FOUND WANTING.
Reginald Eversleigh was in complete ignorance of Victor Carrington's
proceedings, when he received the letter summoning him to an interview
with his friend at a stated time. Carrington's estimate of Reginald's
character was quite correct. All this time his vanity had been chafing
under Paulina's silence and apparent oblivion of him.
He had not received any letter from Paulina, fond as she had been of
writing to him long, half-despairing letters, full of complaint against
destiny, and breathing in every line that hopeless love which the
beautiful Austrian woman had so long wasted on the egotist and coward,
whose baseness she had half suspected even while she still clung to him.
Sir Reginald had been in the habit of receiving these letters as coolly
as if they had been but the fitting tribute to his transcendant merits.
"Poor Paulina!" he murmured sometimes, as he folded the perfumed pages,
after running his eyes carelessly over their contents; "poor Paulina!
how devotedly she loves me. And what a pity she hasn't a penny she can
call her own. If she were a great heiress, now, what could be more
delightful than this devotion? But, under existing circumstances, it is
nothing but an embarrassment--a bore. Unfortunately, I cannot be brutal
enough to tell her this plainly: and so matters go on. And I fear, in
spite of all my hints, she may believe in the possibility of my
ultimately making a sacrifice of my prospects For her sake."
This was how Reginald Eversleigh felt, while Paulina was scattering at
his feet the treasures of a disinterested affection.
He had been vain and selfish from boyhood, and his vices grew stronger
with increasing years. His nature was hardened, and not chastened, by
the trials and disappointments which had befallen him.
In the hour of his poverty and degradation it had been a triumph for
him to win the devotion of a woman whom many men--men better than
himself--had loved in vain.
It was a rich tribute to the graces of him who had once been the
irresistible Reginald Eversleigh, the favourite of fashionable
drawing-rooms.
Thus it was that, when Paulina's letters suddenly ceased, Sir Reginald
was at once mortified and indignant. He had made up his mind to obey
Victor's suggestion, or rather, command, by abstaining from either
visiting or writing to Paulina; but he had not been prepared for a
similar line of proceeding on her part, and it hurt his vanity much.
She had ceased to write. Could she have ceased to care for him? Could
any one else, richer--more disinterested--have usurped his place in her
heart?
The baronet remembered what Victor Carrington had said about Douglas
Dale; but he could not for one moment believe that his cousin--a man
whom he considered infinitely beneath him--had the power to win Paulina
Durski's affection.
"She may perhaps encourage him," he said to himself, "especially now
that his income is doubled. She might even accept him as a
husband--women are so mercenary. But her heart will never cease to be
mine."
Sir Reginald waited a week, a fortnight, but there came no letter from
Paulina. He called on Carrington, according to appointment, but his
friend had changed his mind, or his tactics, and gave him no
explanation.
Victor had been a daily visitor at Hilton House during the week which
had intervened since the day he had dined there and been introduced to
Douglas Dale. His observation had enabled him to decide upon
accelerating the progress of his designs. The hold which Paulina had
obtained upon Douglas Dale's affection was secure; he had proposed to
her much sooner than Victor had anticipated; the perfect understanding
and confidence subsisting between them rendered the cautious game which
he had intended to play unnecessary, and he did not now care how soon a
final rupture between Paulina and Reginald should take place. Indeed,
for two of his purposes--the establishment of an avowed quarrel between
Douglas Dale and his cousin, Sir Reginald, and the infliction of
ever-growing injury on Paulina's reputation,--the sooner such a rupture
could be brought about the better. Therefore Victor Carrington assumed
a tone of reserve and mystery, which did not fail to exasperate Sir
Reginald.
"Do not question me, Reginald," he said. "You are afflicted with a lack
of moral courage, and your want of nerve would only enfeeble my hand.
Know nothing--expect nothing. Those who are at work for you know how to
do their work quietly. Oh, by the way, I want you to sign a little
document--very much the style of thing you gave me at Raynham Castle."
