CHAPTER I.

ROSE, BLANCHE,

AND

VIOLET.

BY

G. H. LEWES, ESQ.

AUTHOR OF "RANTHORPE,"

"BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY," ETC. ETC.

Il n'y a point de vertu proprement dite, sans victoire sur

nous-mêmes, et tout ce qui ne nous coûte rien, ne vaut rien.

DE MAISTRE.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.

----

1848.

London:

Printed by STEWART and MURRAY,

Old Bailey.

CONTENTS.

----

BOOK VI.

CHAPTER

I.--The Idler's Day

II.--Another Literary Soirée

III.--The Tiger Tastes Blood

IV.--The Young Father

V.--Renunciation

VI.--Man purified by Experience

VII.--Poor Vyner

VIII.--Rehearsal of the Opera

IX.--Cecil Succumbs

X.--A Gentleman's Life

XI.--Deeper, and Deeper Still

XII.--Hester's Love

BOOK VII.

CHAPTER

I.--George Maxwell

II.--Rose again sees Julius

III.--Woman's Love

IV.--A Beam of Sunshine in the House

V.--Violet to Marmaduke

VI.--Brighter Scenes

VII.--Another Love Scene

VIII.--Violet writes again

IX.--Frank in reduced Circumstances

X.--Effects of Dining Well

XI.--The Honeymoon

BOOK VIII.

CHAPTER

I.--Amiable People

II.--Love not killed by Unkindness

III.--Captain Heath Returns

IV.--Humbled Pride

V.--"Black Wins"

VI.--Cecil's Weakness

VII.--All Hope Destroyed

VIII.--The Forgery

IX.--Ruin

X.--The Sinner that Repenteth

XI.--The Wife awaiting her Husband

XII.--The Gambler's End

XIII.--Explanation

XIV.--The Alternative

XV.--Those Left to Weep

XVI.--The Voice of Passion

Epilogue

ROSE, BLANCHE, AND VIOLET.

BOOK VI.

CHAPTER I.

THE IDLER'S DAY.

"Nature hath given us legs to go to our objects, not wings to fly to

them."--EASTWARD HOE.

The spring of 1841 was very mild, and this enabled Cecil and Blanche

to endure the wretched, comfortless state of Mrs. Tring's

boarding-house, better than if the weather had been more rigorous.

The cheapness, which was now becoming more and more important to

them, was therefore a sufficient compensation for the want of

comfort. They had renewed their engagement, hoping that either the

comic opera, or the historical picture, would so improve their

circumstances as to admit of their removal in the summer.

They had long awakened from their holiday dream to find that, however

pleasant the change in their position, it was only pleasant as a

change; the novelty once worn off, the scene appeared in all its

ugliness; or rather, let me say, appeared so to Cecil. He was of a

luxurious habit, and felt privation keenly. Blanche felt it less,

and her love for him made home happy. She had never been so happy.

Cecil was all she could desire.

As may be imagined, Cecil once relaxing in the energy with which he

had begun to work, never recovered his former happiness. The charms

of society were charms he could not withstand; the more so because he

was fitted for it, shone in it. Having dined occasionally at the

club was sufficient to give him an incurable disgust to the meagre

fare Mrs. Tring spread before him, and he consequently began to

absent himself more and more.

Added to this, his painting proceeded slowly. "Inspiration," wait

for it as he would, seemed unwilling to descend upon him. Then there

were so many days lost: sometimes the weather was foggy, and that

prevented him; sometimes it was fine, and tempted him to exercise;

sometimes he had visits to pay; sometimes men "looked in" upon him at

his rooms. One way or another, the week slipped from him without

leaving behind it any record of labour.

Besides--and this perhaps was one great cause of his idleness, giving

strength to the other influences--he grew less satisfied with his

picture the nearer it approached its termination. Cecil was a man

whose designs were always finer than his productions, his sketches

gave a promise which his execution never realized. In this little

trait we may see the whole man. It might serve as a description of

his character. With a certain freshness, delicacy, and even grandeur

in his conceptions, he wanted strength, energy, and mastery, to endow

them with vitality. Who can wonder that he raved about "genius," and

scorned the "mechanical labour" of mere technical execution?

When he contemplated his productions, he grew impatient at their

inadequacy to represent his conceptions, and he threw the blame on

everything but on his own indolence and caprice. That broad line

which separates intention from execution--which makes the thought a

thing--which distinguishes the artist from other men, by creating in

art what other men only create in visions--that broad line Cecil

wilfully overlooked. He saw that he had failed, and did not choose

to see wherein lay his failure. He despised the "drudgery" which was

indispensable to success. Disgusted with his failure, he lost all

courage, and scarcely ever handled a pencil.

"When will your picture be finished, Mr. Chamberlayne?" asked Mrs.

Merryweather, one morning at breakfast.

"Indeed, I cannot say," he replied; "works of that magnitude require

long consideration. I could have produced it long ago, had I been

disposed; but I'm in no hurry."

"Do you know Mr. Bostock's paintings?"

Cecil replied that he did not.

"Oh, he's a beautiful painter, that he is! Does peaches and mackerel

so that you wouldn't know them from real. His pictures give one an

appetite--that they do. I remember once--it was very curious--Mrs.

Henley, a relation of mine who lives at Southampton--her husband was

in the customs--good situation, as I have heard--and a strange

creature he was, with the queerest nose you ever saw, and eyes just

like a lobster's, one was always alarmed lest they should tumble into

his waistcoat pocket! Well, he married my relation, Mrs. Henley, one

of the best creatures! She often comes up to town, and I should so

like you to be acquainted with her, you'll be quite pleased with her!

So, as I was saying, she came up to town once, to manage a little

business, and enjoy herself at the same time. Well, one day she

called upon us. Merryweather--my poor Merryweather was then alive:

who wouldn't have thought him good for another thirty years at least!

He proposed to take us both to the Exhibition; so we went. It was a

very hot day, I remember; intensely hot. Poor Merryweather was in a

bath all the time. And as he stood in the octagon room, his hat in

his hand, wiping the perspiration from his face--which was a sight of

itself to see!--complaining of heat, I suddenly spied one of Mr.

Bostock's pretty pictures--oh, it was a love! you can't fancy what a

bunch of grapes straddled across a few peaches surrounded with egg

plums! 'Lor,' says poor Merryweather, 'do look at that; isn't it

_refreshing_.' And we all declared it was; and _so it was_."

Cecil, as usual, made a precipitate retreat at the conclusion of this

biographical anecdote, and Blanche soon followed him.

"By George!" he said, puffing a huge column of smoke from his mouth,

"that woman is insupportable. I really must quit this hole; at least

if that toad squats in it."

"She amuses me," said Blanche.

"Lucky for you."

Blanche took up her work, and sat beside her husband, who, stretched

upon the sofa, a cigar in his mouth, was at what he chose to consider

his morning meditations. He certainly did think; but thought of the

club, of society, of opera singers, and of his past life, far more

than he thought of his work. From time to time he spoke to Blanche,

and the subjects upon which he spoke were sufficiently trivial to

have told any one more clear-sighted than she was, how little art

occupied his reveries.

His cigar finished, he put on a pair of white kid gloves, and

occupied himself for half an hour cleaning them with india-rubber,

whistling, humming, and chatting all the while with enviable

_insouciance_.

That important business concluded, he rose, kissed his wife, yawned,

stretched his limbs, looked out of the window, and then took up his

_bottes vernies_, which he began to rub up, and brighten with a piece

of wool dipped in oil, whistling, humming, and chatting as before.

"What time is it, I wonder?" he said, drawing out his watch, "nearly

twelve! whew! how the morning flies. I must be off. Where's my

coat, Pet?"

She gave him his coat, and in another half hour he had completed his

toilet, and was ready to start.

"God bless you, my Pet!" he said, embracing her.

"Shall you be home to dinner to-day, dearest?"

"No, I am to dine with Lufton; and this evening we go to Miss

Mason's."

"Enjoy yourself! God bless you, dearest!"

Another kiss, and our man of genius departed for his studio. Arrived

there, he began to consider whether it were not too late to do

anything that day. It was near one o'clock; at two, Frank was to

call upon him. They were going to a morning conceit.

"It is decidedly useless beginning anything to-day. I'll just try

over some of those songs till Frank calls."

He sat down to the piano. Having sung for a quarter of an hour, he

opened a French novel, and was deep in that when his _fidus Achates_

appeared.

"Frank," said Cecil, as they strolled out together; "I am going to

ask you a question which generally disturbs friendship, but which

won't alter ours, because you'll answer it candidly."

"Cis, I know what that exordium means. Whenever a man begins in that

solemn circumlocutory manner he can have but one object--money."

Cecil laughed, as he replied,--

"You have hit it, by George!"

"Of course, I have. Do you think I have borrowed so much money

without learning every symptom?"

"Well, then, Frank, without disguise, I want to borrow a few pounds;

old Vyner has not relented, and his wife has not been lately with any

little contribution: but she can't be long, it has been due some

weeks."

"What has been due, old fellow?"

"Why, what she intends to give us."

Thus securely did Cecil rely upon that source of aid.

"Meanwhile," he added, "I am deucedly hard up, and if you have a few

pounds----"

"Make it shillings, Cis, and it will be quite as impossible. Egad!

it is rather a queer sensation for one who has been so long a

borrower, to be looked upon in the light of a _possible_ lender!"

"Say no more, Frank; you would do it if you could, I am sure."

"Damn my whiskers! if _you_ are sure of it, _I'm_ not. I doubt

whether I _could_ lend. I don't know the trick of it; I should feel

as strange and disreputable as if I were to pay a bill. Perhaps my

friendship for you might overcome that---- I don't know--perhaps it

might. But it is all speculation, so let us trouble ourselves no

more with it. As a matter of practice, judge how feasible it is when

I reveal to you the present state of my capital: four shillings and

some halfpence in current coin, and eighteen pence _invested_."

"Invested, Frank! in what, pray?"

"In a bill-stamp: I take care to be provided with that."

Cecil shouted with laughter, exclaiming,--"That's so like you."

It was, indeed, a trait which painted the man. The value of the

bill-stamp consisted, of course, in the chance of meeting with some

obliging young gentleman who would consent, "merely as a matter of

form," to put his name to the bill, which Frank would forget to take

up. But this value was now the more precarious, as that mere matter

of form had been so very frequently gone through, that he found it

excessively difficult to get it repeated. As he used to say,--

"We degenerate--damn my whiskers! we degenerate fearfully: the

principles of true _politeness_ are becoming effaced."

CHAPTER II.

