I must ask of my reader to leave this chamber, where, overwhelmed by
her sorrows, poor Kate poured out her grief in tears, and follow me to a
small but brilliantly lighted apartment, in which a little party of four
persons was seated, discussing their wine, and enjoying the luxury of
their cigars. Be not surprised when we say that one of the number was a
lady. Madame de Heidendorf, however, puffed her weed with all the zest
of a smoker; the others were the Archduke Ernest, a plain, easy-tempered
looking man, in the gray undress of an Austrian General, the Foreign
Minister, Count Nõrinberg, and our old acquaintance, the Abbé D'Esmonde.
The table, besides the usual ornaments of a handsome dessert, was
covered with letters, journals, and pamphlets, with here and there a
colored print in caricature of some well-known political personage.
Nothing could be more easy and unconstrained than the air and bearing
of the guests. The Archduke sat with his uniform coat unbuttoned, and
resting one leg upon a chair before him. The Minister tossed over
the books, and brushed off the ashes of his cigar against the richly
damasked table-cloth; while even the Abbé seemed to have relaxed the
smooth urbanity of his face into a look of easy enjoyment Up to this
moment the conversation had been general, the principal topics being
the incidents of the world of fashion, the flaws and frivolities, the
mishaps and misadventures of those whose names were familiar to his
Imperial Highness, and in whose vicissitudes he took the most lively
interest. These, and a stray anecdote of the turf in England, were the
only subjects he cared for, hating politics and State affairs with a
most cordial detestation. His presence, however, was a compliment that
the Court always paid “the Countess,” and he submitted to his torn of
duty manfully.
Deeply involved in the clouds of his cigar-smoke, and even more
enveloped in the misty regions of his own reveries, he sipped his
wine in silence, and heard nothing of the conversation about him. The
Minister was then perfectly free to discuss the themes most interesting
to him, and learn whatever he could of the state of public opinion in
Italy.
“You are quite right, Abbé,” said he, with a sage shake of the head.
“Small concessions, petty glimpses of liberty, only give a zest for
more enlarged privileges. There is nothing like a good flood of popular
anarchy for creating a wholesome disgust to freedom. There must be
excesses!”
“Precisely so, sir,” said the Abbé. “There can be no question of an
antidote if there has been no poisoning.”
“Ay; but may not this system be pushed too far? Is not his Holiness
already doing so?”
“Some are disposed to think so, but I am not of the number,” said
D'Esmonde. “It is necessary that he should himself be convinced that the
system is a bad one; and there is no mode of conviction so palpable as
by a personal experience. Now, this he will soon have. As yet, he does
not see that every step in political freedom is an advance towards the
fatal heresy that never ceases its persecutions of the Church. Not that
our Revolutionists care for Protestantism or the Bible either; but, by
making common cause with those who do, see what a large party in England
becomes interested for their success. The right of judgment conceded in
religious matters, how can you withhold it in political ones? The men
who brave the Church will not tremble before a cabinet. Now the Pope
sees nothing of this; he even mistakes the flatteries offered to himself
for testimonies of attachment to the Faith, and all those kneeling
hypocrites who implore his blessing he fancies are faithful children of
Rome. He must be awakened from this delusion; but yet none save himself
can dispel it He is obstinate and honest.”
“If the penalty were to be his own alone, it were not so much matter,”
said the Minister; “but it will cost a revolution.”
“Of course it will; but there is time enough to prepare for it.”
“The state of the Milanais is far from satisfactory,” said the Minister,
gravely.
“I know that; but a revolt of a prison always excuses double irons,”
said D'Esmonde, sarcastically.
“Tell him of Sardinia, Abbé,” said Madame de Heidendorf.
“Your real danger is from that quarter,” said D'Esmonde. “There is
a growing spirit of independence there,--a serious desire for free
institutions, wide apart from the wild democracy of the rest of Italy.