Nothing could be more careless than the Frenchman's tone and manner as
he said this; but the document in question was a deed of gift, by which
Reginald Eversleigh bestowed upon Victor Carrington the clear half of
whatever income should arise to him, from real or personal property,
from the date of the first day of June following.
"I am to give you half my income?"
"Yes, my dear Reginald, after the first of next June. You know that I
am working laboriously to bring about good fortune for you. You cannot
suppose that I am working for nothing. If you do not choose to sign
this document, neither do I choose to devote myself any longer to your
interest."
"And what if you fail?"
"If I fail, the document in question is so much waste paper, since you
have no income at present, nor are likely to have any income between
this and next June, unless by my agency."
The result was the same as usual. Reginald signed the deed, without
even taking the trouble to study its full bearing.
"Have you seen Paulina lately?" he asked, afterwards.
"Not very lately."
"I don't know what's amiss with her," exclaimed Reginald, peevishly;
"she has not written to me to ask explanation of my absence and
silence."
"Perhaps she grew tired of writing to a person who valued her letters
so lightly."
"I was glad enough to hear from her," answered Reginald; "but I could
not be expected to find time to answer all her letters. Women have
nothing better to do than to scribble long epistles."
"Perhaps Madame Durski has found some one who will take the trouble to
answer her letters," said Victor.
After this, the two men parted, and Reginald Eversleigh called a cab,
in which he drove down to Hilton House.
He might have stayed away much longer, in self-interested obedience to
Carrington, had he been sure of Paulina's unabated devotion; but he was
piqued by her silence, and he wanted to discover whether there was a
rival in the field.
He knew Madame Durski's habits, and that it was not till late in the
afternoon that she was to be seen.
It was nearly six o'clock when he drove up to the door of Hilton House.
Carlo Toas admitted him, and favoured him with a searching and somewhat
severe scrutiny, as he led the way to the drawing-room in which Paulina
was wont to receive her guests.
Here Sir Reginald felt some little surprise, and a touch of
mortification, on beholding the aspect of things. He had expected to
find Paulina pensive, unhappy, perhaps ill. He had expected to see her
agitated at his coming. He had pondered much upon the cessation of her
letters; and he had told himself that she had ceased to write because
she was angry with him--with that anger which exists only where there
is love.
To his surprise, he found her brilliant, radiant, dressed in her most
charming style.
Never had he seen her looking more beautiful or more happy.
He pressed the widow's hand tenderly, and contemplated her for some
moments in silence.
"My dear Paulina," he said at last, "I never saw you looking more
lovely than to-night. And yet to-night I almost feared to find you ill."
"Indeed; and why so?" she asked. Her tone was the ordinary tone of
society, from which it was impossible to draw any inference.
"Because it is so long since I heard from you."
"I have grown tired of writing letters that were rarely honoured by
your notice."
"So, so," thought the baronet; "I was right. She is offended."
"To what do I owe this visit?" asked Madame Durski.
"She is desperately angry," thought the baronet. "My dear Paulina," he
said, aloud, "can you imagine that your letters were indifferent to me?
I have been busy, and, as you know, I have been away from London."
"Yes," she said; "you spent your Christmas very agreeably, I believe."
"Not at all, I assure you. A bachelors' party in a country parsonage is
one of the dullest things possible, to say nothing of the tragical
event which ended my visit," added Reginald, his cheek paling as he
spoke.
"A bachelors' party!" repeated Paulina; "there were no ladies, then, at
your cousin's house?"
"None."
"Indeed!"
Paulina Durski's lip curled contemptuously, but she did not openly
convict Sir Reginald of the deliberate falsehood he had uttered.
"I am very glad you have come to me," she said, presently, "because I
have urgent need of your help."
"My dear Paulina, believe me--" began the baronet
"Do not make your protest till you have heard what I have to ask," said
Madame Durski. "You know how troublesome my creditors had become before
Christmas. The time has arrived when they must be paid, or when I--"
She stopped, and looked searchingly at the face of her companion.
"When you--what?" he asked. "What is the alternative, Paulina?"