ANOTHER LITERARY SOIRÉE.

The soirée at Hester Mason's, to which they went that evening, was

very much the same as the one formerly described; there were fewer

guests, and among them more women: a sure sign that she was getting

on in the world, and that the reputation of her parties was beginning

to cover any suspicious circumstances in her own position.

But the women were still of a questionable class: questionable, I

mean, not as regards propriety, but _ton_. There were no ladies who

gave parties, who were recognised as belonging to "society;" and,

above all, there were no girls there: the virgins were old, ugly, or

wise.

In a word, the women were almost exclusively literary women;

described by Cecil as poor faded creatures, who toiled in the British

Museum, over antiquated rubbish which they extracted and incorporated

with worse rubbish of their own--women who wrote about the

regeneration of their sex--who drivelled in religious tales--compiled

inaccurate histories--wrote moral stories for the young, or

unreadable verses for the old--translated from French and German

(with the assistance of a dictionary, a dashing contempt for English

idiom),--learned women, strong-minded women, religious women,

historical women, and poetical women; there were types of each class,

and by no means attractive types.

One remark Cecil made, which every one will confirm. "How curious it

is," said he, "to notice the intimate connexion between genius and

hair. You see it very often in men, but universally in women, that

the distinguishing mark of literary or artistic pretension is not in

the costume, but in the mode of arranging the hair. Women dress

their hair in a variety of ways: each has a reference to what is

becoming; but when women set up for genius or learning, all known

fashions are despised, and some outrageous singularity alone contents

them. Just look round this room. There is Hester herself: she is

young and handsome; but instead of taking advantage of her black

curls, she trains them up like a modern Frenchman. If you only saw

her head, you would call it a boy's. Then, again, next to her sits

Mrs. James Murch--she reads Greek, and writes verses; you see it by

the hair parted on one side, instead of in the centre, and by the

single curl plastered on her brow, emulous of a butcher boy. There

is Miss Stoking--she writes history and talks about the

'Chronicles'--I see that in the row of flat curls on her forehead,

and in the adjustment of her back hair. Miss Fuller must be a

philosophical woman, by the way in which all the hair is dragged off

her forehead. That bony thing next to her must be a poetess, by the

audacity of her crop. In fact, depend upon it, as there is a science

of phrenology, there is a science of hair."

These women did not, as may be guessed, give any additional charm to

Hester's parties, unless, indeed, in the shape of some fun.

Nevertheless, their presence was inexpressibly delightful to her, for

it was a sanction; and with all her sneers at the "conventions" of

society, Hester was most anxious to preserve them.

Cecil, who liked Hester very much, and was interested even in her

opinions which he did not share, was pitiless in his satire upon her

female friends; which I will not repeat here, lest the reader should

imagine that _I_ share the general dislike to clever women--a

conclusion against which I protest, and stoutly. True, I am not so

blind an admirer of cleverness as to think it atones for the absence

of womanly grace, gentleness, lovingness, and liveliness; but, on the

other hand, some of the most charming women--and _womanly_ women

too--I have ever known, have been distinguished in literature and

art. Will that avowal save me?

Hester forgave Cecil for his opinion, the more so as she shared it;

and although she combated his views on social matters as warmly as

ever, was falling over head and ears in love with him.

"You will come round to my way of thinking one day," she said; "so

elevated a mind as yours cannot long remain a slave to traditionary

sophisms; the Spirit of the Age will claim you."

"Pray," said Cecil, smiling, "can you explain to me what this spirit

of the age actually is? I hear a great deal about it, and comprehend

nothing that I hear. Is our age so very different from all those

that have gone before it?"

"Assuredly: it is the age of progress."

"Progress? but _that_ is the characteristic of all ages; society

never stands still."

"True, but sometimes it retrogrades, and now it advances. My dear

Mr. Chamberlayne, you will not deny that the peculiarity of our age

is not only progress, but consciousness of progress."

"That is to say, I suppose, while our forefathers contented

themselves with advancing, we prate about our advance. Now, of that

kind of consciousness I am as decided an enemy as Carlyle himself;

and his eloquent denunciations of it as the disease of our time find

full acceptance from me."

"Ah! my dear sir, Carlyle, with all his genius, does not understand

the historic development of humanity."

"Perhaps not; nor do I: though I have tried. But it still seems to

me an evil, not a benefit, that our modern reformers are so very

conscious--"

"Stop! You will not deny that every man should have a Purpose?"

Cecil, who knew this was one of the magnificent aphorisms of the

"earnest" school, paused for a reply. Seeing him hesitate, Mr.

Jukes, a sickly red-haired republican, with a feeble falsetto voice,

stammered forth--

"Is it p-p-p-possible, Mr. Ch-ch-chamberlayne, you can hesitate to

p-p-pronounce that e-e-every man should have a p-p-p-purpose?"

There was something so marvellously ludicrous in the feebleness of

the individual, contrasted with the apparent vigour of his doctrine,

that Cecil could with difficulty restrain his laughter, and hastened

to say--

"By no means--by no means. I presume every one _has_ a purpose; but,

then, the question is--what purpose?"

"If you admit," said Hester, "that a man must have a Purpose, it is

surely unreasonable to wish him not to be distinctly conscious of it:

then, only, can he best fulfil it; otherwise, he is a mere machine in

the hands of fortune. I say, therefore, that the consciousness of

our age is the consciousness of progress; each man of any real

eminence has a Mission, and he knows it; that Mission is to get the

broad principles of Humanity in its entire Developments fully

recognised. That Mission," she continued, with rising warmth, "is to

sweep from the face of the earth the worn-out sophisms which enslave

it; to give Mind its high Prerogatives; to cut from the heart of

society the cancer of Conventionalism which corrupts it; to place Man

in majestic antagonism to Convention; to erect the Banner of

Progress, and give the democratic Mind of Europe its unfettered

sphere of action."

"A grand scheme," replied Cecil, smiling; "but how is all this to be

accomplished?"

"By indomitable re-re-resolution; b-b-b-by f-f-f-ixity of

p-p-purpose," suggested Jukes.

"By a recognition of the rights of women," sternly remarked the

philosophical Mrs. Fuller.

"The Greeks," began Mrs. James Murch, "whose literature----"

Here she was interrupted by Miss Stoking, who thought that if readers

were not so fond of "trash," and would only look into the

"Chronicles," something considerable might result.

The epic poet--the celebrated author of "Mount Horeb, and other

Poems"--thought the age was not religious enough: there was not

enough divine aspiration in the souls of modern men to bring about

any grand revolution.

Mr. Blundell (the kind of "Boz," as his friends told him) thought

that there was a deficiency of wit, and referred to a "government

tempered with epigrams" as his ideal.

Hester would admit of nothing but the "broad Principles of Humanity:"

upon these she stood.

"My dear Miss Mason," said Mrs. Murch, "surely the Greeks, whose

literature----"

"And women?" interposed Mrs. Fuller. "Are women not destined to play

a great part in the reformation of society?"

"Oh, yes!" replied Hester; "the greatest part--I am quite of your

opinion. Society must be reorganized, and in its new structure women

must fill their proper place; they must be consulted--their rights

must be recognised. You have no idea," she added, turning to Cecil,

"what an enormous difference there would be if society were

reconstructed with a view to the equal partition of power between man

and woman."

"I beg your pardon," he said, laughing; "I have a very formidable

idea of it. In fact, I think there is already too great a

preponderance of female influence."

A chorus of indignant astonishment followed this from all the ladies,

except from Mrs. Murch, who, pertinaciously sticking to her yet

unexpressed idea, began--

"Now, my belief is that the Greeks, whose literature----"

"You protest," said Cecil, not noticing Mrs. Murch, "against my

dictum? But hear me. The gradual softening of manners, by

constraining men to relinquish their advantage in physical force, has

destroyed the balance of power, and _unbeaten woman_ has the upper

hand."

Hester laughed; the philosophical Mrs. Fuller frowned; and Mrs. Murch

fastened upon poor Blundell, to expatiate to him in confidence on the

literature of the Greeks; but even here she was not allowed to

proceed far before he interrupted her with the question--

"Had the Greeks a 'Boz?'"

She turned from him with a look of withering contempt.

All this while Frank Forrester was engaged at a corner card-table,

winning an ambitious young farce-writer's money at _écarté_; having

emptied his pockets of seven pounds and a few shillings, Frank rose

from the table and joined the talkers. But Cecil's jest had changed

the conversation, and as it was getting late he prepared to depart.

"What! going so early?" reproachfully asked Hester.

Had Cecil been a vainer man, or one caring less for his wife, that

look and tone would have been plainly significant to him; but he

noticed nothing, and merely said--

"They are waiting up for me at home."

"And your wife will scold you," said she, pettishly.

"No; but worse than that--I shall reproach myself."

She gave him her hand coldly, and wished him good-night.

CHAPTER III.

THE TIGER TASTES BLOOD.

"Cis, my boy," said Frank, as they stepped into the street, "you have

made a conquest there; poor Chetsom!"

"Pshaw!" said Cecil, "don't be absurd, Frank; she knows I'm married."

Frank stopped--turned him round to look him full in the face--and

then whistled.

"Cis, your innocence--if it be not hypocrisy--is worthy of a

primitive age. Married! She knows you're married! Ha! ha! ha! By

George! you remind me of that vaudeville we saw last year at the

_Variétés_ in Paris, where Lafont embraces Ozy, who repulses him

with--_Mais, Mosieu, j'aime mon mari_; to which Lafont, stupefied at

such innocence, as I am at yours, replies--_Tiens! tu aimes ton mari?

c'est bizarre, sans doute; mais enfin ce n'est pas defendu!_"

"Joke as you please; I repeat, Hester knows I am married, and may

easily see that I have no disposition to be unfaithful."

"Cis, you ought to have a statue! Damn my whiskers!" They walked on

for some moments without speaking. "By the way, Cis, you asked me to

lend you some money. I hadn't it then, I have now. I won a few

yellow boys of a conceited ass who had the amiable weakness of

fancying he could play _écarté_--and with me too--with me! It is but

a paltry seven that I won, but that properly placed must bring in

more. I think you have never played _rouge et noir_, have you?"

"Never; nor do I intend."

"Nonsense! look here: Men always win at first: it's an invariable

rule. Fortune always seduces youngsters with smiles. Now, I'll lend

you five pounds, if you will try your luck, and give me a third of

your winnings."

