or melted with pity for poor weak foolish Monmouth, as the case might

be. She could play Mendelssohn and Beethoven,--plaintive sonatas;

tender songs, that had no need of words to expound the mystic meaning

of the music. She could sing old ballads and Irish melodies, that

thrilled the souls of those who heard her, and made hard men pitiful to

brazen Hibernian beggars in the London streets for the memory of that

pensive music. She could read the leaders in the "Times," with no false

quantities in the Latin quotations, and knew what she was reading

about; and had her favourites at St. Stephen's; and adored Lord

Palmerston, and was liberal to the core of her tender young heart. She

was as brave as a true Englishwoman should be, and would have gone to

the wars with her old father, and served him as his page; or would have

followed him into captivity, and tended him in prison, if she had lived

in the days when there was such work for a high-spirited girl to do.

But she sat opposite Mr. Edward Arundel, and twisted her chain round

her fingers, and listened for the footsteps of the returning mistress

of the house. She was like a bashful schoolgirl who has danced with an

officer at her first ball. And yet amidst her shy confusion, her fears

that she should seem agitated and embarrassed, her struggles to appear

at her ease, there was a sort of pleasure in being seated there by the

low fire with Edward Arundel opposite to her. There was a strange

pleasure, an almost painful pleasure, mingled with her feelings in

those quiet moments. She was acutely conscious of every sound that

broke the stillness--the sighing of the wind in the wide chimney; the

falling of the cinders on the hearth; the occasional snort of one of

the sleeping dogs; and the beating of her own restless heart. And

though she dared not lift her eyelids to the young soldier's face, that

handsome, earnest countenance, with the chestnut hair lit up with

gleams of gold, the firm lips shaded by a brown moustache, the pensive

smile, the broad white forehead, the dark-blue handkerchief tied

loosely under a white collar, the careless grey travelling-dress, even

the attitude of the hand and arm, the bent head drooping a little over

the fire,--were as present to her inner sight as if her eyes had kept

watch all this time, and had never wavered in their steady gaze.

There is a second-sight that is not recognised by grave professors of

magic--a second-sight which common people call Love.

But by-and-by Edward began to talk, and then Miss Lawford found

courage, and took heart to question him about his wanderings in

Brittany. She had only been a few weeks in Devonshire, she said. Her

thoughts went back to the dreary autumn in Lincolnshire as she spoke;

and she remembered the dull October day upon which her father had come

into the girl's morning-room at the Grange with Edward's farewell

letter in his hand. She remembered this, and all the talk that there

had been about the horsewhipping of Mr. Paul Marchmont upon his own

threshold. She remembered all the warm discussions, the speculations,

the ignorant conjectures, the praise, the blame; and how it had been

her business to sit by and listen and hold her peace, except upon that

one never-to-be-forgotten night at the Rectory, when Paul Marchmont had

hinted at something whose perfect meaning she had never dared to

imagine, but which had, somehow or other, mingled vaguely with all her

day-dreams ever since.

Was there any truth in that which Paul Marchmont had said to her? Was

it true that Edward Arundel had never really loved his young bride?

Letitia had said as much, not once, but twenty times.

"It's quite ridiculous to suppose that he could have ever been in love

with the poor, dear, sickly thing," Miss Arundel had exclaimed; "it was

only the absurd romance of the business that captivated him; for Edward

is really ridiculously romantic, and her father having been a

supernumer--(it's no use, I don't think anybody ever did know how many

syllables there are in that word)--and having lived in Oakley Street,

and having written a pitiful letter to Edward, about this motherless

daughter and all that sort of thing, just like one of those tiresome

old novels with a baby left at a cottage-door, and all the _s's_

looking like _f's_, and the last word of one page repeated at the top

of the next page, and printed upon thick yellow-looking ribbed paper,

you know. _That_ was why my brother married Miss Marchmont, you may

depend upon it, Linda; and all I hope is, that he'll be sensible enough

to marry again soon, and to have a Christianlike wedding, with

carriages, and a breakfast, and two clergymen; and _I_ should wear

white glace silk, with tulle puffings, and a tulle bonnet (I suppose I

must wear a bonnet, being only a bridesmaid?), all showered over with

clematis, as if I'd stood under a clematis-bush when the wind was

blowing, you know, Linda."

With such discourse as this Miss Arundel had frequently entertained her

friend; and she had indulged in numerous inuendoes of an embarrassing

nature as to the propriety of old friends and schoolfellows being

united by the endearing tie of sister-in-lawhood, and other

observations to the like effect.

Belinda knew that if Edward ever came to love her,--whenever she did

venture to speculate upon such a chance, she never dared to come at all

near it, but thought of it as a thing that might come to pass in half a

century or so--if he should choose her for his second wife, she knew

that she would be gladly and tenderly welcomed at Dangerfield. Mrs.

Arundel had hinted as much as this. Belinda knew how anxiously that

loving mother hoped that her son might, by-and-by, form new ties, and

cease to lead a purposeless life, wasting his brightest years in

lamentations for his lost bride: she knew all this; and sitting

opposite to the young man in the firelight, there was a dull pain at

her heart; for there was something in the soldier's sombre face that

told her he had not yet ceased to lament that irrevocable past.

But Mrs. Arundel and Letitia came in presently, and gave utterance to

loud rejoicings; and preparations were made for the physical comfort of

the wanderer,--bells were rung, lighted wax-candles and a glittering

tea-service were brought in, a cloth was laid, and cold meats and other

comestibles spread forth, with that profusion which has made the west

country as proverbial as the north for its hospitality. I think Miss

Lawford would have sat opposite the traveller for a week without asking

any such commonplace question as to whether Mr. Arundel required

refreshment. She had read in her Hort's "Pantheon" that the gods

sometimes ate and drank like ordinary mortals; yet it had never entered

into her mind that Edward could be hungry. But she now had the

satisfaction of seeing Mr. Arundel eat a very good dinner; while she

herself poured out the tea, to oblige Letitia, who was in the middle of

the third volume of a new novel, and went on reading it as coolly as if

there had been no such person as that handsome young soldier in the

world.

"The books must go back to the club to-morrow morning, you know, mamma

dear, or I wouldn't read at tea-time," the young lady remarked

apologetically. "I want to know whether _he'll_ marry Theodora or that

nasty Miss St. Ledger. Linda thinks he'll marry Miss St. Ledger, and be

miserable, and Theodora will die. I believe Linda likes love-stories to

end unhappily. I don't. I hope if he _does_ marry Miss St. Ledger--and

he'll be a wicked wretch if he does, after the _things_ he has said to

Theodora--I hope, if he does, she'll die--catch cold at a _dejeuner_ at

Twickenham, or something of that kind, you know; and then he'll marry

Theodora afterwards, and all will end happily. Do you know, Linda, I

always fancy that you're like Theodora, and that Edward's like _him_."