This is a spirit you cannot crush; but you can do better,--you can
corrupt it Genoa is a hotbed of Socialist doctrine; the wildest
fanaticism of the 'Reds' is there triumphant, and our priests are
manfully aiding the spread of such opinions. They have received orders
to further these notions; and it is thus, and by the excesses consequent
on this, you will succeed in trampling down that moderated liberty which
is the curse that England is destined to disseminate amongst us. It is
easy enough to make an excited people commit an act of indiscretion, and
then, with public opinion on your side--”
“How I detest that phrase!” said Madame de Heidendorf; “it is the lowest
cant of the day.”
“The thing it represents is not to be despised, Madame,” said the Abbé.
“These are English notions,” said she, sneeringly.
“They will be Russian ones yet, depend upon it, Madame.”
“I 'd rather know what a few men of vast fortune, like Midchekoff, for
instance, think, than have the suffrages of half the greasy mobs of
Europe.”
“By the way,” said the Minister, “what is he doing? Is it true that he
is coquetting with Liberals and Fourierists, and all that?”
“For the moment he is,” said Madame de Heidendorf; “and two or three of
the popularity-seeking sovereigns have sent him their decorations, and
if he does not behave better he will be ordered home.”
“He is of great use in Italy,” said the Minister.
“True; but he must not abuse his position.”
“He is just vain enough to lend himself to a movement,” said D'Esmonde;
“but he shall be watched.”
These last words were very significantly uttered.
“You know the Princess, Abbé?” asked the Minister, with a smile; and
another smile, as full of meaning, replied to the question.
“She's pretty, ain't she?” asked the Archduke.
“Beautiful is the word, sir; but if your Imperial Highness would like
to pass judgment personally, I 'll beg of her to come down to the
drawing-room.”
“Of all things, most kind of you to make the offer,” said he, rising
and arranging his coat and sword-knot into some semblance of propriety,
while Madame de Heidendorf rang the bell, and despatched a messenger to
Kate with the request.
Nina was overjoyed at the commission intrusted to her. Since Kate's
peremptory order, she had not ventured to intrude herself upon her;
but now, armed with a message, she never hesitated about invading the
precincts of that silent chamber, at whose door she often stood in doubt
and speculation.
She tapped gently at the door; there was no answer. A second summons was
alike unreplied to, and Nina bent down her head to listen. There were
long-drawn breathings, like sleep; but a heavy sigh told that the
moments were those of waking sorrow. Cautiously turning the handle
of the door, without noise, she opened it and passed in. The room was
shrouded in a dim half-light, and it was not till after the lapse of
some seconds that Nina could distinguish the form of her young mistress,
as, with her head buried in her hands, she sat before a table on which
lay an open letter.
So absorbed was Kate in grief that she heard nothing, and Nina
approached her, slowly, till at last she stood directly behind her,
fixedly regarding the heaving figure, the dishevelled hair, and the
trembling hands that seemed to clutch with eagerness some object within
their grasp. Kate suddenly started, and pushing back her hair from
her eyes, seemed as if trying to collect her wandering thoughts. Then,
unclasping a case, she placed a miniature before her, and contemplated
it attentively. Nina bent over her till she almost touched her in her
eagerness. Had any one been there to have seen her features at the
moment, they would have perceived the traits of intense and varied
passion, surprise, rage, and jealousy, all struggling for the mastery.
Her dark skin grew almost livid, and her black eyes glowed with anger;
while, with a force like convulsion, she pressed her hands to her heart,
as if to calm its beatings. A sea of stormy passions was warring within
her, and in her changeful expression might be seen the conflict of her
resolves. At last, she appeared to have decided; for with noiseless
steps she gradually retreated toward the door, her eyes all the while
steadily fixed on her mistress.
It seemed to require no slight effort to repress the torrent of rage
within her; for even at the door she stood irresolute for a moment, and
then, softly opening it, withdrew. Once outside, her pent-up passions
found vent, and she sobbed violently. Her mood was, however, more of
anger than of sorrow, and there was an air of almost insolent pride in
the way she now knocked, and then, without waiting for reply, entered
the room.