Cecil refused, was pressed, and refused again: but he never could

withstand Frank for any length of time, and ended by accompanying him

to a gambling-house. They knocked at the door; and after a

scrupulous examination on the part of the porter, who did not at

first recognise Frank--no one being admitted except when introduced

by a frequenter of the house--they ascended to the drawing-room,

where they found a rather numerous assembly.

There were three tables. That in the centre was the most attended:

it was the _rouge et noir_ table. That on the left was devoted to

roulette; that on the right to hazard. There was a low hubbub and

confusion of voices, above which rose these sounds:

"Make your game, gentlemen."

"The game is made."

"Seven's the main."

"Red wins."

Cecil approached the centre table, and was instantly made way for by

two lookers-on. At the side centre sat the dealer, before him two

packs of cards placed together; beside him two croupiers. Opposite

sat two croupiers, and a man who collected and shuffled the cards.

Piles of gold, bank notes, and silver counters were glittering on the

table, enough to awaken the spirit of gain in the most prudent breast.

It was a painful sight. The features of the players were distorted

by anxiety; those of the dealer and croupiers had become hardened

into masks, more hideous in their sodden calmness than agitation

could have made them.

Painful, also, the contrasts afforded by the players. Some were

reckless, others calculating; some were feverish in their impatience;

others lost in quiet despair small sums which to them were fortunes;

while several passed hours together pricking a card with a pin, and

trying to wrest the secret of the capricious goddess, by counting the

turns of her wheel; then, after as much calculation and patience as

would, if directed to any honest employment, have produced a tangible

result, hazarding their solitary half-crown, and losing it in

astonishment and dismay.

Seedy, withered men were also there, whose whole existence depended

upon their trivial gains; who daily risked their few shillings,

content to retire with a few shillings gain, which they took home to

their wretched families--and if they lost, content to abide the loss,

without further risk that day. There was one man there who bore the

unmistakeable marks of a gentleman, in spite of the worn, anxious

face and seedy dress; he was never known to miss an evening, and

never to play more than four coups on each evening. His stake was

invariably half a crown, and it was rare indeed that he did not win

three coups out of the four--timing his stake with such knowledge of

the chances. With the seven and sixpence or ten shillings he thus

gained, he supported a wife and five children.

Is there not something singularly distressing in such an existence?

To struggle daily with the capricious turns of fortune for a

miserable three half-crowns, and to gain that only by consummate

self-mastery! Yet there are men who choose such a life, rather than

one of honourable labour; men who have mastery enough over their

passions to be cool at the gaming-table, yet not sufficient mastery

to keep _from_ it! This would be inexplicable did we not know the

powerful attraction of all exciting uncertainty: did we not recognise

the inherent desire for emotional excitement which is implanted in

every heart. In honourable labour such men have not learnt to seek

their excitement--they find it at the gaming-table; and hence the

fascination of gaming. It is to be noted, in confirmation of what

has just been said, that inveterate gamesters are thoroughly aware of

the enormous disadvantage at which they play--thoroughly convinced

the bank must win--yet they play!

The scene was new to Cecil, and affected him painfully, as it always

does those who are not carried away by the passion of gaming; but he

was there to play _once_, and he surmounted his disgust; inwardly

vowing that whatever might be the fortune of that night, he would

never repeat the experiment.

The room was singularly quiet, considering how many persons were

assembled. The sounds of bottles being uncorked, the clatter of

glasses, and the chink of money were distinctly audible; conversation

being carried on for the most part in whispers.

Cecil played. Frank, trusting entirely to the good fortune which so

proverbially favours beginners, abstained from giving him any advice.

He played at random and lost. His five pounds were soon gone. Frank

slipped the other two into his hand; they followed the others. As

the last crown disappeared, Cecil saw a young man heap together a

pile of notes and sovereigns; huddling them into his pocket, he

called for some champagne, and having drunk it, departed. He came

down stairs at the same moment with Frank and Cecil, in high spirits.

"That's what we ought to have done," said Frank.

"Why did you force me to play?" said Cecil, bitterly; like all weak

men, throwing the blame of his own folly upon others.

"Who the devil would have supposed you could lose the first time?"

"Well--it is a bit of experience. Perhaps I have bought it cheap

after all."

He walked home, however, as angry as if he were by no means so

satisfied with the bargain; and Blanche, who was sitting up for him

as usual, was surprised to find him so out of humour. He was

sometimes tired when he came home, but always ready to talk freely

with her, and recount the adventures of the day. That night he was

taciturn, and gave evasive short replies to all her questions; till

at last she saw that he was unwilling to talk, and left him in peace.

He was restless that night. It was long before he went to sleep; and

when he did fall into a fitful doze, he was troubled by strange

dreams of the gaming-table. Sometimes he was playing with a pile of

notes before him; sometimes he had lost every shilling, and awoke in

his despair--to find himself in bed.

CHAPTER IV.

THE YOUNG FATHER.

Life is too short for mean anxieties;

Soul! thou must work, though blindfold.

KINGSLEY.--_The Saints' Tragedy._

The next morning Cecil had almost regained his cheerfulness. The

thought of last night's loss would occasionally dash his spirits, for

seven pounds, in his situation, was not a trifling sum.

"When is your mother going to send us any money?" he said; "does she

imagine we can get on without it?"

"I expect her every day; but perhaps, dear, she has not been able to

save any."

"Pshaw! if she chose----!"

"When will your opera be ready, dearest?"

"I'm sure I don't know--but soon, I hope. Something must be done,

Blanche, for our condition is really pitiable. Thank God, we have no

children!"

Blanche trembled, and coloured violently as he said this; but

summoning courage, she laid her hand upon his shoulder and asked,--

"Why thank God for that, Cecil?"

"Why? because it is a great blessing."

"And should we not think children a blessing?

"No!"

She hesitated; and then went on,--

"Do you mean to say, Cecil, you would not be very proud and very

happy to dandle a child of your own--with your own dear eyes and

lovely smile?"

"No; I don't like brats."

"But your children would not be brats. Oh! you would love them, I

know you would; you would be as proud of them as I should. Only

think, how darling it would be to have a little cherub here with

us----"

"Yes, yes--there's the sentimentality of women! They only think of

the cherub--not of the red, squalling, slobbering, troublesome baby.

They only think of the pleasure of dandling, kissing, hugging,

dressing, and attending on it;--it is a plaything to them, and they

never think of the expense."

"No, dearest Cecil, they do not; nor would _you_. The love for our

offspring which God has planted in our hearts, is too pure, too

healthy and unselfish, not to override every other feeling. The

poorest parents are always glad to have more children, because more

children means more love."

A sudden suspicion crossed him; he seized hold of her, and looking

closely in her face, said,--

"Blanche, it strikes me you have some motive for pleading in this way

in favour of children. I never heard you so eloquent before. Let me

know the worst. Are you----?"

She hid her blushing face in his bosom, and pressed him to her

convulsively.

"The devil!" was his brutal exclamation.

A vision of a large family and destitution stood before him, and his

heart sank at the prospect.

"Are you not glad?" she asked him gently, not raising her face from

its resting-place.

"Glad!" he exclaimed with vehemence, "glad at the prospect of

bringing children to share our poverty? Glad, when I know not how we

are to exist ourselves, to learn that fresh burdens are come upon us?

This is a nice place to rear a child in! It will have every comfort;

we shall be so comfortable: such a nursery! And when I come home

harassed from my day's work, wanting repose and quiet, a squalling

baby will be so pleasant! Glad; yes, yes, there's a great deal to be

glad about!"

She crept from him, and sank upon a chair.

"How the child is to be provided for, God only knows. We can't stop

here. They would not keep us with the nuisance of a child in the

house. We must seek some miserable lodging of our own, and there

live squalidly. And to think of your being rejoiced at such an

event: that is so like women!"

Her little heart was breaking, and half stifled sobs burst from her

as he continued. It was indeed a fearful trial for the young mother!

She had hoped to see him as proud and happy as herself; she had hoped

that the child would be a fresh link between them--a link which, by

making their poor home more cheerful to him, would have kept him

oftener with her. And this was his answer!

She covered her face in her hands, and wept scalding tears of

heart-breaking misery.

Her sobs pierced his heart; he could not withstand them. He loved

her too dearly to see her sorrowing unmoved; and forgetting in that

sight all his selfish fears and calculations, he caught her in his

arms and exclaimed, "Blanche--my own beautiful Blanche! don't cry--I

am a brute--I did not mean it--indeed I did not. Look up. There;

see, I _am_ glad; I will be glad. You are right. My fears were

foolish. We shall be all the happier! Don't sob so, my blessed

one--you kill me!"

"Oh, Cecil, Cecil!" she sobbed, as she threw her arms round him

convulsively.

"My own pet, don't cry now. I was taken by surprise. I only thought

of our poverty. You are right. Poorer people are happy in their

children, why should we not be? Dry your eyes, beauty. There; you

see I am quite come round. I hope it will be a girl: a dear little

petkin, just like its darling mother. Fancy a toddling Blanche!

won't it be a beauty? It must be christened Blanche--eh? Or suppose

it's a boy, what name shall we give it? Tell me, beauty."

She only kissed him feverishly; she could not speak: her trembling

agitation was not yet subdued, and the tears continued to fall fast.

"What a Turk he will be; won't he? Just like his mother--you are a

Turk, you know, pet!"

Blanche smiled faintly.

"There, you begin to smile--that's right. I see I am forgiven. Dry

your eyes, they are quite swollen. You don't look at all handsome

when you cry--no, not at all. There, now you laugh you are yourself

again--laugh away those tears, or I will take your portrait as you

are, and your children shall see their mother as the Niobe of the

nineteenth century. Will you be painted as Niobe?"

She laughed again, but it was slightly hysterical. However, by

caresses and cajoleries, he brought her round at last, and her eyes

were dried. They were soon talking over the prospects of their

children, as if nothing had occurred; an occasional sigh--the mere

physical effect of previous grief--alone recalling the moment of

agony she had escaped. Cecil was afraid to leave her, lest she

should relapse, so he proposed to take her into town to see the

exhibition of old paintings at the British Institution.

Blanche was perfectly happy. She had been but too readily persuaded

that he was, on reflection, really delighted at the prospect of a

family; she wished so to believe it! And he was more charming and

cajoling than ever.

Had she loved him less, the foregoing scene would have completely

disenchanted her; but love sealed her eyes, and she saw no

selfishness, no unmanly weakness in his horror at the idea of a

child. She saw nothing, in fact, but what he chose her to see: his

affection, and his warm caressing manners.

Although Cecil never again allowed Blanche to suspect that he was

otherwise than delighted, and although he even tried to convince

himself that, after all, there was nothing disagreeable in having a

family; that it was one of the inevitable conditions of marriage, and

therefore should be accepted with cheerful resignation; yet did the

idea frequently depress him.