"I think you ought to know as well as I," she answered. "I must either
pay those debts or fly from this place, and from this country,
disgraced. I appeal to you in this bitter hour of need. Can you not
help me--you, who have professed to love me?"
"Surely, Paulina, you cannot doubt my love," replied Sir Reginald;
"unhappily, there is no magical process by which the truest and purest
love can transform itself into money. I have not a twenty-pound note in
the world."
"Indeed; and the four hundred and fifty pounds you won from Lord
Caversham just before Christmas--is that money gone?"
"Every shilling of it," answered Reginald, coolly.
He had notes to the amount of nearly two hundred pounds in his desk;
but he was the last man in Christendom to sacrifice money which he
himself required, and his luxurious habits kept him always deeply in
debt.
"You must have disposed of it very speedily. Surely, it is not all
gone, Reginald. I think a hundred would satisfy my creditors, for a
time at least."
"I tell you it is gone, Paulina. I gave you a considerable sum at the
time I won the money--you should remember."
"Yes, I remember perfectly. You gave me fifty pounds--fifty pounds for
the support of the house which enabled you to entrap your dupes, while
I was the bait to lure them to their ruin. Oh, you have been very
generous, very noble; and now that your dupes are tired of being
cheated--now that your cat's paw has become useless to you--I am to
leave the country, because you will not sacrifice one selfish desire to
save me from disgrace."
"This is absurd, Paulina," exclaimed the baronet, impatiently; "you
talk the usual nonsense women indulge in when they can't have
everything their own way. It is not in my power to help you to pay your
creditors, and you had much better slip quietly away while you are free
to do so, and before they contrive to get you into prison. You know
what Sheridan said about frittering away his money in paying his debts.
There's no knowing where to leave off if you once begin that sort of
thing."
"You would have me steal away in secret, like what you English call a
swindler!"
"You needn't dwell upon unpleasant names. Some of the best people in
England have been obliged to cross the water for the same reasons that
render your residence here unpleasant. There's nothing to be gained by
sentimental talk about the business, my dear Paulina. My friends at the
clubs have begun to grow suspicious of this house, and I don't think
there's a chance of my ever winning another sovereign in these rooms.
Why, then, should you remain to be tormented by your creditors? Return
to Paris, where you have twice as many devoted slaves and admirers as
in this detestable straight-laced land of ours. I will slip across as
soon as ever I can settle my affairs here some way or other, and once
more you may be queen of a brilliant _salon_, while I--"
"While you may find a convenient cat's paw for getting hold of new
plunder," cried Paulina, with unmitigated scorn. Then, with a sudden
burst of passion, she exclaimed, "Oh, Sir Reginald Eversleigh, I thank
Providence for this interview. At last--at last, I understand you
completely. I have been testing you, Sir Reginald--I have been sounding
your character. I have stooped to beg for help from you, in order that
I might know the broken reed on which I have leaned. And now I can
laugh at you, and despise you. Go, Sir Reginald Eversleigh; this house
is mine--my home--no longer a private gambling-house--no longer a snare
for the delusion of your rich friends. I am no longer friendless. My
debts have been paid--paid by one who, if he had owned but one
sixpence, would have given it to me, content to be penniless himself
for my sake. I have no need of your help. I am not obliged to creep
away in the night like a felon, from the house that has sheltered me. I
can now dare to call myself mistress of this house, unfettered by debt,
untrammelled by the shameful secrets that made my life odious to me;
and my first act as mistress of this house shall be to forbid its doors
to you."
"Indeed, Madame Durski!" cried Reginald, with a sneer; "this is a
wonderful change."
"You thought, perhaps, there were no limits to a woman's folly," said
Paulina; "but you see you were wrong. There is an end even to that. And
now, Sir Reginald Eversleigh, I will wish you good evening, and
farewell."
"Is this a farce, Paulina?" asked the baronet, in a voice that was
almost stifled by rage.
"No, Sir Reginald, it is a stern reality," answered Madame Durski,
laying her hand on the bell.
Her summons was speedily answered by Carlo Toas.
"Carlo, the door," she said, quietly.