“Madame de Heidendorf requests that the Princess will appear in the
drawing-room,” said she, abruptly, and confronting Kate's look of
confusion with a steadfast stare.
“Say that I am indisposed, Nina,----that I feel tired and unwell,” said
Kate, timidly.
“There is an Archduke, Madame.”
“What care I for an Archduke, Nina?” said Kate, trying to smile away the
awkwardness of her own disturbed manner.
“I have always believed that great folk liked each other,” said Nina,
sarcastically.
“Then I must lack one element of that condition, Nina,” said Kate,
good-humoredly; “but pray make my excuses,--say anything you like so
that I may be left in quiet.”
“How delightful Madame's reveries must be, when she attaches such value
to them!”
“Can you doubt it, Nina?” replied Kate, with a forced gayety. “A
betrothed bride ought to be happy; you are always telling me so. I hear
of nothing from morn till night but of rich caskets of gems and jewels;
you seem to think that diamonds would throw a lustre over any gloom.”
[Illustration: 120]
“And would they not?” cried Nina, passionately “Has not the brow nobler
and higher thoughts when encircled by a coronet like this? Does not
the heart beat with greater transport beneath gems like these?” And she
opened case after case of sparkling jewels as she spoke, and spread them
before Kate, on the table.
“And yet I have learned to look on them calmly,” said Kate, with an
expression of proud indifference.
“Does not that dazzle you?” said Nina, holding up a cross of rose
diamonds.
“No!” said Kate, shaking her head.
“Nor that?” cried Nina, displaying a gorgeous necklace.
“Nor even that, Nina.”
“Is Madame's heart so steeled against womanly vanities,” said Nina,
quickly, while she threw masses of costly articles before her, “that not
one throb, not one flush of pleasure, is called up at sight of these?”
“You see, Nina, that I can look on them calmly.”
“Then this, perchance, may move you!” cried Nina; and with a bound
she sprang to the table at which Kate was seated, and, dashing the
handkerchief away, seized the miniature, and held it up.
Kate uttered a shrill cry and fell back fainting. Nina gazed at her for
a second or so with a look of haughty disdain, and sprinkling the pale
features with a few drops of water, she turned away. With calm composure
she replaced each precious gem within its case, laid the miniature once
more beneath the handkerchief, and then left the room.
“Your Princess will not honor us, it seems, with her company,” said the
Archduke, half in pique, as the messenger returned with Kate's excuses;
“and yet I looked for her coming to get rid of all the farrago of
politics that you wise folk will insist upon talking.”
The Countess and the Minister exchanged most significant glances at
this speech, while D'Esmonde politely assented to the remark, by adding
something about the relaxation necessary to overwrought minds, and the
need that princes should enjoy some repose as well as those of lower
degree. “I can, however, assure your Imperial Highness,” said he, “that
this is no caprice of the young Princess. She is really far from well,
and was even unable to receive her own relative this afternoon, the
Count von Dalton.”
“What, is old Auersberg a relative of hers?”
“An uncle, or a grand-uncle,--I forget which, sir.”
“Then that wild youth in the Franz Carl must be a connection too?”
“The cadet is her brother, sir.”
“Indeed! What an extravagant fellow it is! They say that, counting on
being Auersberg's heir, he spends money in every possible fashion; and
as the tradespeople take the succession on trust, his debts are already
considerable. It was only yesterday his colonel spoke to me of sending
him to the Banat, or some such place. His family must be rich, I
suppose?”
“I believe quite the reverse, sir. Poor to indigence. Their entire hope
is on the Count von Auersberg.”
“He held a frontier command for many years, and must have saved money.
But will he like to see it in hands like these?”
“I believe--at least so the story goes,” said D'Esmonde, dropping his
voice to a whisper, “that the boy's arguments have scarcely assisted his
object in that respect. They say that he told the Count that in times
like these no man's fortune was worth a year's purchase; that when
monarchs were tottering and thrones rocking, it were better to spend
one's means freely than to tempt pillage by hoarding it.”