This much is to be urged in favour of the unwillingness of fathers to

incur the burden of children: that while the maternal instinct from

the very first--nay, even in girlhood--makes the woman look forward

with anticipative joy to the time of becoming a mother, the paternal

instinct is seldom developed until the child is actually there to

call it forth. Fathers love their children as much, or nearly so, as

mothers; but fathers do not, as mothers do, love _prospective_

children. The man contemplates the expense, trouble, and

responsibility of children, which the woman, with beautiful

improvidence, never thinks about; but when the children are born, the

man joins the woman in forgetting, in their joy, the drawbacks to

their joy.

Cecil was just the man to make a doating spoiling father to the very

child whose announcement made him so serious.

The seriousness with which he accepted his lot would have been

incalculably beneficial to him, had he possessed a grain or two more

of moral resolution. It impressed him once more with the conviction

of the necessity for work. It stimulated him again to daily labour.

Warned by the state of his finances, he relinquished the idle

dreaming of genius awaiting inspiration, and began to set his

shoulder to the wheel.

So strenuously did he work, that in less than three weeks he finished

his comic opera, words and music, and had now to begin the arduous

task of getting it performed.

CHAPTER V.

RENUNCIATION.

J'aurais dans ta mémoire une place sacrée;

Mais vivre près de toi, vivre l'âme ulcérée,

O ciel! moi qui n'aurais jamais aimé que toi,

Tous les jours, peux-tu bien y songer sans effroi,

Je te ferais pleurer, j'aurais mille pensées

Que je ne dirais pas, sur les choses passées

J'aurais l'air d'épier, de douter, de souffrir.

VICTOR HUGO.--_Marion de Lorme._

The termination of Cecil's opera was coincident with that fearful

scene recorded at the close of our second volume, wherein Marmaduke

avowed his passion to Violet, and unwittingly achieved his vengeance

upon Mrs. Vyner.

On quitting the room, Violet had promised him to renew their

interrupted interview, but she had made that promise unthinkingly,

and when in solitude she reflected on all that had passed, felt

herself unequal to it. Greatly had Marmaduke's confession relieved

her, but greatly also had it pained her.

She could now indulge her love for him without remorseful bitterness

and contempt, though not with any hope. He was reinstated in her

good opinion. He was not false and fickle. He had not loved Mrs.

Vyner. His attentions--those attentions which had given her such

pain--were explained; and in her joy at the explanation, she

overlooked what had been criminal in them, to see only that they did

not affect his love for her. Well was it conceived by the

mythologists to make Love blind!

But this joy was dashed with the recollection that he never could be

hers. All that had transpired would prevent their union. Neither

her father nor her step-mother could be expected to give their

consent; and with their consent, if it were given, she still felt

that her own must be withheld. How could she ever accept the man who

had been both seriously and treacherously the lover of her father's

wife--the man whom that wife loved?

The horrible sarcasm in which Mrs. Vyner bade her "accept her

leavings," still rankled in the proud soul of Violet, and created an

irremediable loathing. It was under these mixed emotions that she

sat down and wrote the following letter:--

"Your frankness deserves a frank reply. I feel myself unable to meet

you again, after what has passed,--you must understand why; but I

cannot refuse an answer to your declaration.

"If it be any consolation--if it alleviate the pain my resolution may

inflict upon you--know that your love is returned. Yes, Marmaduke, I

love you. I tell you so without reserve, without maidenly timidity.

I love you. But the very fearlessness with which I make this avowal

arises from the fixedness of my purpose. It is because I can never

see you again, because our union has become _impossible_, that I am

tempted to unveil my soul before you. No, Marmaduke, I was not

playing with you; I was not encouraging attentions because they

flattered my vanity--I encouraged them because I loved.

"You asked me for forgiveness; and the deep sad tones of your

repentant voice are ringing in my ears. I do forgive you, Marmaduke;

forgive you all the pain your conduct gave me--I can excuse your

error. I can feel that it was a crime made almost venial by the

circumstances and your education. The moment when, with vengeance in

your hands, you drew back from its accomplishment, and acknowledged

to yourself that it was unworthy of a man, that it was a crime, not

an act of justice--that moment purified your soul--that moment

redeemed you in your own eyes and in mine.

"But, Marmaduke, I cannot _forget_ as easily as I can forgive.

Nothing can banish from my mind the hideous remembrance of what _has

been_, and what _is_. The thought that you had once loved _her_

would poison all my happiness; and the thought that she still loves

you ... Oh! is that not fearful? You see how undisguisedly I write

to you! It tears me to pieces, but it must be done, once for all. I

shall not write again. I shall not see you again. Far away from

you, I shall struggle with my sorrow, and conquer it, I hope, in

time. Far away from you, I shall not cease to think of you; and

memory will solace me with your image, I shall hear your voice, see

your deep eyes loving me, press your hand, and so cheat my misery.

But away from you I must go. Must I not? Do you not see the

necessity? Do you not feel that our union is utterly hopeless? How

could we escape the circumstances of our unhappy lot? My father

would never consent--_she_ would never consent; and if I renounced

all, if I fled with you from home and country, how could I escape

from my own conscience? how could I forget?

"I renounce the hope of happiness. I have only now to bear with

fortitude my wretched fate. Forget me, Marmaduke. No, that is an

idle phrase--I do not mean it. Do not forget me; think of me, think

of me often, and love me still, if you can; at least pity me, and

imitate me. Accept fate; bow your head to its irresistible decree;

but do not despair. Life has other purposes than love; other

purposes even than happiness; let those occupy you. In this life we

are separated, but we shall meet above. It is but a brief moment's

pain, and we shall then pass away into a brighter, purer sphere, and

have a whole Eternity to love in; there our sorrows will be stilled;

that let us await!

"I have stained this paper with my tears--I will not affect to hide

them. I must weep, for my heart is breaking, Marmaduke; but I shall

not flinch. I know what it is I am about to do; know how much pain

it will give me; but I can do it, and I will. Weep I must, for I am

a woman; but I can endure.

"If my tears make this almost illegible, do not suppose that they

will weaken me. I am unalterable. Tears strengthen me; they relieve

the tightness of my straining heart; I do not check them. I shall

shed many, very many, ere I quit this world; but life itself is very

short, and I look beyond the grave.

"God bless you, my own beloved, and give you courage to bear the

inevitable! Love me, and pray for me. God bless you! Oh, how it

pains me to say--farewell!

"VIOLET."

This letter was put into the post as the miserable girl departed from

home, on a visit to her uncle in Worcestershire, with whom she

contemplated passing the remainder of her days; certain that he would

be but too happy to have her, and feeling that home was now

uninhabitable.

CHAPTER VI.

MAN PURIFIED BY EXPERIENCE.

My desolation does begin to make

A better life.

SHAKSPEARE.--_Antony and Cleopatra._

Who shall describe the delight and grief of Marmaduke on reading that

letter? She loved him; but she refused him. He saw as plainly as

she did the reason of her refusal, and bitterly cursed himself for

having drawn such a net around him. But was there no issue? Could

nothing be devised which would in some way remove this obstacle?

Nothing, nothing.

He called and was refused admittance. He wrote to Rose, who replied

that her sister had left London, but had enjoined inviolable secrecy

as to the place of her destination.

Marmaduke had nothing to do but await in sullen despair the hazard

which might again bring him into communication with Violet, having

failed in all attempts to get a clue to her present residence. But

she loved him; that was a sweet thought to alleviate his sorrow: she

loved him; and with that conviction he could afford to await events.

He ceased almost to hold communication with the world; shut up in his

study he led a solitary, meditative, studious life, strangely at

variance with his former occupations. A noble resolution had taken

possession of his soul; the conviction that he was loved by so great

a woman made him desirous of becoming more worthy of her love.

Knowing Violet's high thoughts and sympathy with greatness, he

resolved to make a name. Parliament, the great field of Englishmen's

ambition, was the arena chosen for the contest. His previous

education had but ill-fitted him to make a display there; yet to

strong will, energy, and ability what can be denied?

He set himself to the task with the impetuous ardour which

characterized all his acts. He studied history, political economy,

and what may be called political ethics. He read and re-read the

orators, ancient and modern, not with a view of copying their

peculiarities, but to draw therefrom certain general conclusions

respecting the art by which masses of men are swayed. Burke, the

great thinker, great orator, and incomparable writer, was his

constant companion.

In this solitude his mind became strengthened, nourished, and

enlarged, and at the same time his moral nature became more developed

and purified. Nothing could ever eradicate certain defects of his

organization--defects which were the shadows thrown by his best

qualities. Nothing could ever have made him calm, moderate,

unprejudiced, or self-sacrificing. Passionate, reckless, and

excitable Nature had made him; and no education, no trials could

alter his disposition. But these very qualities, with their

accompanying defects, fitted him for an orator, whose splendid

enthusiasm, overbearing impetuosity, audacious courage, and

irresistible bursts of passion were capable of swaying mankind. He

was born to command and to lead; education and a high purpose were

now fitting him for the office.

While he was thus acquiring the means wherewith an honourable name is

made, he was also gaining those clear moral ideas by which alone a

great name can long be honourably maintained. The more he became

aware of the imperishable importance of high morality, the more

painfully did he recoil at the remembrance of his unpardonable

conduct with Mrs. Vyner. The clearer his moral perceptions grew, the

more iniquitous, the more contemptible appeared his passion for

vengeance.

"What must Violet think of me?" was his frequent self-questioning;

and he shuddered at the idea. Henry Taylor has profoundly said, that

conscience is, in most men, the anticipation of the opinion of

others. It is so in all men. It is the horror we feel at

contemplating the probable judgment which those we respect and love

will form on our acts. So it was with Marmaduke. He had learned to

view his conduct in its true light; he doubted not that Violet must

look at it with the same loathing; and bitter reproaches assailed

him. Often and often did he dwell upon that part of her letter

wherein she excused him; but it seemed so slight, he could not

believe her wholly sincere. She was sincere when she wrote it, but

would not subsequent reflection show her, as it had shown him, the

whole affair under another aspect? It would--it must.

He forgot one thing: that he looked upon his error with the anxious

and probing severity of one who repents, and that she looked upon it

with the blindness of one who loves!

For the sake of clearness, I have told you in this chapter the

history of several months, and may now leave Marmaduke at his studies

to return to the other persons whose fortunes were more varied.

CHAPTER VII.

POOR VYNER.

Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turned,

Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

BYRON.