After which speech Miss Arundel went back to her book, and Edward

helped himself to a slice of tongue rather awkwardly, and Belinda

Lawford, who had her hand upon the urn, suffered the teapot to overflow

amongst the cups and saucers.

CHAPTER VI.

A WIDOWER'S PROPOSAL.

For some time after his return Edward Arundel was very restless and

gloomy: roaming about the country by himself, under the influence of a

pretended passion for pedestrianism; reading hard for the first time in

his life, shutting himself in his dead father's library, and sitting

hour after hour in a great easy-chair, reading the histories of all the

wars that have ever ravaged this earth--from the days in which the

elephants of a Carthaginian ruler trampled upon the soldiery of Rome,

to the era of that Corsican barrister's wonderful son, who came out of

his simple island home to conquer the civilised half of a world.

Edward Arundel showed himself a very indifferent brother; for, do what

she would, Letitia could not induce him to join in any of her pursuits.

She caused a butt to be set up upon the lawn; but all she could say

about Belinda's "best gold" could not bring the young man out upon the

grass to watch the two girls shooting. He looked at them by stealth

sometimes through the window of the library, and sighed as he thought

of the blight upon his manhood, and of all the things that might have

been.

Might not these things even yet come to pass? Had he not done his duty

to the dead; and was he not free now to begin a fresh life? His mother

was perpetually hinting at some bright prospect that lay smiling before

him, if he chose to take the blossom-bestrewn path that led to that

fair country. His sister told him still more plainly of a prize that

was within his reach, if he were but brave enough to stretch out his

hand and claim the precious treasure for his own. But when he thought

of all this,--when he pondered whether it would not be wise to drop the

dense curtain of forgetfulness over that sad picture of the

past,--whether it would not be well to let the dead bury their dead,

and to accept that other blessing which the same Providence that had

blighted his first hope seemed to offer to him now,--the shadowy

phantom of John Marchmont arose out of the mystic realms of the dead,

and a ghostly voice cried to him, "I charged you with my daughter's

safe keeping; I trusted you with her innocent love; I gave you the

custody of her helplessness. What have you done to show yourself worthy

of my faith in you?"

These thoughts tormented the young widower perpetually, and deprived

him of all pleasure in the congenial society of his sister and Belinda

Lawford; or infused so sharp a flavour of remorse into his cup of

enjoyment, that pleasure was akin to pain.

So I don't know how it was that, in the dusky twilight of a bright day

in early May, nearly two months after his return to Dangerfield, Edward

Arundel, coming by chance upon Miss Lawford as she sat alone in the

deep bay-window where he had found her on his first coming, confessed

to her the terrible struggle of feeling that made the great trouble of

his life, and asked her if she was willing to accept a love which, in

its warmest fervour, was not quite unclouded by the shadows of the

sorrowful past.

"I love you dearly, Linda," he said; "I love, I esteem, I admire you;

and I know that it is in your power to give me the happiest future that

ever a man imagined in his youngest, brightest dreams. But if you do

accept my love, dear, you must take my memory with it. I cannot forget,

Linda. I have tried to forget. I have prayed that God, in His mercy,

might give me forgetfulness of that irrevocable past. But the prayer

has never been granted; the boon has never been bestowed. I think that

love for the living and remorse for the dead must for ever reign side

by side in my heart. It is no falsehood to you that makes me remember

her; it is no forgetfulness of her that makes me love you. I offer my

brighter and happier self to you, Belinda; I consecrate my sorrow and

my tears to her. I love you with all my heart, Belinda; but even for

the sake of your love I will not pretend that I can forget her. If John

Marchmont's daughter had died with her head upon my breast, and a

prayer on her lips, I might have regretted her as other men regret

their wives; and I might have learned by-and-by to look back upon my

grief with only a tender and natural regret, that would have left my

future life unclouded. But it can never be so. The poison of remorse is

blended with that sorrowful memory. If I had done otherwise,--if I had

been wiser and more thoughtful,--my darling need never have suffered;

my darling need never have sinned. It is the thought that her death may

have been a sinful one, that is most cruel to me, Belinda. I have seen

her pray, with her pale earnest face uplifted, and the light of faith

shining in her gentle eyes; I have seen the inspiration of God upon her

face; and I cannot bear to think that, in the darkness that came down

upon her young life, that holy light was quenched; I cannot bear to

think that Heaven was ever deaf to the pitiful cry of my innocent

lamb."

And here Mr. Arundel paused, and sat silently, looking out at the long

shadows of the trees upon the darkening lawn; and I fear that, for the

time being, he forgot that he had just made Miss Lawford an offer of

his hand, and so much of his heart as a widower may be supposed to have

at his disposal.

Ah me! we can only live and die _once_. There are some things, and

those the most beautiful of all things, that can never be renewed: the

bloom on a butterfly's wing; the morning dew upon a newly-blown rose;

our first view of the ocean; our first pantomime, when all the fairies

were fairies for ever, and when the imprudent consumption of the

contents of a pewter quart-measure in sight of the stage-box could not

disenchant us with that elfin creature, Harlequin the graceful,

faithful betrothed of Columbine the fair. The firstlings of life are

most precious. When the black wing of the angel of death swept over

agonised Egypt, and the children were smitten, offended Heaven, eager

for a sacrifice, took the firstborn. The young mothers would have other

children, perhaps; but between those others and the mother's love there

would be the pale shadow of that lost darling whose tiny hands _first_

drew undreamed-of melodies from the sleeping chords, _first_ evoked the

slumbering spirit of maternal love. Amongst the later lines--the most

passionate, the most sorrowful--that George Gordon Noel Byron wrote,

are some brief verses that breathed a lament for the lost freshness,

the never-to-be-recovered youth.

"Oh, could I feel as I have felt; or be what I have been;

Or weep as I could once have wept!"

cried the poet, when he complained of that "mortal coldness of the

soul," which is "like death itself." It is a pity certainly that so

great a man should die in the prime of life; but if Byron had survived

to old age after writing these lines, he would have been a living

anticlimax. When a man writes that sort of poetry he pledges himself to

die young.

Edward Arundel had grown to love Belinda Lawford unconsciously, and in

spite of himself; but the first love of his heart, the first fruit of

his youth, had perished. He could not feel quite the same devotion, the

same boyish chivalry, that he had felt for the innocent bride who had

wandered beside him in the sheltered meadows near Winchester. He might

begin a _new_ life, but he could not live the _old_ life over again. He

must wear his rue with a difference this time. But he loved Belinda

very dearly, nevertheless; and he told her so, and by-and-by won from

her a tearful avowal of affection.