“Are these his notions?” cried the Archduke, in amazement
“Yes; the wildest doctrines of Socialism are his creed,--opinions,
I grieve to say, more widely spread than any one supposes.”
“How is this, then? I see the private regimental reports of every corps,
I read the conduct-rolls of almost every company, and yet no hint of
this disaffection has reached me.
“A priest could reveal more than an adjutant, sir,” said the Abbé,
smiling. “These youths who fancy themselves neglected,--who think their
claims disregarded,--who, in a word, imagine that some small pretension,
on the score of family, should be the spring of their promotion, are
easily seduced into extravagant ideas about freedom and so forth.”
“Austria is scarce the land for such fruit to ripen in,” said the
Archduke, laughing. “Let him try France, or the United States.”
“Very true, your Highness,” chimed in the Abbé; “but such boys ought to
be watched,--their conduct inquired strictly into.”
“Or better still, Monsieur l'Abbé,” said the Archduke, sternly,
“dismissed the service. I see no profit in retaining amongst us the
seeds of this French malady.”
“I believe your Highness takes the true view of the difficulty,” said
D'Esmonde, as though reflecting over it. “And yet you will be asked to
make an officer of him in a day or two.”
“An officer of this boy, and why, or by whom?”
“The Princess, his sister, will make the request; probably through Von
Auersberg.”
“But when I tell the Feld--”
“Ah, your Imperial Highness could not betray a confidence!” said
D'Esmonde. “I have ventured to disclose to you what has come to my
knowledge by means only accessible to myself; I therefore rely on your
Highness not to divulge, however you may use it.”
“He shall not continue to wear our cloth; that you may certainly rely
on, Monsieur l'Abbé,” said the Archduke, sternly.
“In any case, wait for his sister's departure, sir,” said D'Esmonde,
anxiously; “a few days or hours. As soon as this silly old lady has made
up that budget of gossip and scandal she fancies to be political news,
we 'll see her leave this, and then he can be dealt with as you think
proper.”
The Archduke made no reply,--not seeming either to assent to or reject
the counsel. “It would break the old Marshal's heart,” said he, at last;
“that gallant old soldier would never survive it.”
“A treason might, indeed, kill him,” said D'Esmonde. “But your Highness
will anticipate exposure by dismissal--dismissal, peremptory and
unexplained.”
Again the Archduke was silent, but his lowering brow and dark expression
told that the subject was giving him deep and serious thought. “I paid
no attention to your conversation this evening, Abbé,” said be, at last;
“but it struck me, from a chance word here and there, that you suspect
these same 'Liberal' notions are gaining ground.”
“Heresies against the Faith, sir, have begotten their natural offspring,
heresies against the State; and Governments do not yet awaken to the
fact that they who scorn the altar will not respect the throne. The
whole force of what are called Liberal institutions has been to weaken
the influence of the clergy; and yet it is precisely on that same
influence you will have to fall back. It is beneath the solemn shadow of
the Church you'll seek your refuge yet!”
“No, no, father,” said the Archduke, with a laugh; “we have another
remedy.”
“The mitre is stronger than the _mitraille_, after all,” said
D'Esmonde, boldly. “Believe me, sir, that the solemn knell that tolls
an excommunication will strike more terror through Christendom than all
your artillery.”
Either the remark or the tone in which it was uttered was unpleasing
to the Prince; indeed, all the Abbe's courtesy at times gave way to an
almost impetuous boldness, which royalty never brooks, for he turned
away haughtily, and joined the others at a distant part of the room.
There was something of scorn in the proud look which D'Esmonde gave
after him, and then slipped from the chamber with noiseless step and
disappeared. Inquiring the way to the Princess's apartment, the Abbé
slowly ascended the stairs, pondering deeply as he went. Nina was
passing the corridor at the moment, and, supposing that he had mistaken
the direction, politely asked if she could offer him any guidance.