When Meredith Vyner came into the drawing-room and found his wife

senseless on the floor, he imagined she had been seized with a fit,

for he was unaware of Marmaduke having been in the house. Mrs. Vyner

availed herself of the supposition, and so escaped irritating

inquiries; she just mentioned that she had been very much distressed

and excited that morning, and that doubtless her fit had been greatly

owing to it.

"And what distressed you, my love?"

"Oh, I cannot tell you."

"Yes; do dear, do tell me."

"Will you promise not to mention a word of it to Violet?"

"I will."

"Well, then, it was on her account. You know how I wished for a

match between her and young Ashley? You know his audacious love for

me? I tried to make him relinquish his foolish hopes--I tried to

lead him to think of her. He scorned the idea--vowed he loved me and

only me--and was so violent that I was obliged to order him to quit

the house, and never to re-enter it. He left me in a great passion.

It is a rupture for ever."

Instead of feeling in the least distressed at this rupture, Meredith

Vyner could not conceal his joy. What cared he for Violet's

sorrow--was not his rival got rid of?

He redoubled his attentions to his wife--now wholly his, he

thought!--and felt that the great misery he had dreaded was now

forever banished. When Violet came to him, therefore, to ask his

permission to go down to her uncle, he gave it willingly, and without

inquiry.

Marmaduke dismissed, how happy now would the house be! Mary would

again become the sprightly, cajoling, attentive wife; she would again

come into his study to hear him read aloud; would again interest

herself in Horace. By the way, he had sadly neglected Horace of

late; not a single emendation had been made; not a note written.

That could not continue. He had no time to lose. He was no longer

young. If age should creep on before he had finished that great

work, what a loss to literature!

Alas! neither home nor Horace profited by this dismissal of a rival.

The attentive wife grew pettish, irritable, and more avowedly

indifferent than ever. Her health was seriously affected. She was

subject to hysterics, which came on apparently without cause. Her

gaiety had entirely disappeared, and she was often found in tears.

She would rally from time to time, and endeavour, in incessant

dissipation, to escape from the torment of her thoughts; but this

never lasted long; she soon relapsed again into a capricious,

fretful, malicious, melancholy state of mind.

She had, indeed, received a deep wound. That conscience which, in

its anticipation of the opinion of others, so troubled the studious

Marmaduke, was an awful retribution on Mrs. Vyner. The thought that

he had duped her and had excited her love--for she had loved

him--merely as a means of revenge, was of itself sufficient to rouse

her to exasperation; but when to that was added the thought of Violet

knowing it--of the detested Violet who had always seen through and

scorned her, and who now held the secret of her guilty passion--it

became a rankling poison in her soul. Nor was the fury of jealousy

absent. This villain who had played with her, did he not love the

haughty girl who despised her?

The poor old pedant was at a loss to comprehend the cause of his

wife's conduct. She could not love Marmaduke, or why should she

dismiss him; yet, if she did not love him, why was she so miserable?

In vain he tried by kindness to revive within her that semblance of

affection with which she had hitherto cheated him. She ceased all

hypocrisy, though hypocrisy would have been kindness. She received

his demonstrations of affection with exasperating indifference, and

when he, on one or two occasions, endeavoured to exert his

authority--for he was master in his own house, he supposed--she only

laughed at him.

The poor old man retired to his books, but not to read; in mute

distress he ruminated on the change which had taken place, and sat

there helpless and hopeless. He tried to forget these painful

thoughts in occupying himself with his great work; but he sat there,

the book open before him, the pen idle in his hand, and the snuff-box

his only consolation.

His domestic peace was gone, and he began to perceive it.

CHAPTER VIII.

REHEARSAL OF THE OPERA.

"Good news, pet," said Cecil, dancing into the room one afternoon.

"Moscheles, whom I meet sometimes, you know, at Hester Mason's, has

looked over my opera, and likes it very much; he has even proposed

that we should have a sort of private rehearsal of it at his house

next week, and has undertaken to secure the singers, and Bunn is to

be there to hear it."

"That is good news, indeed."

"Yes, we shall be rich now. It has given me fresh courage: I feel I

can finish _Nero_."

"Mama has been here to-day with Rose, and has brought us thirty

pounds. She is very ill--very ill indeed, and the physicians don't

know what is the matter. Rose and Violet are already busy with the

baby linen, and Rose insists upon being godmother."

"With all my heart! I'm so happy, petkin!" and he danced about the

room like a schoolboy on receiving intelligence of a half-holiday.

"We must move away from this hole at once, pet. We will take

comfortable apartments somewhere."

"Let us rather wait awhile: the opera is not accepted yet, you know."

"But it will be, and it must succeed--I feel it must."

The gleam of hope which now shone on his prospects made Cecil almost

another man. He worked steadily at "Nero," and finished it before

the hearing of his opera took place. It was sent to the Academy.

When it took its place in the Exhibition it would infallibly excite a

sensation: crowds would gaze enraptured on it: critics would proclaim

its merits in all the journals, and some nobleman of taste would

become the proud purchaser. Their prospects were brilliant. Happy

dreams of young ambition in its first struggles with circumstance!

How many a sad spirit have ye not soothed and strengthened!

The hearing of his opera took place. Moscheles himself presided at

the piano, playing the accompaniments and overture with his exquisite

skill. Henry Phillips, Wilson, Stretton, and a certain prima donna,

who shall be nameless, were the singers, Cecil undertaking some of

the minor parts. The choruses were omitted; only the solos and

concerted pieces were executed, but they gave general satisfaction.

Private rehearsals, like private readings, are, however, always

successful, and a little excellence produces a great effect on

friendly auditors. The singer thought so great by his friends, whose

success at parties is so brilliant, finds to his cost that concert

rooms and audiences are not so easily pleased. Bunn had experience

enough of such matters to be aware of all this, and though he saw a

chance of success with the opera, he was rather guarded in his

language. On the whole, however, he was disposed to give the work a

trial.

That satisfied Cecil. He thought, the first step gained, the victory

was his. Experience came with its bitter lesson to undeceive him.

In the dramatic world, success is only purchased by a series of

hard-won battles. In no province of human endeavour has a man to

endure more thankless labour; in no province is luck more potent. To

write a play or an opera is the smallest of the artist's

difficulties. Once written, he has to get the manager's acceptance:

few things more arduous than that, if the artist be not already

celebrated. Cecil had by a fortunate accident achieved this feat. A

manager had listened to and approved of his work. In his innocence,

Cecil imagined the day was his own. He knew nothing of actors and

singers. The prima donna absolutely declined to perform her part; so

did the second tenor. And their reasons? Their reasons were simply

these:--

The heroine of the opera was a Miss Hopkins, daughter of a vulgar

cheesemonger. H. Phillips was willing to play the cheesemonger, but

the prima donna would not play the daughter. She had been used to

play spangled princesses, with feathers in her hair; or picturesque

peasants, with short petticoats and striped stockings; and the idea

of her appearing as a cheesemonger's daughter, minus spangles,

feathers, short petticoats, and striped stockings! In vain it was

represented to her that the opera was a comic opera; she did not wish

to excite laughter, but sentiment; and she was dogged in her

resolution.

The second tenor was a sentimental warbler. He not only objected to

Wilson playing the best part, he also objected to his own part us

"out of his line."

Owing to the beautiful arrangements of our dramatic system, the

"stars" have not only absolute right to dictate to authors and

composers, but also, in effect to dictate to managers. They would

all cut down a play or an opera to single parts if they could; and

while ludicrously sensitive to their own reputation, are

remorselessly indifferent to the author's, as well as to the

manager's purse.

What would Shakspeare, Jonson, Moliere, or Calderon say, could they

rise from their graves to witness our beautiful dramatic system? How

is it some Churchill does not take the whip in hand to lash this

miserable arrogance of the stage? While vanity, pretension, and

injustice, in other shapes, are laughed at and exposed, why do they

escape when they appear in the preposterous demands of actors,

singers, and dancers?

In his indignation, Cecil wrote a satire. Unfortunately he was not a

Churchill: his satire was violent, but weak, and weak because of its

violence. Besides, he was fighting his own cause; _indignatio fecit

versum_, and the public only saw an angry author smarting from

imaginary or exaggerated injuries.

Cecil's discouragement may be imagined. He who at no time was able

to contend manfully against obstacles, was the last person to rise

with the occasion and vanquish opposition by determined will.

To complete his discouragement the Exhibition had opened, and no

wondering crowds collected round his "Nero." Very few of the critics

noticed it, and they noticed it coldly or contemptuously. One who

recognised a certain grandeur in the idea, was pitiless in his

criticism of the execution; which he pronounced "crude," "chalky,"

"opaque," "slovenly," and "incorrect."

Cecil sneered at the "envy" and "ignorance" of the critics, as

authors usually sneer at those who do not admire them; though why a

man who does not paint, should be "envious" of a man who paints

badly, I have not yet discovered. Vauvenargues has an admirable

remark: "Un versificateur ne connait point de juge compétent de ses

écrits: si on ne fait pas de vers on ne s'y connait pas; si on en

fait on est son rival." How constantly do painters illustrate this

remark!

Cecil parodied Coriolanus, and to his critics said "I banish you."

He wrapped himself up in his own greatness, and waited the impartial

judgment of enlightened judges. By impartial, he meant favourable:

that is the meaning of the word in every artist's lexicon. No one,

it would seem, was enlightened enough, for no one talked about

"Nero;" above all, no one thought of purchasing it. The "envy" of

critics seemed to have been shared by connoisseurs and noblemen.

There is something really tragic in certain conditions to which men

of superior faculties are daily subject, in their efforts to cut a

pathway for themselves through the crowded avenues of fame. Fancy

the poor poet unable to find a publisher, and unable to print his

work himself. He cannot now, as heretofore, stand up in the

market-place, and so get a hearing. The press is the only possible

mode of proclaiming to the world, that which the poet feels will

rouse that world to rapture, and will make him a sort of demigod.

Fancy the young barrister sitting in his chambers day after day, in

fruitless expectation of a brief. He cannot offer his services: he

must wait till they be demanded. He can _do_ nothing; but must sit

there day after day, day after day, seeing little chance of being

required, yet forced to remain there on the chance. Fancy also the

painter who sees persons crowding the Exhibition, passing over his

work, to look out for the works of favourite artists, giving handsome

sums for various pictures, yet making no offer for his. Day after

day this is renewed, till the last hope ends with the closing of the

Exhibition, and he is then forced to congratulate himself, if the

dealers will give him a small sum for what he considers _a

chef-d'œuvre_.