The baronet gave her one look--a dark and threatening glance--and then
left the room, followed by the Spaniard, who conducted him to his cab
with every token of grave respect.
"Curse her!" muttered Sir Reginald, between his set teeth, as he drove
away from Hilton House. "It must be Douglas Dale who has given her the
power to insult me thus, and he shall pay for her insolence. But why
did Victor bring those two together? An alliance between them can only
result in mischief to me. I must and will fathom his motive for conduct
that seems so incomprehensible."
* * * * *
Sir Reginald and his fatal ally, Carrington, met on the following day,
and the former angrily related the scene which had been enacted at
Hilton House.
"Your influence has been at work there," he exclaimed. "You have
brought about an alliance between this woman and Douglas Dale."
"I have," answered Victor, coolly. "Mr. Dale has offered her his hand
and fortune, as well as his heart, and has been accepted."
"You are going to play me false, Victor Carrington!"
"Indeed!"
"Yes, or else why take such pains to bring about this marriage?"
"You are a fool, Reginald Eversleigh, and an obstinate fool, or you
would not harp upon this subject after what I have said. I have told
you that the marriage which you fear will never take place."
"How will you prevent it?"
"As easily as I could bring it about, did I choose to do so. Pshaw! my
dear boy, the simple, honest people in this world are so many puppets,
and it needs but the master-mind to pull the strings."
"If this marriage is not intended to take place, why have you brought
about an engagement between Paulina and Douglas?" asked the baronet, in
nowise convinced by what his ally had said. "I have my reasons, and
good ones, though you are too dull of brain to perceive them," replied
Victor, impatiently. "You and your cousin, Douglas Dale, have been fast
friends, have you not?"
"We have."
"Listen to me, then. If he were to die without direct heirs you are the
only person who would profit by his death; and if he, a young; man,
powerful of frame, in robust health, no likely subject for disease,
were to die, leaving you owner of ten thousand a year, and were to die
while in the habit of holding daily intercourse with you, known to be
your friend and companion, is it not just possible that malevolent and
suspicious people might drop strange hints as to the cause of his
death? They might harp upon your motives for wishing him out of the
way. They might dwell upon the fact that you were so much together, and
that you had such opportunities--mark me, Reginald,
_opportunities_--for tampering with the one solitary life which stood
between you and fortune. They might say all this, might they not?"
"Yes," replied Reginald, in his gloomiest tone, "they might."
"Very well, then, if you take my advice, you will cut your cousin's
acquaintance from this time. You will take care to let your friends of
the clubs know that he has supplanted you in the affections of the
woman you loved, and that you and he are no longer on speaking terms.
You will cut him publicly at one of your clubs; so that the fact of the
coldness between you may become sufficiently notorious. And when you
have done this, you will start for the Continent."
"Go abroad? But why?"
"That is my secret. Remember, you have promised to obey me blindly,"
answered Victor. "You will go abroad; you will let the world know that
you and Douglas Dale are divided by the width of the Channel; you will
leave him free to devote himself to the woman he has chosen for his
wife; and if, while engaged to her, an untimely fate should overtake
this young man--if he, like his elder brother, should be removed from
your pathway, the most malicious scandal-monger that ever lived could
scarcely say that you had any hand in his fate."
"I understand," murmured Reginald, in a low voice; "I understand."
He said no more. He had grown white to the very lips; and those pale
lips were dry and feverish. But the conversation changed abruptly, and
Douglas Dale's name was not again mentioned.
In the meantime, the betrothed lovers had been very happy and this
interview, which she had always dreaded but felt she could not avoid,
having passed over, Paulina was more at liberty to realize her changed
position, and dwell on her future prospects. She was really happy, but
in her happiness there was some touch of fever, something too much of
nervous excitement. It was not the calm happiness which makes the
crowning joy of an untroubled life. A long career of artificial
excitement, of alternate fears and hopes, the mad delight and madder
despair which makes the gambler's fever, had unfitted Paulina for the
quiet peace of a spirit at rest. She yearned for rest, but the angel of
rest had been scared away by the long nights of dissipation, and would
not answer to her call.