Scarcely noticing the questioner, he replied,----
“I was looking for the Princesse de Midchekoff's apartments.”
“It is here, sir; but she is indisposed.”
“If you would say that the Abbé D'Esmonde--”
He had got thus far when, lifting his eyes, his glance fell upon her
features; and then, as if spell-bound, he stood silently gazing at her.
Nina's cheek grew crimson under the stare; but her eyes met his with
unshaken firmness.
“If I were to disbelieve all probabilities,” said he, slowly, “I should
say that I see an old friend before me. Are you not the daughter of
Huertos, the Toridor of Seville?”
“Fra Eustace!” said Nina, stepping back and staring steadily at him.
“No longer so, Lola; I am the Abbé D'Esmonde now,” said he, while a
faint flush tinged his pale features.
“And I am Nina, the 'Cameriera,'” replied she, scornfully. “See how
unequally fortune has dealt with us!”
D'Esmonde made a sign towards the door, which she at once understood and
answered,----
“Yes, in the service of the Princess.”
“This is indeed a strange meeting, Lola.”
“Call me Nina,” said the girl, flushing, “or I shall remember old times,
and my Spanish blood will little bear such memories.”
“Where can we talk together, Nina?”
“Come this way, holy father,” said she, with a half-sneering smile. “I
suppose a poor girl may receive her confessor in her chamber.”
D'Esmonde walked after her without speaking. While crossing a gallery,
she unlocked a door, and admitted him into a small but neatly furnished
room.
“Dear Lola,” said the priest, as, taking her hand, he looked
affectionately at her,--“I must needs call you by the old name,--what
turn of fortune has brought you here?”
“It is a question well becomes you,” said the girl, releasing her
hand from his grasp, and drawing herself proudly up. “You cut the bark
adrift, and you wonder that it has become a wreck!”
“How this old warmth of temper recalls the past, and how I love you for
it, as I grieve over it, Lola; but be calm, and tell me everything, just
as you used to tell me years ago.”
“Oh, if I had the same pure heart as then!” cried the girl,
passionately. “Oh, if I could but shed tears, as once I did, over each
slight transgression, and not have my spirit seared and hardened, as the
world has made it!”
“We cannot carry the genial freshness of youth into the ripe years of
judgment, Lola. Gifts decay, and others succeed them.”
“No more of this casuistry. _You_ are, I see, the same, whatever changes
time may have made in _me_; but I have outlived these trickeries. Tell
me, frankly, what do you want with me?”
“Must there needs be some motive of self-interest in renewing an old
but interrupted friendship, Lola? You remember what we once were to
each other?”
“Oh that I could forget it!----oh that I could wash out the thought, or
even think it but a dream! But how can you recall these memories? If the
sorrow be mine, is not the shame all yours?”
“The shame and the sorrow are alike mine,” said D'Es-monde, in a voice
of deep dejection, “_You_ alone, of all the world, were ever able to
shake within me the great resolves that in prayer and devotion I
had formed. For you, Lola, I was, for a space, willing to resign the
greatest cause that ever man engaged in. Ay, for love of _you_, I was
ready to peril everything--even to my soul! Is not this enough for shame
and sorrow too? Is not this humiliation for one who wears the robe that
I do?”
“You were a student in those days,” said Nina, with a sneering smile;
“and I never heard you speak of all those dreadful sacrifices. You used
to talk of leaving the college with a light heart. You spoke of the
world as if you were impatient to mingle with it. You planned I know
not how many roads to fortune and advancement. Among other careers,
I remember”--and here she burst into a scornful laugh, that made the
priest's cheek grow crimson with passion----“I remember how you hit upon
one which speaks rather for your ardor than your prudence. Do you forget
that you would be a Toridor,--you whose cheek grew pale and whose
heart sickened as my father's horse lay embowelled in the ring, and who
fainted outright when the bull's horns were driven into the barricade
near you. You a Toridor! A Toridor should have courage!” And as she
spoke, her eyes flashed with the fire of passion.