The parent who has seen and reflected upon this, and yet educates his

son as an artist, because it is a "fine thing" to be an artist; the

parent who suffers his self-love to blind him to his child's want of

a decided genius, and chooses to call an ordinary aptitude "genius,"

is with selfish vanity destroying that child's future hopes of

success in life. Music, painting, and sculpture, are arts founded on

instincts so strong, and so unmistakeable in their early

manifestation that unless the child very early exhibits extraordinary

faculty for the arts, the parent should take Nature's warning; and

not endeavour by cultivation to raise that flower which only grows

wild in the secret spots Nature herself selects.

CHAPTER IX.

CECIL SUCCUMBS.

Now why must I disturb a dream of bliss,

And bring cold sorrow 'twixt the wedded kiss?

How mar the fate of beauty, and disclose

The weeping days that with the morning rose.

LEIGH HUNT.--_Rimini._

Ever since that night when Cecil had first entered a gambling-house,

and lost the few pounds Frank had lent him, the image of the joyous

winner huddling the notes and gold into his pocket pursued him like a

phantom. He had resolved to play no more; he could not afford to

lose; and his first venture had been so unfortunate, that he could

not hope hazard would be in his favour. Men have extraordinary

practical belief or disbelief in their own "luck." Ask a man if he

seriously, theoretically believes in anything of the kind, and he

will answer, No. Yet that very man puts his name down in a raffle,

or cuts cards against an adversary, or stakes large sums on any game

of chance, "because he always wins"--because "he is so lucky."

Cecil believed himself to be "unlucky." He was therefore averse to

gambling. He had played, and--"it was so like his luck"--although

the first time, yet he lost.

In spite of this conviction, the image of that fortunate winner with

his file of notes and sovereigns, _would_ force itself upon him.

While he was painting--while he was reading--at his meals--during his

walks--while dozing in bed--that figure stood before him crumpling

the notes, calling joyously for the champagne, and sauntering down

stairs in thorough self-content. In his imagination he followed that

young man through a series of fortunate nights, during which he had

amassed a large sum, with which he purchased a charming little house

in the country, and foreswore the gaming-table for ever. It was a

most coherent story, coherent as imagination loves to be.

The real story may be told in few words: three weeks after that

prosperous night, the winner, utterly ruined, poisoned himself!

Had Cecil known the real story it might have made him pause; but he

only knew what he had seen, and fancy supplied the rest.

Like a tempting fiend did this image of the winner pursue

him--seductive, irritating; he tried to banish it by thinking of his

constant ill-luck, but it would return, and his present

discouragement made the temptation stronger. By art he could not

live. The age was too material; the country too commercial. Why

should he struggle and starve when the gaming-table offered its

facile resources?

"Frank," said he, "I wish you would take me again to Jermyn-street."

"What! you want to try another _coup_?"

"Yes; I have a presentiment I shall win. At any rate, it is worth

risking a few pounds."

"I am going there this evening. Dine with me at the club. I will

explain to you an infallible martingale by which we _must_ win.

Damme, I'll break all the banks in London."

"How? how?"

"You know enough, Cis, of the game to understand my explanation. The

martingale is this: always to back the winning colour, and double

your losses till you win. Look'ye here--Suppose I place a pound on

the red, and black wins; black is then the winning colour and I back

it; but having lost, I must double my stake: so I put two pounds on

the black. Well, red wins, damme its eyes! I have lost three

pounds. What do I? place _four_ pounds on the red, which is then the

winning colour. If red wins again, I have recovered my three pounds

staked, and one pound over. I back red again, and again, so long as

red continues to win. Directly black wins, I double my stake, and

regain my loss."

"I see, I see!"

"It's as clear as day. The only possibility of losing is, that red

and black should alternately win all the night through; but as that

never has been known, we must not think of such a chance."

"But then you only win your original stake each time?"

"Of course; but you are _sure_ to win it. The only objection to our

putting our scheme in practice is the absolute necessity for a large

sum of money to begin with."

"How so, Frank?"

"Why, my dear fellow, you've no idea how doubling your stake mounts

up. To stake a sovereign, and lose ten _coups_, you must have at

least six hundred pounds in hand; for the stakes run one, two, four,

eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, one hundred and twenty-eight,

two hundred and fifty-six, five hundred and twelve, and so on."

"Whew!"

"That's it."

"And we stake five hundred pounds to win a sovereign?"

"Just so. Unless you play the martingale strictly, you cannot be

certain of winning: but you _must_ win if you play it."

"Ah! well, then I must give up the idea, for I cannot raise the

money. Never mind, I'll let chance play for me; martingale or no

martingale."

That night they went to the house in Jermyn-street, where Cecil had

first played.

Frank won five and forty pounds.

Cecil lost every penny.

"Frank, lend me five pounds: I am desperate."

"Here they are, old boy. Play cautiously."

Cecil seized them with a greedy clutch.

"Make your game, gentlemen," said the dull-eyed dealer.

Cecil threw the five sovereigns on the red.

The cards were dealt with leisurely precision.

"_Après_," said the dealer.

The croupiers, in accordance with the laws of the same, deducted half

the stakes on the table.

"Is that your caution, Cis?" whispered Frank.

"It is my desperation," he said between his teeth.

"Make your game, gentlemen!"

"The game is made."

"Red wins."

The perspiration burst from Cecil's pores, the tightening suffocation

in his breast was relieved. He allowed the money to remain in its

place again to take its fortune.

"Make your game, gentlemen," said the dealer in his unvarying voice.

"The game is made."

"Red wins."

There were now ten pounds upon the red belonging to Cecil.

"Take up five," suggested Frank.

"No: hit or miss: I risk all."

The gambler's recklessness possessed him; he was in such a state of

excitement that he knew not what he did.

"Red wins," again said the dealer.

Twenty pounds were now heaped upon the red.

"Shall you keep the stake there, sir?" asked a smiling gentleman with

bushy whiskers, who had taken great interest in the game.

"Yes," said Cecil, resolutely.

"Then I shall back against you," said the smiling gentleman, twirling

a whisker round his finger, and throwing half a crown upon the black,

with the air of a man undertaking an important enterprise.

"Red wins," again said the dealer.

"There's a run upon the red," sighed the bushy-whiskered gentleman,

as his half-crown was raked away, and forty pounds stood there as

Cecil's winnings. "I shall back you this time, sir; you are

fortune's favourite, sir. Take a pinch of snuff, sir."

And with recovered hilarity he offered the box to Cecil, who bowed

coldly, and took a pinch.

"Make your game, gentlemen," said the dealer.

"Try the red again, Cis," said Frank, "but take up five pounds to

guard against accident." He staked twenty pounds himself upon the

red.

Cecil followed his advice: he had now five and thirty pounds staked.

"The game is made."

"Wait a minute," said the bushy-whiskered gentleman; "I have not yet

staked."

He threw down a half-crown upon the red. These three were the only

players who backed the red; upwards of two hundred pounds were on the

black; and the coup was watched with breathless anxiety.

With unimpassioned, inexpressive face did the dealer throw down the

cards, as if all the chances of the game which so excited the players

were powerless upon him.

"Red wins," he again said, in his hollow indifferent voice.

Cecil raked the seventy pounds towards him in a sort of delirium: the

sight of the gold was to him like a vision of fairy land.

The smiling snuff-taker snatched up his five shillings, and again

requested him to take a pinch.

"Pretty game, sir; very pretty, when fortune takes you in hand."

"We had better cut now," said Frank.

"Not yet."

"Yes, Cis; come while you've got the money. Don't tempt your luck

too far."

"I must--I will play another coup. I'll try the red once more."

"Don't: be advised, Cis, don't."

"I must."

"Well, then, wait till the next. Let this deal go by, and try the

next."

Cecil did so.

"Black wins," said the dealer.

Frank looked at Cecil as much as to say, "you see I was right."

Cecil smiled.

His smiling friend was glum, for he had lost two crowns on the red.

He threw down another couple of crowns again upon the red.

"Back the winning colour," said Frank, staking twenty pounds upon the

black.

Cecil made a pile of fifty sovereigns, and placed it also on the

black.

He won again.

"Now, Frank, I'm ready to go."

"That's right."

"Waiter, some champagne!"

"And a cigar, waiter!"

Cecil having called for the champagne, placed the gold in his purse,

and seemed to have realized his dream: glimpses even of the country

house sparkled on the froth of the wine!

His brain was in a whirl, and the chink of money, the rattle of the

dice, the unvarying phrases of the dealer, the brief remarks of the

players, all sounded like fairy music in his ears. He was impatient

to begone, for he felt that he was succumbing to the fascinations of

the place, rightly named a 'Hell.'

As he went to the side table for his hat, he espied his smiling

neighbour standing looking into the glass, with one hand under his

chin, fiercely pushing his whiskers forward so as almost to cover his

face, while with the other hand he made terrific menaces at the

reflection of that face in the glass.

"Ugh! you old fool!" he vituperated his own image, at the same time

shaking his fist at it. "Did I not _tell_ you so? Did I not say you

would lose? You ass! you ass! _Five_ and _forty_ shillings have you

thrown away _this blessed night_! Five and forty _shillings_? Will

you _never_ learn wisdom--will you never _leave off play_? Ass!

fool! Ass!"

Cecil with difficulty restrained his laughter, and advanced saying:--

"I'm sorry you have not been fortunate, sir."

"_You_ are sorry, are you," fiercely replied the little man, sharply

turning round upon him, delighted at having some one else on whom to

vent his wrath. "And pray sir, who are _you_? Who are you, sir,

that _presumes_ to be _sorry_ for _me_! Am I an _ass_, sir? am I a

_boy_? am I a _noodle_? to be pestered by the pity of a _puppy_ like

_you_. Do you wish to _quarrel with me_, sir? do you wish to

quarrel? If so, say the _word_. I am not quarrelsome, myself; not

I; but I _am not to be bullied_, sir; you shall find that I am not to

be bullied. _You may try it on_, sir--you will find it _no go_! And

since you are _determined to fight me_, sir, fight you _shall_. You

force me to it, but I am not _one_ to back out of it."

Cecil looked at him for a moment in surprise, and then quietly

turning on his heel, put an arm within Frank's, and went down stairs.

The little fiery gentleman ran his fingers several times through his

whiskers, and then turned again to vituperate his own repentant face

in the glass. Having relieved his choler thus, he called for some

wine, and went home to bed, pathetic and moralizing.

Cecil and Frank supped joyously that night, and threw about their

money with the lavish recklessness of those to whom money so gained

loses its proper value.