Alas! she had no power to question the manner of his wooing. He loved

her--he had said as much; and all the good she had desired in this

universe became hers from the moment of Edward Arundel's utterance of

those words. He loved her; that was enough. That he should cherish a

remorseful sorrow for that lost wife, made him only the truer, nobler,

and dearer in Belinda's sight. She was not vain, or exacting, or

selfish. It was not in her nature to begrudge poor dead Mary the tender

thoughts of her husband. She was generous, impulsive, believing; and

she had no more inclination to doubt Edward's love for her, after he

had once avowed such a sentiment, than to disbelieve in the light of

heaven when she saw the sun shining. Unquestioning, and unutterably

happy, she received her lover's betrothal kiss, and went with him to

his mother, blushing and trembling, to receive that lady's blessing.

"Ah, if you knew how I have prayed for this, Linda!" Mrs. Arundel

exclaimed, as she folded the girl's slight figure in her arms.

"And I shall wear white glace with pinked flounces, instead of tulle

puffings, you sly Linda," cried Letitia.

"And I'll give Ted the home-farm, and the white house to live in, if he

likes to try his hand at the new system of farming," said Reginald

Arundel, who had come home from the Continent, and had amused himself

for the last week by strolling about his estate and staring at his

timber, and almost wishing that there was a necessity for cutting down

all the oaks in the avenue, so that he might have something to occupy

him until the 12th of August.

Never was promised bride more welcome to a household than bright

Belinda Lawford; and as for the young lady herself, I must confess that

she was almost childishly happy, and that it was all that she could do

to prevent her light step from falling into a dance as she floated

hither and thither through the house at Dangerfield,--a fresh young

Hebe in crisp muslin robes; a gentle goddess, with smiles upon her face

and happiness in her heart.

"I loved you from the first, Edward," she whispered one day to her

lover. "I knew that you were good, and brave, and noble; and I loved

you because of that."

And a little for the golden glimmer in his clustering curls; and a

little for his handsome profile, his flashing eyes, and that

distinguished air peculiar to the defenders of their country; more

especially peculiar, perhaps, to those who ride on horseback when they

sally forth to defend her. Once a soldier for ever a soldier, I think.

You may rob the noble warrior of his uniform, if you will; but the _je

ne sais quoi_, the nameless air of the "long-sword, saddle, bridle,"

will hang round him still.

Mrs. Arundel and Letitia took matters quite out of the hands of the two

lovers. The elderly lady fixed the wedding-day, by agreement with Major

Lawford, and sketched out the route for the wedding-tour. The younger

lady chose the fabrics for the dresses of the bride and her attendants;

and all was done before Edward and Belinda well knew what their friends

were about. I think that Mrs. Arundel feared her son might change his

mind if matters were not brought swiftly to a climax, and that she

hurried on the irrevocable day in order that he might have no breathing

time until the vows had been spoken and Belinda Lawford was his wedded

wife. It had been arranged that Edward should escort Belinda back to

Lincolnshire, and that his mother and Letitia, who was to be chief

bridesmaid, should go with them. The marriage was to be solemnised at

Hillingsworth church, which was within a mile and a half of the Grange.

The 1st of July was the day appointed by agreement between Major and

Mrs. Lawford and Mrs. Arundel; and on the 18th of June Edward was to

accompany his mother, Letitia, and Belinda to London. They were to

break the journey by stopping in town for a few days, in order to make

a great many purchases necessary for Miss Lawford's wedding

paraphernalia, for which the Major had sent a bouncing cheque to his

favourite daughter.

And all this time the only person at all unsettled, the only person

whose mind was ill at ease, was Edward Arundel, the young widower who

was about to take to himself a second wife. His mother, who watched him

with a maternal comprehension of every change in his face, saw this,

and trembled for her son's happiness.

"And yet he cannot be otherwise than happy with Belinda Lawford," Mrs.

Arundel thought to herself.

But upon the eve of that journey to London Edward sat alone with his

mother in the drawing-room at Dangerfield, after the two younger ladies

had retired for the night. They slept in adjoining apartments, these

two young ladies; and I regret to say that a great deal of their

conversation was about Valenciennes lace, and flounces cut upon the

cross, moire antique, mull muslin, glace silk, and the last "sweet

thing" in bonnets. It was only when loquacious Letitia was shut out

that Miss Lawford knelt alone in the still moonlight, and prayed that

she might be a good wife to the man who had chosen her. I don't think

she ever prayed that she might be faithful and true and pure; for it

never entered into her mind that any creature bearing the sacred name

of wife could be otherwise. She only prayed for the mysterious power to

preserve her husband's affection, and make his life happy.

Mrs. Arundel, sitting _tete-a-tete_ with her younger son in the

lamp-lit drawing-room, was startled by hearing the young man breathe a

deep sigh. She looked up from her work to see a sadder expression in

his face than perhaps ever clouded the countenance of an expectant

bridegroom.

"Edward!" she exclaimed.

"What, mother?"

"How heavily you sighed just now!"

"Did I?" said Mr. Arundel, abstractedly. Then, after a brief pause, he

said, in a different tone, "It is no use trying to hide these things

from you, mother. The truth is, I am not happy."

"Not happy, Edward!" cried Mrs. Arundel; "but surely you----?"

"I know what you are going to say, mother. Yes, mother, I love this

dear girl Linda with all my heart; I love her most sincerely; and I

could look forward to a life of unalloyed happiness with her, if--if

there was not some inexplicable dread, some vague and most miserable

feeling always coming between me and my hopes. I have tried to look

forward to the future, mother; I have tried to think of what my life

may be with Belinda; but I cannot, I cannot. I cannot look forward; all

is dark to me. I try to build up a bright palace, and an unknown hand

shatters it. I try to turn away from the memory of my old sorrows; but

the same hand plucks me back, and chains me to the past. If I could

retract what I have done; if I could, with any show of honour, draw

back, even now, and not go upon this journey to Lincolnshire; if I

_could_ break my faith to this poor girl who loves me, and whom I love,

as God knows, with all truth and earnestness, I would do so--I would do

so."

"Edward!"

"Yes, mother; I would do it. It is not in me to forget. My dead wife

haunts me by night and day. I hear her voice crying to me, 'False,

false, false; cruel and false; heartless and forgetful!' There is never

a night that I do not dream of that dark sluggish river down in

Lincolnshire. There is never a dream that I have--however purposeless,

however inconsistent in all its other details--in which I do not see

_her_ dead face looking up at me through the murky waters. Even when I

am talking to Linda, when words of love for her are on my lips, my mind

wanders away, back--always back--to the sunset by the boat-house, when

my little wife gave me her hand; to the trout-stream in the meadow,

where we sat side by side and talked about the future."