“Courage!” said the priest, in a voice almost guttural from emotion;
“and is there no other courage than the vulgar defiance of personal
danger,--the quality of the veriest savage and the merest brute in
creation? Is there nothing more exalted in courage than to face bodily
peril? Are all its instincts selfishness? What think you of the courage
of him who, in all the conscious strength of intellect, with powers to
win an upward way amongst the greatest and the highest, can stoop to a
life of poverty and neglect, can give up all that men strive for,--home,
affection, family, citizenship,----content to toil apart and alone,
----to watch, to fast, and pray, and think,----ay, think till the very
brain reels with labor,--and all this for a cause in which he is but a
unit! Courage! Tell me not of courage beside that of him who dares to
shake the strongest thrones, and convulses empires with his word, whose
counsels brave the might of armies, and dare even kings to controvert;
and, greatest of all, the courage that for a cause can risk salvation!
Yes, Lola, he who to save others hazards his own eternity! Have I not
done it?” cried he, carried away by an impetuous rush of feeling. “Have
I not overborne the truth and sustained the falsehood? Have I not
warped the judgments, and clouded the faculties, and misdirected the
aspirations of many who came to me for counsel, knowing that if there
might be evil now there would be good hereafter, and that for present
and passing sorrow there would be a glorious day of rejoicing? To this
end have I spoke Peace to the guilty man and Hope to the hardened! Not
for him, nor for me, but for the countless millions of the Church,--for
the mighty hosts who look to her for succor and consolation! This I call
courage!”
And he drew himself proudly up, and folded his arms on his breast with
an air of haughty composure; while the girl, awed by his manner, and
subdued by the impetuosity of his speech, gazed at him in half fear and
wonderment.
“Tell me of your father, Lola,” said D'Esmonde, in a low, soft voice, as
he drew her low seat to his side.
“_He_ was killed at Madrid; he died before the Queen!” said she,
proudly.
“The death of a Toridor!” muttered the priest, mournfully.
“Yes, and Pueblos too,--he is dead!”
“Not the little child that I remember--”
“The same. He grew up to be a fine man; some thought him handsomer than
my father. My mother's family would have made a priest of him, but he
chose the prouder destiny.”
“I cannot think of him but as the child,--the little fellow who played
about my knees; dressed like a matador, his long silky hair in a net.”
“Oh, do not----do not speak of him,” cried the girl, burying her face
between her hands; “my heart will not bear those memories.”
The priest's face was lighted up with a malevolent delight as he bent
over her, as if revelling in the thought the emotions could call up.
“Poor little fellow!” said he, as if to himself. “How I remember his
bolero that he danced for me.” He stopped, and she sobbed bitterly. “He
said that Lola taught him.”
She looked up; the tears were fast coursing along her cheeks, which were
pale as death.
“Eustace,” said she, tremulously, “these thoughts will drive me mad; my
brain is reeling even now.”
“Let us talk of something else, then,” said he. “When did you leave the
'Opera'--and why?”
“How can you ask? you were at Seville at the time. Have you forgotten
that famous, marriage, to which, by your persuasion, I consented; was
this scheme only one of those unhappy events which are to be the seed of
future good?”
The sneer made no impression on the priest, who calmly answered, “Even
so, Lola.”
“What do you mean, sir?” cried she, angrily; “to what end am I thus?
Was I so base born and so low? Was my lot in life so ignominious that
I should not have raised my ambition above a fortune like this,--the
waiting-woman of one whose birth is not better than my own?”
“You are right, Lola,----perfectly right; and with patience and prudence
you will be her equal yet. Acton is an English noble--”
“What care I for that?” said she, passionately; “the marriage was a
counterfeit.”
“The marriage was a true and valid one.”
“And yet you yourself told me it was not binding.”
“I had my reasons for the deceit, Lola,” said he, persuasively. “You
were deserted and desolate; such widowhood would have brought you to
the grave with sorrow. It were better that you should strive against
misery.”
“Even in shame?” asked she, scornfully.