Cecil came home exhausted with excitement, and on his way ruminated

how he should deceive Blanche as to the source of his new gains:--

"I will tell her I have sold my Nero for three hundred pounds to a

dealer, and this hundred and twenty-five is the sum paid down. That

will open the door for fresh winnings!"

How happy did this falsehood make his little wife! At last, then,

her Cecil admitted that something was to be done by art. Their

future was secured.

Yet happiness grounded on such falsehoods must be fragile; and far

wiser would it have been for Cecil to have told her the painful

truth. She would have been shocked, terrified; she would have

entreated him to gamble no more; there would have been "a scene," but

who knows what good might not have resulted from it?

Cecil, like all weak men, sought refuge in a falsehood from the

reproaches which he knew must follow an avowal.

CHAPTER X.

A GENTLEMAN'S LIFE.

"Your days are tedious, your hours burdensome:

And wer't not for full suppers, midnight revels,

Dancing, wine, riotous meetings, which do drown

And bury quite in you all virtuous thoughts,

And on your eyelids hang so heavily

They have no power to look as high as heaven,

You'd sit and muse on nothing but despair."

DECKAR.

The next night and the next, Cecil played, and with varying fortunes,

sometimes losing to the very last few pounds, at others rising to

large gains. The end of the week found him a winner of some four

hundred pounds.

He considered himself rich now, and looking on the gaming-table as a

bank from which he could at any time draw largely, his first step was

to move from Mrs. Tring's.

He took apartments in South Audley Street; furnished them with taste,

and considerable luxury; engaged two servants, and began to live in a

style more corresponding with his previous habits.

A run of luck in his favour having largely increased his resources,

he started a cab; and boasted of one of the tiniest tigers in London;

a strong square-built boy of fourteen, who did not look more than ten.

"Is this prudent, dearest?" said Blanche, when he proposed the cab.

"Will our means ever permit it?"

"Yes, pet, it is genuine prudence. I am the rage just now; the

dealers are all anxious I should paint them a picture. Moon has

offered me a thousand guineas for one to engrave from. I have

refused. I must have more. But to command more it is essential that

I should appear rich; the richer I appear, the richer I shall be. A

cab is, therefore, policy."

"You know best: but don't forget the little one that is to share our

prosperity."

"Forget him, indeed! look here; I have bought him a coral; look at

the gold bells! I saw it yesterday--it was a bargain, and I thought

the opportunity should not be lost. Isn't it beautiful?"

"Beautiful! How thoughtful of you, dear one!"

"At the same time I saw a love of a watch. That, said I to myself,

is just the thing for petkins--and behold!"

He held a gold breguet before her eyes.

"You dear, kind creature," she said, kissing him; "but I will not

have you spend money on me in this way."

She did not remark the diamond studs in his shirt, nor the

turquoise-headed cane which dangled from his wrist; she only thought

of what he had spent upon a present for her.

Cecil was soon plunged into debt; but a man who has his cab, and is

lavish in expense, easily finds enormous credit. He lived as if he

had a certain income of two or three thousand a year. Brilliant

dinners at the club, small but ruinous dinners at home, suppers,

jewellery, cigars, gloves, and elegant trifles for his wife demanded

no inconsiderable sums. Rouge et noir and credit supplied his wants.

In spite of heavy losses, his luck at play was extraordinary, and was

aided by his prudence in always retiring after gaining a certain sum.

The ordinary routine of his life, as it used to be at Mrs. Tring's,

was now exchanged for one very unlike it in appearance, but to those

who look beneath the surface very like it _au fond_.

He rose late; and sat in his dressing-gown and slippers, smoking

cigars at two guineas the pound, turning over the leaves of a novel

or new poem, chatting with Blanche, and listening to her plans for

the education of their children. Impossible to be more charming than

Cecil at such moments! He listened with unfeigned pleasure to her

little schemes, threw in a graceful _bon mot_ here and there, drew

her on his knee, and played with her golden hair, planned amusements

for her, and taxed his ingenuity to discover what she would like to

have bought.

About twelve, he dressed. No rubbing up of gloves--no oiling of

boots now. His dress was a matter of study, and he stepped into his

cab a perfect dandy.

Blanche, without inquiring, imagined he always went to his

painting-rooms, but the club or Hester Mason's were his invariable

resorts.

He had taken of late to calling frequently on Hester during the day.

Not that he was in love with her, but she amused and flattered him.

He saw pretty plainly that she regarded him with anything but

indifferent feelings, and no man withstands that sort of flattery.

He saw, moreover, that Sir Chetsom Chetsom was jealous, and what man

is insensible to that compliment? He went, therefore, and was always

amused.

Poor Hester had fallen seriously in love with him, and although his

attentions to her were by no means explicit, yet she could not help

fancying he had some love for her. Unfortunately he often brought

his wife's name forward, and always spoke of her with an

unostentatious respect and affection which cut Hester to the quick.

She who recognised no marriage tie; who thought that love, and love

alone, was the only principle of union, was jealous and angry at this

obstacle of a wife, and her tirades against marriage were not wholly

unselfish. That Cecil loved her, she could not disbelieve--why,

then, should he not tell her so?

She did not appreciate the distinction between flattered vanity and

love; she did not understand that a man could find delight in her

society, and be pleased at her evident partiality, while at the same

time cherishing the image of his wife as something inalienable from

his heart.

Cecil had no thought of being inconstant, yet he sought Hester's

society with pleasure.

After spending an hour or so _tête-à-tête_ with her, he would drive

down to the club, or into the Park; dine at the club, and spend his

night at the Strangers', to which he had recently been admitted, and

where he played fifty pound stakes with a recklessness which

astonished most of the players, but which, on the whole, was attended

with success. One night he carried off eight hundred pounds.

So large a sum in his possession betrayed to Blanche the source of

his sudden prosperity. She had before been uneasy: doubts had

crossed her mind; the abundance of money, coupled with his obvious

idleness, looked very unlike an artist's gains, and now this eight

hundred pounds threw a flash of light on the mystery.

"Cecil, dearest Cecil," she said timidly, "relieve me from my

suspense--did you gain this money at play?"

He looked angrily at her, and, puffing forth a column of smoke,

said,--

"How else should I gain it?"

She was silent. He continued to smoke fiercely for a minute or so,

and then said, sneeringly,--

"Did you fancy money was to be gained by art? Did you imagine I was

going to follow the example of all the other fools, and wear out my

life in a miserable contest for a beggar's pittance? Painting would

never support me; it is all very well for the mechanical fellows who

make it a _trade_; I could never do _that_; and I have no inclination

to starve--there is you to think of--and our child."

Blanche could not reply; every phrase was a stab in her heart; she

saw ruin and dishonour scowling upon them, and felt their descent was

not to be averted.

"I was born a gentleman, thank God!" he continued, throwing away the

end of his cigar, and rising from the sofa as he spoke; "I was bred a

gentleman, and, damme, I will live like a gentleman!"

With this very gentlemanly, honourable sentiment, he walked out of

the room.

Relieved from the restraint of his presence, Blanche threw herself

upon the sofa, and gave way to a paroxysm of grief. What a blow to

her happiness was that fearful discovery! Her husband--her adored

Cecil--a gambler! Men living in the world, and accustomed to mingle

with those who play, cannot overcome their repugnance to a professed

gambler; but what is their repugnance compared with the loathing felt

by women, whose horror is unmitigated by familiarity? and what is the

abstract horror of a woman, compared with the shuddering terror of a

wife, who sees written before her in characters of fire the

ineffaceable dishonour, the inevitable ruin of her husband and her

children?

A gambler! her husband was a gambler! The luxuries with which she

was surrounded were not the fruits of honest labour, but of

dishonourable gaming; the trinkets which he had given her, and which

she had held as precious tokens of his affection, were not purchased

by his genius and energy, but were purchased from the misery of

others; the gold he squandered with a lavish hand, was the gold whose

loss carried perhaps despair and suicide into many a wretched family.

The thought was torture. It turned all her trinkets into manacles.

It made the costly furniture around her dark, grim, and reproachful.

Bitter, bitter were the scalding tears which gushed from her, as she

brooded on this immeasureable horror! Terrible were the fears which

assailed her as she thought of the end--the inevitable end of such a

career!

All hope of happiness was now swept from out her life. Their love,

which had been so trusting; their sympathy, which had been so

perfect; her esteem, which had been so unsullied, where were they?

Gone--irrecoverably gone!

In their poverty, how happy they had been! how contented with their

lot! In the prospect of the future, made radiant with love--in the

thoughts of their children, as sharers and promoters of that

love--what blissful dreams had tinged with magic hues the far horizon

of a life which blended with the distant life to come! And now, in

one single moment, all those dreams were shattered, and the horizon

darkened with thunder-clouds over a stormy sea.

You may have seen a graceful vine, heavy with clusters of the purple

grape, trailed up against a garden wall; the rusty nail that fastens

it, half falling from out the crumbling wall; and you have felt that

the first gust of autumnal wind must tear it completely out, and hurl

the poor drooping vine upon the ground.

That is an image of their life. By no stronger bond were they now

separated from ruin: one turn of Fortune's capricious wheel, and they

were lost.

Weep, weep, poor wretched girl! weep and prepare yourself for greater

woe! The babe which now moves beneath your heart, in the dim newness

of its being, whose birth was to have been the advent of such joy;

what will it be born to? Weep, and prepare yourself for greater woe!

CHAPTER XI.

DEEPER, AND DEEPER STILL.

Elle s'efforça de lui éviter la souffrance en lui cachant la sienne;

elle s'habitua à souffrir seule, à n'avoir ni appui, ni consolation,

ni conseil.

GEORGE SAND.--_André._

The discovery of her husband's pursuits was made too late. Cecil had

become a confirmed gambler; and although he saw--saw with anger and

remorse--that his wife was heartbroken at the discovery, and could

not be deluded by the fluent sophisms with which he tried to persuade

her that he had no other career left--could not believe his present

pursuits were only temporary, to be given up as soon as he had won

sufficient money to be independent; yet his remorse only tormented,

it did not cure him. It made him uneasy at home; made him seek

excitement elsewhere, in which to intoxicate his conscience. And he

continued to win!

Perhaps, had Violet been his wife, instead of the meek, resigned

Blanche, the greater force of her will, and directness of her mind

might have cowed him. Violet might have shamed him into honour. Her

courage and her inflexible will, by braving his anger, by enduring

scenes of domestic misery, but by unflinchingly keeping to the point,

might, with one so weak, so impressionable, and so affectionate, have

rescued him from perdition. But Blanche was ill suited to such a

task. Her spirit, never strong, had been early broken. She had

learned to endure evils, not to combat them. She bowed her head to

the stroke, and exerted all her strength in gaining fortitude to

endure.