For a few minutes Mrs. Arundel was quite silent. She abandoned herself

for that brief interval to complete despair. It was all over. The

bridegroom would cry off; insulted Major Lawford would come post-haste

to Dangerfield, to annihilate this dismal widower, who did not know his

own mind. All the shimmering fabrics--the gauzes, and laces, and silks,

and velvets--that were in course of preparation in the upper chambers

would become so much useless finery, to be hidden in out-of-the-way

cupboards, and devoured by misanthropical moths,--insect iconoclasts,

who take a delight in destroying the decorations of the human temple.

Poor Mrs. Arundel took a mental photograph of all the complicated

horrors of the situation. An offended father; a gentle, loving girl

crushed like some broken lily; gossip, slander; misery of all kinds.

And then the lady plucked up courage and gave her recreant son a sound

lecture, to the effect that this conduct was atrociously wicked; and

that if this trusting young bride, this fair young second wife, were to

be taken away from him as the first had been, such a calamity would

only be a fitting judgment upon him for his folly.

But Edward told his mother, very quietly, that he had no intention of

being false to his newly-plighted troth.

"I love Belinda," he said; "and I will be true to her, mother. But I

cannot forget the past; it hangs about me like a bad dream."

CHAPTER VII.

HOW THE TIDINGS WERE RECEIVED IN LINCOLNSHIRE.

The young widower made no further lamentation, but did his duty to his

betrothed bride with a cheerful visage. Ah! what a pleasant journey it

was to Belinda, that progress through London on the way to

Lincolnshire! It was like that triumphant journey of last March, when

the Royal bridegroom led his Northern bride through a surging sea of

eager, smiling faces, to the musical jangling of a thousand bells. If

there were neither populace nor joy-bells on this occasion, I scarcely

think Miss Lawford knew that those elements of a triumphal progress

were missing. To her ears all the universe was musical with the sound

of mystic joy-bells; all the earth was glad with the brightness of

happy faces. The railway-carriage,--the commonplace vehicle,--frouzy

with the odour of wool and morocco, was a fairy chariot, more wonderful

than Queen Mab's; the white chalk-cutting in the hill was a shining

cleft in a mountain of silver; the wandering streams were melted

diamonds; the stations were enchanted castles. The pale sherry, carried

in a pocket-flask, and sipped out of a little silver tumbler--there is

apt to be a warm flatness about sherry taken out of pocket-flasks that

is scarcely agreeable to the connoisseur--was like nectar newly brewed

for the gods; even the anchovies in the sandwiches were like the

enchanted fish in the Arabian story. A magical philter had been infused

into the atmosphere: the flavour of first love was in every sight and

sound.

Was ever bridegroom more indulgent, more devoted, than Edward Arundel?

He sat at the counters of silk-mercers for the hour together, while

Mrs. Arundel and the two girls deliberated over crisp fabrics unfolded

for their inspection. He was always ready to be consulted, and gave his

opinion upon the conflicting merits of peach-colour and pink,

apple-green and maize, with unwearying attention. But sometimes, even

while Belinda was smiling at him, with the rippling silken stuff held

up in her white hands, and making a lustrous cascade upon the counter,

the mystic hand plucked him back, and his mind wandered away to that

childish bride who had chosen no splendid garments for her wedding, but

had gone with him to the altar as trustfully as a baby goes in its

mother's arms to the cradle. If he had been left alone with Belinda,

with tender, sympathetic Belinda,--who loved him well enough to

understand him, and was always ready to take her cue from his face, and

to be joyous or thoughtful according to his mood,--it might have been

better for him. But his mother and Letitia reigned paramount during

this ante-nuptial week, and Mr. Arundel was scarcely suffered to take

breath. He was hustled hither and thither in the hot summer noontide.

He was taken to choose a dressing-case for his bride; and he was made

to look at glittering objects until his eyes ached, and he could see

nothing but a bewildering dazzle of ormolu and silver-gilt. He was

taken to a great emporium in Bond Street to select perfumery, and made

to sniff at divers essences until his nostrils were unnaturally

distended, and his olfactory nerves afflicted with temporary paralysis.

There was jewellery of his mother and of Belinda's mother to be re-set;

and the hymeneal victim was compelled to sit for an hour or so,

blinking at fiery-crested serpents that were destined to coil up his

wife's arms, and emerald padlocks that were to lie upon her breast. And

then, when his soul was weary of glaring splendours and glittering

confusions, they took him round the Park, in a whirlpool of diaphanous

bonnets, and smiling faces, and brazen harness, and emblazoned

hammer-cloths, on the margin of a river whose waters were like molten

gold under the blazing sun. And then they gave him a seat in an

opera-box, and the crash of a monster orchestra, blended with the hum

of a thousand voices, to soothe his nerves withal.

But the more wearied this young man became with glitter, and dazzle,

and sunshine, and silk-mercer's ware, the more surely his mind wandered

back to the still meadows, and the limpid trout-stream, the sheltering

hills, the solemn shadows of the cathedral, the distant voices of the

rooks high up in the waving elms.

The bustle of preparation was over at last, and the bridal party went

down to Lincolnshire. Pleasant chambers had been prepared at the Grange

for Mr. Arundel and his mother and sister; and the bridegroom was

received with enthusiasm by Belinda's blue-eyed younger sisters, who

were enchanted to find that there was going to be a wedding and that

they were to have new frocks.

So Edward would have been a churl indeed had he seemed otherwise than

happy, had he been anything but devoted to the bright girl who loved

him.

Tidings of the coming wedding flew like wildfire through Lincolnshire.

Edward Arundel's romantic story had elevated him into a hero; all

manner of reports had been circulated about his devotion to his lost

young wife. He had sworn never to mingle in society again, people said.

He had sworn never to have a new suit of clothes, or to have his hair

cut, or to shave, or to eat a hot dinner. And Lincolnshire by no means

approved of the defection implied by his approaching union with

Belinda. He was only a commonplace widower, after all, it seemed; ready

to be consoled as soon as the ceremonious interval of decent grief was

over. People had expected something better of him. They had expected to

see him in a year or two with long grey hair, dressed in shabby

raiment, and, with his beard upon his breast, prowling about the

village of Kemberling, baited by little children. Lincolnshire was very

much disappointed by the turn that affairs had taken. Shakesperian

aphorisms were current among the gossips at comfortable tea-tables; and

people talked about funeral baked meats, and the propriety of building

churches if you have any ambitious desire that your memory should

outlast your life; and indulged in other bitter observations, familiar

to all admirers of the great dramatist.