Victor Carrington had fathomed the mystery of her feverish gaiety--her
intervals of dull apathy that was almost despair. In the depth of her
misery she had lulled herself to a false repose by the use of opium;
and even now, when the old miseries were no more, she could not exist
without the poisonous anodyne.
"Douglas Dale must be blinded by his infatuation, or he would have
found out the state of the case by this time," Victor said to himself.
"Circumstances could not be more favourable to my plans. A man who is
blind and deaf, and utterly idiotic under the influence of an absurd
infatuation, one woman whose brains are intoxicated by opium, and
another who would sell her soul for money."
* * * * *
These incidents, which have occupied so much space in the telling, in
reality did not fill up much time. Only a month had elapsed since
Lionel Dale's death, when Reginald Eversleigh and Paulina had the
interview described above. And now it seemed as though Fate itself were
conspiring with the conspirators, for the watch kept upon them by
Andrew Larkspur was perforce delayed, and Lady Eversleigh's designs of
retributive punishment were suspended. A few days after the return of
Mr. Larkspur to town, that gentleman was seized with serious illness,
and for three weeks was unable to leave his bed. Mr. Andrew lay ill
with acute bronchitis, in the lodging-house in Percy Street, and Mrs.
Eden was compelled to wait his convalescence with what patience she
might.
* * * * *
Sir Reginald Eversleigh and Douglas Dale met at the Phoenix Club soon
after Reginald's interview with Madame Durski.
Douglas met his cousin with a quiet and courteous manner, in which
there was no trace of unfriendly feeling: a manner that expressed so
little of any feeling whatever as to be almost negative.
It was not so, however, with Sir Reginald. He remembered Victor
Carrington's advice as to the wisdom of a palpable estrangement between
himself and his cousin, and he took good care to act upon that counsel.
This course was, indeed, the only one that would have been at all
agreeable to him.
He hated Douglas Dale with all the force of his evil nature, as the
innocent instrument of Sir Oswald's retribution upon the destroyer of
Mary Goodwin.
He envied the young man the advantages which his own bad conduct had
forfeited; and he now had learned to hate him with redoubled intensity,
as the man who had supplanted him in the affections of Paulina Durski.
The two men met in the smoking-room of the club at the most fashionable
hour of the day.
Nothing could have been more conspicuous than the haughty insolence of
the spendthrift baronet as he saluted his wealthy cousin.
"How is it I have not seen you at my chambers in the Temple,
Eversleigh?" asked Douglas, in that calm tone of studied courtesy which
expresses so little.
"Because I had no particular reason for calling on you; and because, if
I had wished to see you, I should scarcely have expected to find you in
your Temple chambers," answered Sir Reginald. "If report does not belie
you, you spend the greater part of your existence at a certain villa at
Fulham."
There was that in Sir Reginald Eversleigh's tone which attracted the
attention of the men within hearing--almost all of whom were well
acquainted with the careers of the two cousins, and many of whom knew
them personally.
Though the club loungers were too well-bred to listen, it was
nevertheless obvious that the attention of all had been more or less
aroused by the baronet's tone and manner.
Douglas Dale answered, in accents as audible, and a tone as haughty as
the accents and tone of his cousin.
"Report is not likely to belie me," he said, "since there is no mystery
in my life to afford food for gossip. If by a certain villa at Fulham
you mean Hilton House, you are not mistaken. I have the honour to be a
frequent guest at that house."
"It is an honour which many of us have enjoyed," answered Reginald,
with a sneer.
"An honour which I used to find deuced expensive, by Jove!" exclaimed
Viscount Caversham, who was standing near Douglas Dale.
"That was at the time when Sir Reginald Eversleigh usurped the position
of host in Madame Durski's house," replied Douglas. "You would find
things much changed there now, Caversham, were the lady to favour you
by an invitation. When Madame Durski first came to England she was so
unfortunate as to fall into the hands of evil counsellors. She has
learned since to know her friends from her enemies."