“Even in shame, for the shame would be short-lived; but Lord Norwood is
alive, and you are his wife.”
“Lord Norwood! I have heard that name so often,” said she, musingly.
“At Florence, of course, he was every night at the Mazzarini Palace; the
same Gerald Acton you remember long ago.”
“And he is a lord,--an English noble?”
“And you are an English peeress, Lola. There is not a coronet more safe
upon a titled head than I can make yours,--can and will make,” added
he, slowly. “But you must be patient; I must now speak to you, Lola, of
themes in which you can take no interest, and subjects of which you know
nothing. But listen to me attentively, and hear me; for fortune has not
thus thrown us together without a meaning.
“The hour is come, Lola, when heretics and infidels have determined on
an attack of our faith; not as they have hitherto attempted, and with
such signal failure, by the weapons of controversy and discussion, but
by brute force; by the might of millions driven to madness from want
and misgovernment To avert this terrible calamity is now the unceasing
thought of the Church. Some have counselled one thing, some another;
some would go forth to the fight, trusting that, as of old, God
would not forget his people; there are others who deem this course
presumptuous and unwise. The hearts of kings are not as they once
were,--in their confessors' keeping. Our age and manners would send
forth no crusade. The battle must be otherwise contested. You could
not follow me, Lola, were I to tell you either of the perils or their
antidotes. Enough that I say we must have trusty and faithful agents in
every land of Europe, and in every rank in every people. From the secret
whisperings of the Czar to the muttered discontent of the Irish peasant,
we must know them all. To this end have we labored anxiously and eagerly
for some time back, and already have we made great progress. From every
Court of Europe we now receive tidings, and there is not a royal palace
where our interests are unguarded. Some serve us for the glorious cause
itself, some have their own price, some again are in our own hands
from motives of self-interest or terror, but all are alike true. This
Princess--this Dalton--I destined for a duty of the same nature. Married
to a man of Midchekoff's wealth and influence, she might have done
good service, but I scarcely dare to trust her; even at the sacrifice
of herself she might fail me, and, although in my power, I cannot count
upon her. Think, then, of my joy at finding you, one on whose fidelity I
may hazard life itself. You can be all to me, and a thousand times more
than ever she could.”
“Your spy,” said the girl, steadily, but without the slightest semblance
of anger.
“My friend, my counsellor, my correspondent, Lola.”
“And the price?”
“You may name it. If your heart be set on mere worldly distinction, I
will prove your marriage, and although Norwood is not rich, his country
never neglects the class he belongs to. Would you break the tie, the
bond is in my keeping.”
“I never loved him,” cried she, passionately, “and you knew it. The
marriage was one of those snares on which your mind never ceases to
dwell--”
“If you loved another, Lola--?” said he, interrupting, and then waiting
for her to finish her speech.
“And if I had,” burst she forth, “am I credulous enough to fancy that
your word can reconcile every difference of rank and fortune,--that you
can control destiny, and even coerce affection? No, no, Eustace; I have
outlived all that!”
“Then were you wiser when you believed it,” said he, gravely. “Now for
his name.”
There was a tone of almost commanding influence in which these last few
words were uttered, and his dark full eyes were steadily fixed on her as
he spoke them.
She hesitated to answer, and seemed to reflect.
“I ask no forced confession, Lola,” said he, proudly, and rising at the
same time from his seat “In all the unreserve of our old affection, I
told you _my_ secret; _yours_ is with yourself.”
“But can you--” She stopped.
“I can, and I will aid you,” said he, finishing her sentence.
“There is the name, then!” cried she, as, with a passionate gesture, she
drew a sealed letter from her bosom, and showed him the superscription.
D'Esmonde almost started; but, recovering himself in an instant, he
said,----
“The address is not correct, Lola. It should be thus--” And taking a
pen, he drew it across the last line on the cover, and wrote, instead,
“Dewanpore Barracks, Calcutta.” “We must talk together this evening,”
said he, restoring the letter, and, without more, withdrew.