But there were some people in Lincolnshire to whom the news of Edward

Arundel's intended marriage was more welcome than the early May-flowers

to rustic children eager for a festival. Paul Marchmont heard the

report, and rubbed his hands stealthily, and smiled to himself as he

sat reading in the sunny western drawing-room. The good seed that he

had sown that night at the Rectory had borne this welcome fruit. Edward

Arundel with a young wife would be very much less formidable than

Edward Arundel single and discontented, prowling about the

neighbourhood of Marchmont Towers, and perpetually threatening

vengeance upon Mary's cousin.

It was busy little Lavinia Weston who first brought her brother the

tidings. He took both her hands in his, and kissed them in his

enthusiasm.

"My best of sisters," he said, "you shall have a pair of diamond

earrings for this."

"For only bringing you the news, Paul?"

"For only bringing me the news. When a messenger carries the tidings of

a great victory to his king, the king makes him a knight upon the spot.

This marriage is a victory to me, Lavinia. From to-day I shall breathe

freely."

"But they are not married yet. Something may happen, perhaps, to

prevent----"

"What should happen?" asked Paul, rather sharply. "By-the-bye, it will

be as well to keep this from Mrs. John," he added, thoughtfully;

"though really now I fancy it matters very little what she hears."

He tapped his forehead lightly with his two slim fingers, and there was

a horrible significance in the action.

"She is not likely to hear anything," Mrs. Weston said; "she sees no

one but Barbara Simmons."

"Then I should be glad if you would give Simmons a hint to hold her

tongue. This news about the wedding would disturb her mistress."

"Yes, I'll tell her so. Barbara is a very excellent person. I can

always manage Barbara. But oh, Paul, I don't know what I'm to do with

that poor weak-witted husband of mine."

"How do you mean?"

"Oh, Paul, I have had such a scene with him to-day--such a scene! You

remember the way he went on that day down in the boat-house when Edward

Arundel came in upon us unexpectedly? Well, he's been going on as badly

as that to-day, Paul,--or worse, I really think."

Mr. Marchmont frowned, and flung aside his newspaper, with a gesture

expressive of considerable vexation.

"Now really, Lavinia, this is too bad," he said; "if your husband is a

fool, I am not going to be bored about his folly. You have managed him

for fifteen years: surely you can go on managing him now without

annoying _me_ about him? If Mr. George Weston doesn't know when he's

well off, he's an ungrateful cur, and you may tell him so, with my

compliments."

He picked up his newspaper again, and began to read. But Lavinia

Weston, looking anxiously at her brother's face, saw that his pale

auburn brows were contracted in a thoughtful frown, and that, if he

read at all, the words upon which his eyes rested could convey very

little meaning to his brain.

She was right; for presently he spoke to her, still looking at the page

before him, and with an attempt at carelessness.

"Do you think that fellow would go to Australia, Lavinia?"

"Alone?" asked his sister.

"Yes, alone of course," said Mr. Marchmont, putting down his paper, and

looking at Mrs. Weston rather dubiously. "I don't want you to go to the

Antipodes; but if--if the fellow refused to go without you, I'd make it

well worth your while to go out there, Lavinia. You shouldn't have any

reason to regret obliging me, my dear girl."

The dear girl looked rather sharply at her affectionate brother.

"It's like your selfishness, Paul, to propose such a thing," she said,

"after all I've done----!"

"I have not been illiberal to you, Lavinia."

"No; you've been generous enough to me, I know, in the matter of gifts;

but you're rich, Paul, and you can afford to give. I don't like the

idea that you're so willing to pack me out of the way now that I can be

no longer useful to you."

Mr. Marchmont shrugged his shoulders.

"For Heaven's sake, Lavinia, don't be sentimental. If there's one thing

I despise more than another, it is this kind of mawkish sentimentality.

You've been a very good sister to me; and I've been a very decent

brother to you. If you have served me, I have made it answer your

purpose to do so. I don't want you to go away. You may bring all your

goods and chattels to this house to-morrow, if you like, and live at

free quarters here for the rest of your existence. But if George Weston

is a pig-headed brute, who can't understand upon which side his bread

is buttered, he must be got out of the way somehow. I don't care what

it costs me; but he must be got out of the way. I'm not going to live

the life of a modern Damocles, with a blundering sword always dangling

over my head, in the person of Mr. George Weston. And if the man

objects to leave the country without you, why, I think your going with

him would be only a sisterly act towards me. I hate selfishness,

Lavinia, almost as much as I detest sentimentality."

Mrs. Weston was silent for some minutes, absorbed in reflection. Paul

got up, kicked aside a footstool, and walked up and down the room with

his hands in his pockets.

"Perhaps I might get George to leave England, if I promised to join him

as soon as he was comfortably settled in the colonies," Mrs. Weston

said, at last.

"Yes," cried Paul; "nothing could be more easy. I'll act very liberally

towards him, Lavinia; I'll treat him well; but he shall not stay in

England. No, Lavinia; after what you have told me to-day, I feel that

he must be got out of the country."

Mr. Marchmont went to the door and looked out, to see if by chance any

one had been listening to him. The coast was quite clear. The

stone-paved hall looked as desolate as some undiscovered chamber in an

Egyptian temple. The artist went back to Lavinia, and seated himself by

her side. For some time the brother and sister talked together

earnestly.

They settled everything for poor henpecked George Weston. He was to

sail for Sydney immediately. Nothing could be more easy than for

Lavinia to declare that her brother had accidentally heard of some

grand opening for a medical practitioner in the metropolis of the

Antipodes. The surgeon was to have a very handsome sum given him, and

Lavinia would _of course_ join him as soon as he was settled. Paul

Marchmont even looked through the "Shipping Gazette" in search of an

Australian vessel which should speedily convey his brother-in-law to a

distant shore.

Lavinia Weston went home armed with all necessary credentials. She was

to promise almost anything to her husband, provided that he gave his

consent to an early departure.

CHAPTER VIII.

MR. WESTON REFUSES TO BE TRAMPLED UPON.