"She is a very charming woman," drawled the viscount, laughingly; "but
if you want to keep a balance at your banker's, Dale, I should strongly
advise you to refuse her hospitality."
"Madame Durski will shortly be my wife," replied Douglas, in a voice
loud enough to be heard by the bystanders; "and the smallest word
calculated to cast a slur on her fair fame will be an insult to me--an
insult which I shall know how to resent."
This announcement fell like a thunderbolt in the assembly of
fashionable idlers. All knew the history of the house at Fulham. They
knew of Paulina Durski only as a beautiful, but dangerous, syren, whose
fatal smiles lured men to their ruin. That Douglas Dale should unite
himself to such a woman seemed to them little short of absolute madness.
Love must be strong indeed which will face the ridicule of mankind
unflinchingly. Douglas Dale knew that, in redeeming Paulina from her
miserable situation, in elevating her to a position that many blameless
and well-born Englishwomen would have gladly accepted, he was making a
sacrifice which the men amongst whom he lived would condemn as the act
of a fool. But he was willing to endure this, painful though it was to
him, for the sake of the woman he loved.
"Better that I should have the scorn of shallow-brained worldlings than
that the blight on her life should continue," he said to himself. "When
she is my wife, no man will dare to question her honour--no woman will
dare to frown upon her when she enters society leaning on my arm."
This is what Douglas Dale repeated to himself very often during his
courtship of Paulina Durski. This is what he thought as he stood erect
and defiant in the crowded room of the Pall Mall club, facing the
curious looks of his acquaintances.
After the first shock there was a dead silence; no voice murmured the
common-place phrases of congratulation which might naturally have
followed such an announcement. If Douglas Dale had just announced that
some dire misfortune had befallen him, the faces of the men around him
could not have been more serious. No one smiled; no one applauded his
choice; not one voice congratulated him on having won for himself so
fair a bride.
That ominous silence told Douglas Dale how terrible was the stigma
which the world had set upon her he so fondly loved. The anguish which
rent his heart during those few moments is not to be expressed by
words. After that most painful silence, he walked to the table at which
it was his habit to sit, and began to read a newspaper. Sir Reginald
watched him furtively for a few moments in silence, and then left the
room.
After this the two cousins met frequently; but they never spoke. They
passed each other with the coldest and most ceremonious salutation. The
idlers of the club perceived this, and commented on the fact.
"Douglas Dale and his cousin are not on speaking terms," they said:
"they have quarrelled about that beautiful Austrian widow, at whose
house there used to be such high play."
In Paulina's society, Douglas tried to forget the cruel shadow which
darkened, and which, in all likelihood, would for ever darken, her
name; and while in her society he contrived to banish from his mind all
bitter thought of the world's harsh verdict and cruel condemnation.
But away from Paulina he was tortured by the recollection of that scene
at the Phoenix Club; tormented by the thought that, let him make what
sacrifice he might, he could never wipe out the stain which those
midnight assemblies of gamesters had left on his future wife's
reputation.
"We will leave England for ever after the marriage," he said to himself
sometimes. "We will make our home in some fair Italian city, where my
Paulina will be respected and admired as if she were a queen, as well
as the loveliest and sweetest of women."
If he asked Paulina where their future life was to be spent she always
replied to him in the same manner.
"Wherever you take me I shall be content," she said. "I can never be
grateful enough for your goodness; I can never repay the debt I owe
you. Let our future be your planning, not mine."
"And you have no wish, no fancy, that I can realize, Paulina?"
"None. Prom my earliest girlhood I have sighed for only one
blessing--peace! You have given me that. What more can I ask at your
hands? Ah! Douglas, I fear my love has already cost you too dearly. The
world will never forgive you for your choice; you, who might make so
brilliant a marriage!"
Her generous feelings once aroused, Paulina could be almost as noble as
her lover. Again and again she implored him to withdraw his promise--to
leave, and to forget her.