Upon the 31st of June, the eve of Edward Arundel's wedding-day, Olivia

Marchmont sat in her own room,--the room that she had chiefly occupied

ever since her husband's death,--the study looking out into the

quadrangle. She sat alone in that dismal chamber, dimly lighted by a

pair of wax-candles, in tall tarnished silver candlesticks. There could

be no greater contrast than that between this desolate woman and the

master of the house. All about him was bright and fresh, and glittering

and splendid; around her there was only ruin and decay, thickening dust

and gathering cobwebs,--outward evidences of an inner wreck. John

Marchmont's widow was of no importance in that household. The servants

did not care to trouble themselves about her whims or wishes, nor to

put her rooms in order. They no longer curtseyed to her when they met

her, wandering--with a purposeless step and listless feet that dragged

along the ground--up and down the corridor, or out in the dreary

quadrangle. What was to be gained by any show of respect to her, whose

brain was too weak to hold the memory of their conduct for five minutes

together?

Barbara Simmons only was faithful to her mistress with an unvarying

fidelity. She made no boast of her devotion; she expected neither fee

nor reward for her self-abnegation. That rigid religion of discipline

which had not been strong enough to preserve Olivia's stormy soul from

danger and ruin was at least all-sufficient for this lower type of

woman. Barbara Simmons had been taught to do her duty, and she did it

without question or complaint. As she went through rain, snow, hail, or

sunshine twice every Sunday to Kemberling church,--as she sat upon a

cushionless seat in an uncomfortable angle of the servants' pew, with

the sharp edges of the woodwork cutting her thin shoulders, to listen

patiently to dull rambling sermons upon the hardest texts of St.

Paul,--so she attended upon her mistress, submitting to every caprice,

putting up with every hardship; because it was her duty so to do. The

only relief she allowed herself was an hour's gossip now and then in

the housekeeper's room; but she never alluded to her mistress's

infirmities, nor would it have been safe for any other servant to have

spoken lightly of Mrs. John Marchmont in stern Barbara's presence.

Upon this summer evening, when happy people were still lingering

amongst the wild flowers in shady lanes, or in the dusky pathways by

the quiet river, Olivia sat alone, staring at the candles.

Was there anything in her mind; or was she only a human automaton,

slowly decaying into dust? There was no speculation in those large

lustreless eyes, fixed upon the dim light of the candles. But, for all

that, the mind was not a blank. The pictures of the past, for ever

changing like the scenes in some magic panorama, revolved before her.

She had no memory of that which had happened a quarter of an hour ago;

but she could remember every word that Edward Arundel had said to her

in the Rectory-garden at Swampington,--every intonation of the voice in

which those words had been spoken.

There was a tea-service on the table: an attenuated little silver

teapot; a lopsided cream-jug, with thin worn edges and one dumpy little

foot missing; and an antique dragon china cup and saucer with the

gilding washed off. That meal, which is generally called social, has

but a dismal aspect when it is only prepared for one. The solitary

teacup, half filled with cold, stagnant tea, with a leaf or two

floating upon the top, like weeds on the surface of a tideless pond;

the teaspoon, thrown askew across a little pool of spilt milk in the

tea-tray,--looked as dreary as the ruins of a deserted city.

In the western drawing-room Paul was strolling backwards and forwards,

talking to his mother and sisters, and admiring his pictures. He had

spent a great deal of money upon art since taking possession of the

Towers, and the western drawing-room was quite a different place to

what it had been in John Marchmont's lifetime.

Etty's divinities smiled through hazy draperies, more transparent than

the summer vapours that float before the moon. Pearly-complexioned

nymphs, with faces archly peeping round the corner of soft rosy

shoulders, frolicked amidst the silver spray of classic fountains.

Turner's Grecian temples glimmered through sultry summer mists; while

glimpses of ocean sparkled here and there, and were as beautiful as if

the artist's brush had been dipped in melted opals. Stanfield's breezy

beaches made cool spots of freshness on the wall, and sturdy

sailor-boys, with their hands up to their mouths and their loose hair

blowing in the wind, shouted to their comrades upon the decks of

brown-sailed fishing-smacks. Panting deer upon dizzy crags, amid the

misty Highlands, testified to the hand of Landseer. Low down, in the

corners of the room, there lurked quaint cottage-scenes by Faed and

Nichol. Ward's patched and powdered beaux and beauties,--a Rochester,

in a light perriwig; a Nell Gwynne, showing her white teeth across a

basket of oranges; a group of _Incroyables_, with bunches of ribbons

hanging from their low topboots, and two sets of dangling seals at

their waists--made a blaze of colour upon the walls: and amongst all

these glories of to-day there were prim Madonnas and stiff-necked

angels by Raphael and Tintoretto; a brown-faced grinning boy by Murillo

(no collection ever was complete without that inevitable brown-faced

boy); an obese Venus, by the great Peter Paul; and a pale Charles the

First, with martyrdom foreshadowed in his pensive face, by Vandyke.

Paul Marchmont contemplated his treasures complacently, as he strolled

about the room, with his coffee-cup in his hand; while his mother

watched him admiringly from her comfortable cushioned nest at one end

of a luxurious sofa.

"Well, mother," Mr. Marchmont said presently, "let people say what they

may of me, they can never say that I have used my money badly. When I

am dead and gone, these pictures will remain to speak for me; posterity

will say, 'At any rate the fellow was a man of taste.' Now what, in

Heaven's name, could that miserable little Mary have done with eleven

thousand a year, if--if she had lived to enjoy it?"

* * * * *

The minute-hand of the little clock in Mrs. John Marchmont's study was

creeping slowly towards the quarter before eleven, when Olivia was

aroused suddenly from that long reverie, in which the images of the

past had shone upon her across the dull stagnation of the present like

the domes and minarets in a Phantasm City gleaming athwart the barren

desert-sands.

She was aroused by a cautious tap upon the outside of her window. She

got up, opened the window, and looked out. The night was dark and

starless, and there was a faint whisper of wind among the trees.

"Don't be frightened," whispered a timid voice; "it's only me, George

Weston. I want to talk to you, Mrs. John. I've got something particular

to tell you--awful particular; but _they_ mustn't hear it; _they_

mustn't know I'm here. I came round this way on purpose. You can let me

in at the little door in the lobby, can't you, Mrs. John? I tell you, I

must tell you what I've got to tell you," cried Mr. Weston, indifferent

to tautology in his excitement. "Do let me in, there's a dear good

soul. The little door in the lobby, you know; it's locked, you know,

but I dessay the key's there."

"The door in the lobby?" repeated Olivia, in a dreamy voice.

"Yes, _you_ know. Do let me in now, that's a good creature. It's awful

particular, I tell you. It's about Edward Arundel."

Edward Arundel! The sound of that name seemed to act upon the woman's

shattered nerves like a stroke of electricity. The drooping head reared

itself erect. The eyes, so lustreless before, flashed fire from their

sombre depths. Comprehension, animation, energy returned; as suddenly

as if the wand of an enchanter had summoned the dead back to life.

"Edward Arundel!" she cried, in a clear voice, which was utterly unlike

the dull deadness of her usual tones.

"Hush," whispered Mr. Weston; "don't speak loud, for goodness gracious

sake. I dessay there's all manner of spies about. Let me in, and I'll

tell you everything."

"Yes, yes; I'll let you in. The door by the lobby--I understand; come,

come."

Olivia disappeared from the window. The lobby of which the surgeon had

spoken was close to her own apartment. She found the key in the lock of

the door. The place was dark; she opened the door almost noiselessly,

and Mr. Weston crept in on tiptoe. He followed Olivia into the study,

closed the door behind him, and drew a long breath.

"I've got in," he said; "and now I am in, wild horses shouldn't hold me

from speaking my mind, much less Paul Marchmont."

He turned the key in the door as he spoke, and even as he did so

glanced rather suspiciously towards the window. To his mind the very

atmosphere of that house was pervaded by the presence of his

brother-in-law.

"O Mrs. John!" exclaimed the surgeon, in piteous accents, "the way that

I've been trampled upon. _You've_ been trampled upon, Mrs. John, but

you don't seem to mind it; and perhaps it's better to bring oneself to

that, if one can; but I can't. I've tried to bring myself to it; I've

even taken to drinking, Mrs. John, much as it goes against me; and I've

tried to drown my feelings as a man in rum-and-water. But the more

spirits I consume, Mrs. John, the more of a man I feel."

Mr. Weston struck the top of his hat with his clenched fist, and stared

fiercely at Olivia, breathing very hard, and breathing rum-and-water

with a faint odour of lemon-peel.

"Edward Arundel!--what about Edward Arundel?" said Olivia, in a low

eager voice.

"I'm coming to that, Mrs. John, in due c'course," returned Mr. Weston,

with an air of dignity that was superior even to hiccough. "What I say,

Mrs. John," he added, in a confidential and argumentative tone, "is

this: _I won't be trampled upon!_" Here his voice sank to an awful

whisper. "Of course it's pleasant enough to have one's rent provided

for, and not to be kept awake by poor's-rates, Mrs. John; but, good

gracious me! I'd rather have the Queen's taxes and the poor-rates

following me up day and night, and a man in possession to provide for

at every meal--and you don't know how contemptuous a man in possession

can look at you if you offer him salt butter, or your table in a

general way don't meet his views--than the conscience I've had since

Paul Marchmont came into Lincolnshire. I feel, Mrs. John, as if I'd

committed oceans of murders. It's a miracle to me that my hair hasn't

turned white before this; and it would have done it, Mrs. J., if it

wasn't of that stubborn nature which is too wiry to give expression to

a man's sufferings. O Mrs. John, when I think how my pangs of

conscience have been made game of,--when I remember the insulting names

I have been called, because my heart didn't happen to be made of

adamant,--my blood boils; it boils, Mrs. John, to that degree, that I

feel the time has come for action. I have been put upon until the

spirit of manliness within me blazes up like a fiery furnace. I have

been trodden upon, Mrs. John; but I'm not the worm they took me for.

To-day they've put the finisher upon it." The surgeon paused to take

breath. His mild and rather sheep-like countenance was flushed; his

fluffy eyebrows twitched convulsively in his endeavours to give

expression to the violence of his feelings. "To-day they've put the

finisher upon it," he repeated. "I'm to go to Australia, am I? Ha! ha!

we'll see about that. There's a nice opening in the medical line, is

there? and dear Paul will provide the funds to start me! Ha! ha! two

can play at that game. It's all brotherly kindness, of course, and

friendly interest in my welfare--that's what it's _called_, Mrs. J.

Shall I tell you what it _is_? I'm to be got rid of, at any price, for

fear my conscience should get the better of me, and I should speak.

I've been made a tool of, and I've been trampled upon; but they've been

_obliged_ to trust me. I've got a conscience, and I don't suit their

views. If I hadn't got a conscience, I might stop here and have my rent

and taxes provided for, and riot in rum-and-water to the end of my

days. But I've a conscience that all the pineapple rum in Jamaica

wouldn't drown, and they're frightened of me."

Olivia listened to all this with an impatient frown upon her face. I

doubt if she knew the meaning of Mr. Weston's complaints. She had been

listening only for the one name that had power to transform her from a

breathing automaton into a living, thinking, reasoning woman. She

grasped the surgeon's wrist fiercely.

"You told me you came here to speak about Edward Arundel," she said.

"Have you been only trying to make a fool of me."

"No, Mrs. John; I have come to speak about him, and I come to you,

because I think you're not so bad as Paul Marchmont. I think that

you've been a tool, like myself; and they've led you on, step by step,

from bad to worse, pretty much as they have led me. You're Edward

Arundel's blood-relation, and it's your business to look to any wrong

that's done him, more than it is mine. But if you don't speak, Mrs.

John, I will. Edward Arundel is going to be married."

"Going to be married!" The words burst from Olivia's lips in a kind of

shriek, and she stood glaring hideously at the surgeon, with her lips

apart and her eyes dilated. Mr. Weston was fascinated by the horror of

that gaze, and stared at her in silence for some moments. "You are a

madman!" she exclaimed, after a pause; "you are a madman! Why do you

come here with your idiotic fancies? Surely my life is miserable enough

without this!"

"I ain't mad, Mrs. John, any more than"--Mr. Weston was going to say,

"than you are;" but it struck him that, under existing circumstances,

the comparison might be ill-advised--"I ain't any madder than other

people," he said, presently. "Edward Arundel is going to be married. I

have seen the young lady in Kemberling with her pa; and she's a very

sweet young woman to look at; and her name is Belinda Lawford; and the

wedding is to be at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning at Hillingsworth

church."

Olivia slowly lifted her hands to her head, and swept the loose hair

away from her brow. All the mists that had obscured her brain melted

slowly away, and showed her the past as it had really been in all its

naked horror. Yes; step by step the cruel hand had urged her on from

bad to worse; from bad to worse; until it had driven her _here_.

It was for _this_ that she had sold her soul to the powers of hell. It

was for _this_ that she had helped to torture that innocent girl whom a

dying father had given into her pitiless hand. For this! for this! To

find at last that all her iniquity had been wasted, and that Edward

Arundel had chosen another bride--fairer, perhaps, than the first. The

mad, unholy jealousy of her nature awoke from the obscurity of mental

decay, a fierce ungovernable spirit. But another spirit arose in the

next moment. CONSCIENCE, which so long had slumbered, awoke and cried

to her, in an awful voice, "Sinner, whose sin has been wasted, repent!

restore! It is not yet too late."