"Believe me, Douglas, our engagement is a mistake," she said. "Consider
this before it is too late. You are a proud man where honour is
concerned, and the past life of her whom you marry should be without
spot or blemish. It is not so with me. If I have not sinned as other
women have sinned, I have stooped to be the companion of gamblers and
roués; I have allowed my house to become the haunt of reckless and
dissipated men. Society revenges itself cruelly upon those who break
its laws. Society will neither forget nor forgive my offence."
"I do not live for society, but for you, Paulina," replied Douglas,
passionately; "you are all the world to me. Let me never hear these
arguments again, unless you would have me think that you are weary of
me, and that you only want an excuse for getting rid of me."
"Weary of you!" exclaimed Paulina; "my friend, my benefactor. How can I
ever prove my gratitude for your goodness--your devotion?"
"By learning to love me a little," answered Douglas, tenderly.
"The lesson ought not to be difficult," Paulina murmured.
Could she do less than love this noble friend, this pure-minded and
unselfish adorer?
He came to her one day, accompanied by a solicitor; but before
introducing the man of law, he asked for a private interview with
Paulina, and in this interview gave her a new proof of his devotion.
"In thinking much of our position, dearest, I have been struck with a
sudden terror of the uncertainty of life. What would be your fate,
Paulina, if anything were to happen--if--well, if I were to die
suddenly, as men so often die in this high-pressure age, before
marriage had united our interests? What would be your fate, alone and
helpless, assailed once more by all the perplexities of poverty, and,
perhaps, subject to the mean spite of my cousin, Reginald Eversleigh,
who does not forgive me for having robbed him of his place in your
heart, little as he was worthy of your love?"
"Oh, Douglas!" exclaimed Paulina, "why do you imagine such things? Why
should death assail you?"
"Why, indeed, dearest," returned Douglas, with a smile. "Do not think
that I anticipate so sad a close to our engagement. But it is the duty
of a man to look sharply out for every danger in the pathway of the
woman he is bound to protect. I am a lawyer, remember, Paulina, and I
contemplate the future with the eye of a lawyer. So far as I can secure
you from even the possibility of misfortune, I will do it. I have
brought a solicitor here to-day, in order that he may read you a will
which I have this morning executed in your favour."
"A will!" repeated Madame Durski; "you are only too good to me. But
there is something horrible to my mind in these legal formalities."
"That is only a woman's prejudice. It is the feminine idea that a man
must needs be at the point of death when he makes his will. And now let
me explain the nature of this will," continued Douglas. "I have told
you that if I should happen to die without direct heirs, the estate
left me by Sir Oswald Eversleigh will go to my cousin Reginald. That
estate, from which is derived my income, I have no power to alienate; I
am a tenant for life only. But my income has been double, and sometimes
treble, my expenditure, for my habits have been very simple, and my
life only that of a student in the Temple. My sole extravagance,
indeed, has been the collection of a library. I have, therefore, been
able to save twelve thousand pounds, and this sum is my own to
bequeath. I have made a will, leaving this amount to you,
Paulina--charged only with a small annuity to a faithful old
servant--together with my personal property, consisting only of a few
good Italian pictures, a library of rare old books, and the carvings
and decorations of my roams--all valuable in their way. This is all the
law allows me to give you, Paulina; but it will, at least, secure you
from want."
Madame Durski tried to speak; but she was too deeply affected by this
new proof of her lover's generosity. Tears choked her utterance; she
took Douglas Dale's hand in both her own, and lifted it to her lips;
and this silent expression of gratitude touched his heart more than the
most eloquent speech could have affected it.
He led her into the room where the attorney awaited her.
"This gentleman is Mr. Horley," he said, "a friend and adviser in whom
you may place unbounded confidence. My will is to remain in his
possession; and should any untimely fate overtake me, he will protect
your interests. And now, Mr. Horley, will you be good enough to read
the document to Madame Durski, in order that she may understand what
her position would be in case of the worst?"
Mr. Horley read the will. It was as simple and concise as the law
allows any legal document to be; and it made Paulina Durski mistress of
twelve thousand pounds, and property equal to two or three thousand
more, in the event of Douglas Dale's death.
* * * * *