The stern precepts of her religion came back to her. She had rebelled

against those rigid laws, she had cast off those iron fetters, only to

fall into a worse bondage; only to submit to a stronger tyranny. She

had been a servant of the God of Sacrifice, and had rebelled when an

offering was demanded of her. She had cast off the yoke of her Master,

and had yielded herself up the slave of sin. And now, when she

discovered whither her chains had dragged her, she was seized with a

sudden panic, and wanted to go back to her old master.

She stood for some minutes with her open palms pressed upon her

forehead, and her chest heaving as if a stormy sea had raged in her

bosom.

"This marriage must not take place," she cried, at last.

"Of course it mustn't," answered Mr. Weston; "didn't I say so just now?

And if you don't speak to Paul and prevent it, I will. I'd rather you

spoke to him, though," added the surgeon thoughtfully, "because, you

see, it would come better from you, wouldn't it now?"

Olivia Marchmont did not answer. Her hands had dropped from her head,

and she was standing looking at the floor.

"There shall be no marriage," she muttered, with a wild laugh. "There's

another heart to be broken--that's all. Stand aside, man," she cried;

"stand aside, and let me go to _him_; let me go to him."

She pushed the terrified surgeon out of her pathway, and locked the

door, hurried along the passage and across the hall. She opened the

door of the western drawing-room, and went in.

Mr. Weston stood in the corridor looking after her. He waited for a few

minutes, listening for any sound that might come from the western

drawing-room. But the wide stone hall was between him and that

apartment; and however loudly the voices might have been uplifted, no

breath of them could have reached the surgeon's ear. He waited for

about five minutes, and then crept into the lobby and let himself out

into the quadrangle.

"At any rate, nobody can say that I'm a coward," he thought

complacently, as he went under a stone archway that led into the park.

"But what a whirlwind that woman is! O my gracious, what a perfect

whirlwind she is!"

CHAPTER IX.

"GOING TO BE MARRIED!"

Paul Marchmont was still strolling hither and thither about the room,

admiring his pictures, and smiling to himself at the recollection of

the easy manner in which he had obtained George Weston's consent to the

Australian arrangement. For in his sober moments the surgeon was ready

to submit to anything his wife and brother-in-law imposed upon him; it

was only under the influence of pineapple rum that his manhood asserted

itself. Paul was still contemplating his pictures when Olivia burst

into the room; but Mrs. Marchmont and her invalid daughter had retired

for the night, and the artist was alone,--alone with his own thoughts,

which were rather of a triumphal and agreeable character just now; for

Edward's marriage and Mr. Weston's departure were equally pleasant to

him.

He was startled a little by Olivia's abrupt entrance, for it was not

her habit to intrude upon him or any member of that household; on the

contrary, she had shown an obstinate determination to shut herself up

in her own room, and to avoid every living creature except her servant

Barbara Simmons.

Paul turned and confronted her very deliberately, and with the smile

that was almost habitual to him upon his thin pale lips. Her sudden

appearance had blanched his face a little; but beyond this he betrayed

no sign of agitation.

"My dear Mrs. Marchmont, you quite startle me. It is so very unusual to

see you here, and at this hour especially."

It did not seem as if she had heard his voice. She went sternly up to

him, with her thin listless arms hanging at her side, and her haggard

eyes fixed upon his face.

"Is this true?" she asked.

He started a little, in spite of himself; for he understood in a moment

what she meant. Some one, it scarcely mattered who, had told her of the

coming marriage.

"Is what true, my dear Mrs. John?" he said carelessly.

"Is this true that George Weston tells me?" she cried, laying her thin

hand upon his shoulder. Her wasted fingers closed involuntarily upon

the collar of his coat, her lips contracted into a ghastly smile, and a

sudden fire kindled in her eyes. A strange sensation awoke in the tips

of those tightening fingers, and thrilled through every vein of the

woman's body,--such a horrible thrill as vibrates along the nerves of a

monomaniac, when the sight of a dreadful terror in his victim's face

first arouses the murderous impulse in his breast.

Paul's face whitened as he felt the thin finger-points tightening upon

his neck. He was afraid of Olivia.

"My dear Mrs. John, what is it you want of me?" he said hastily. "Pray

do not be violent."

"I am not violent."

She dropped her hand from his breast. It was true, she was not violent.

Her voice was low; her hand fell loosely by her side. But Paul was

frightened of her, nevertheless; for he saw that if she was not

violent, she was something worse--she was dangerous.

"Did George Weston tell me the truth just now?" she said.

Paul bit his nether-lip savagely. George Weston had tricked him, then,

after all, and had communicated with this woman. But what of that? She

would scarcely be likely to trouble herself about this business of

Edward Arundel's marriage. She must be past any such folly as that. She

would not dare to interfere in the matter. She could not.

"Is it true?" she said; "_is_ it? Is it true that Edward Arundel is

going to be married to-morrow?"

She waited, looking with fixed, widely-opened eyes at Paul's face.

"My dear Mrs. John, you take me so completely by surprise, that I----"

"That you have not got a lying answer ready for me," said Olivia,

interrupting him. "You need not trouble yourself to invent one. I see

that George Weston told me the truth. There was reality in his words.

There is nothing but falsehood in yours."

Paul stood looking at her, but not listening to her. Let her abuse and

upbraid him to her heart's content; it gave him leisure to reflect, and

plan his course of action; and perhaps these bitter words might exhaust

the fire within her, and leave her malleable to his skilful hands once

more. He had time to think this, and to settle his own line of conduct

while Olivia was speaking to him. It was useless to deny the marriage.

She had heard of it from George Weston, and she might hear of it from

any one else whom she chose to interrogate. It was useless to try to

stifle this fact.

"Yes, Mrs. John," he said, "it is quite true. Your cousin, Mr. Arundel,

is going to marry Belinda Lawford; a very lucky thing for us, believe

me, as it will put an end to all questioning and watching and

suspicion, and place us beyond all danger."

Olivia looked at him, with her bosom heaving, her breath growing

shorter and louder with every word he spoke.

"You mean to let this be, then?" she said, when he had finished

speaking.

"To let what be?"

"This marriage. You will let it take place?"

"Most certainly. Why should I prevent it?"

"Why should you prevent it?" she cried fiercely; and then, in an

altered voice, in tones of anguish that were like a wail of despair,

she exclaimed, "O my God! my God! what a dupe I have been; what a

miserable tool in this man's hands! O my offended God! why didst Thou

so abandon me, when I turned away from Thee, and made Edward Arundel

the idol of my wicked heart?"

Paul sank into the nearest chair, with a faint sigh of relief.