Violet would have acted energetically, where Blanche only wept in

silence.

Her tears distressed and irritated him; they made him impatient at

her "folly," by bringing painfully home to him the sense of his own.

Yet, inasmuch as he loved her, he could not see her constant

melancholy without anguish; and in moments of contrition he had

several times solemnly assured her that he would never again touch a

card. The assurance made her deliriously happy for a day or two; but

it never lasted long: he broke his vow, made it again, and again

broke it. In fact, the fascination of the gaming-table was

irresistible; and Frank Forrester was always at his elbow, like a

tempter. So often had he deceived her, that she only smiled a

melancholy smile, when he now promised never to play again. She had

resigned herself to her fate as hopeless!

"Damn it, Cis," said Frank one day, "when are you going to play

scientifically? You might try the martingale now: you've got the

capital."

"My dear Frank, I lost six hundred pounds last night--and that, too,

in trying your famous martingale."

"The devil you did!"

"Yes, and heartily I cursed you for having told me of it."

"Justice, Cis, damme, justice! If you lost money by my martingale,

it must be because you didn't play it, for I'll stake my honour--or

anything equally valueless upon it, that my plan is infallible."

"Perhaps so; if one could play it. But the fact is, one had need be

a machine to play it."

"Of course--of course. That's why you should have let me play: I'm

cast-iron. You could not resist the temptation of risking now and

then, and in that risk you lost."

"Don't tell me, Frank. No man can sit playing all night, and winning

paltry stakes, when every time he wins he reproaches himself for not

having staked higher."

"So you lost?"

"I'm cleaned out. I don't believe there is eight pounds in my purse."

"Humph! I came to borrow."

"I'll accept a bill, if you will get it discounted, and we'll share."

"Bravo!"

"Have you a stamp about you?"

"Have I? ... My dear Cis, what a question! Why bill-stamps are my

stock-in-trade; when the day--distant yet, I hope--shall arrive that

is to find me without a stamp, and without a friend to go through the

matter of form, then will Francis Forrester gracefully bid adieu to

this dung-heap of civilization, and waft his charming person into

other regions. Here you are, old fellow! just scrawl your name

across that: your coachmaker will discount it."

Having settled this little matter of business, Cecil drove to

Hester's.

CHAPTER XII.

HESTER'S LOVE.

To meet her spirit in a nimble kiss,

Distilling panting ardour to her breast.

JOHN MARSTON.--_The Malcontent._

S'il ose m'alléguer une odieuse loi

Quand je fais tout pour lui, s'il ne fait rien pour moi;

Dès le moment, sans songer si je l'aime,

Sans consulter enfin si je me perds moi même

J'abandonne l'ingrat.

RACINE.--_Bajazet._

Cecil found Hester writing, in a charming négligé. She threw down

her pen with a movement of impatient joy as he entered.

She took his outstretched hand in hers, and pressing it tenderly,

looked with serious alarm into his face as she said, "You are not

well. Something is on your mind. Am I right?"

"You are."

"Sit down on the sofa--there." She sat by his side still holding his

hand, which he could not withdraw. "Now, tell me what it is."

He shook his head.

"Won't you make me your confidante? Am I not worthy to share your

sorrows?"

"Don't ask me ... you are right .... I am unhappy. But I cannot tell

you wherefore."

"How is your novel getting on? Why won't you tell me?" She pressed

his hand as she said it.

He was perplexed, and knew not what to say. Her dark eyes were

darting forth fire--her face was so close to his, that he felt its

warmth--her loose morning dress, thrown slightly open by the attitude

in which she sat bent forward, made a dangerous display of her finely

moulded bust; he was surrounded with such an atmosphere of

voluptuousness, that his intoxicated senses confused his reason. In

that moment he forgot everything but the moment's intense sensation.

His eyes answered hers; his hand returned her pressure; he drank her

breath, and felt the blood flushing his face.

Both were silent; both feared to break that silence. With

irresistible impulse they mutually bent forward till their lips

touched, and then clung together in a burning kiss.

She burst into tears, and pressed him feverishly to her, as if in an

embrace to express the unutterable fervour of her love. And in this

delirium they remained some time, not a word passing, only a few deep

sighs, and a fierce pressure of the hand, telling of the fire which

consumed them.

Hester was supremely happy. Her doubts were set at rest. He loved

her!

Cecil was violently excited, and in his excitement forgot whom he was

embracing--forgot his wife--forgot the world. The vague suggestions

of his conscience were stifled at once by the agitation of his

senses. Hester by a word recalled him to himself.

"You love me, then?" she said, tenderly.

He started, and could not answer her.

"Cecil, dearest Cecil, my own, my best beloved!"

He was sobered in an instant.

But what could he do? To continue this scene was impossible; yet to

undeceive her, to tell her that he loved her not! what man could do

that?

"Why are you so silent?"

"I suffer horribly."

"From what?"

He beat his brow distractedly.

"Hester, .... you will curse me..... It is not my fault..... You

...."

"Do you not love me?" she almost shrieked.

"I do, I do!" he hurriedly exclaimed; "yes, Hester, I love you ....

but .... how shall I tell it you? .... We must forget this .... we

must meet no more...."

"Not meet, when you love me? Impossible! The whole world shall not

separate us."

"It is the world which will separate us."

"What .... your wife!" she said scornfully, almost savagely.

"Alas!"

"I recognise no barrier in a wife. I scorn the whole system of

marriage..... It is iniquitous! Two hearts that love to be

separated by a sophism of convention! If you love _her_, keep to

her. If you love _me_, you are mine." Hester rose from the sofa as

she spoke: her whole frame trembled with passion.

Cecil remained seated; his eyes fixed on the ground, in a helpless

state of irresolution.

"Cecil, one word--and but one. Are you afraid of the idle gossip of

the world, and are your instincts cowed at it?"

"Hester! I feel, Hester, we must part for ever."

"Then you love me not?"

He did not answer.

A loud knocking at the street door startled them. She ran to the

window, and looked out.

"It is Sir Chetsom. Cecil, this instant must decide my fate. Do you

reject my love?"

"Believe me, this is a situation----"

"_He_ is coming up stairs. One word--yes, or no?"

He twirled his hat, and sought for an expression which should soften

the blow, but could find none. She looked at him with intense

eagerness, and reading in his hesitation her worst fears, gave a low

heart-breaking sob, and rushed into the other room. In a few seconds

the door opened, and the servant announced,--

"Sir Chetsom Chetsom."

Cecil brushed past him with a hurried bow, and made a precipitate

retreat.

"What the devil is all this?" muttered the astonished baronet.

"Hester not here!"

Hester's maid appeared, and informed him that her mistress would be

down immediately, if he would only be good enough to wait.

"Where is your mistress, then?"

"In her dressing-room, Sir Chetsom."

Without saying another word, Sir Chetsom, to the horror of the maid,

recovered the speed of his youth to ascend the stairs, and to rush

into the dressing-room. On all ordinary occasions he preserved _les

convenances_ with great punctilio; but he was at this moment in an

exasperation of jealousy, and only thought of clearing up his doubts.

Cecil's exit, and Hester's absence, were alone startling

circumstances; but when to these be added the jealousy which for a

long time Sir Chetsom had felt towards Cecil, his exasperation may be

conceived.

He found Hester extended on a couch, bathed in tears. She rose

angrily at his approach, and with a gesture of great dignity pointed

to the door. As he seemed noways disposed to obey her, she said,--

"I would be alone .... alone, Sir Chetsom."

"My dear Hester, what is all this? In tears! what has distressed

you?"

Her only answer was to pass into her bedroom, and lock herself in.

Sir Chetsom felt foolish. He tapped at the door; but she gave no

answer.

He threatened to break it open; but she remained silent.

He then began to wheedle and entreat, to threaten, to promise, to

storm, and to implore, alternately. All in vain: not a word could he

extort from her.

He went down into the drawing-room, there to await her pleasure;

sulky and suspicious, angry yet anxious.

Hester, meanwhile, gave full scope to the paroxysm of her grief. In

Cecil's manner, she had read her condemnation. She understood his

momentary aberration. She saw that although he had not been able to

withstand the excitement of that moment, yet it was not his heart,

but his senses she had captivated. She saw that he loved his wife!

Fierce were the convulsions into which this conviction threw her, and

many were the tears she shed; but after an hour's misery she grew

calmer, and began to think of her condition.

Sir Chetsom was below, awaiting her. He was jealous; he was angry.

He was ready to quarrel with her, and she felt that a good quarrel

was just the thing she wanted.

Prepared, therefore, for a "scene," she descended into the

drawing-room.

"Oh! at last," said Sir Chetsom, coldly.

"Yes, Sir Chetsom, at last. I presume I may choose my own time for

seeing my visitors; those who do me the honour of calling upon me

will be pleased to accept that condition, or else be pleased to stay

away."

"Indeed, madam!" replied he, greatly astonished at her tone, and

foreseeing that she was ready to burst forth at a word.

"So it is, Sir Chetsom. In which class am I to place you?"

"Hester, I don't understand this language."

"Then I will say good-morning. I dislike talking to those who do not

comprehend me."

She rose and moved towards the door.

"Hester! Hester!"

She turned round again.

"Stay a moment.--Sit down again. There, now let us talk over matters

quietly."

"Begin. What have you to say?"

"I found you in tears just now."

"You did; what then?"

She said this so angrily, that he was forced to pause a moment, and

change his tone to say,--

"I wish--as a friend--my love prompts me to ask the cause of those

tears?"

"Wretchedness!"

"You wretched?"

"Intensely!"

"My poor Hester! What has occurred?--Is Mr. Chamberlayne--has he

anything to do with it?"

She made no reply.

"Answer me, dear girl. Do. I have a right to know."

She continued silent.

"I insist upon knowing."

"Insist then," she replied, quietly.

"I do insist!" he said, raising his voice.

"But your insistance is useless."

"Eh? Hester, do not go too far--Remember--"

"What? _What_ am I to remember?"

"That you--that I may enforce----"

An ironical laugh was her answer.

"Hester, you forget--I am here as your protector--you owe everything

to me.--Be careful, I am willing to overlook a great deal----"

"Are you willing to quit the room?" she said, her eyes flashing as

she spoke. "There is the door. May you never enter it again! Go!

I command you! _You_ insist--_you_ enforce? And do you imagine that

I am to give up my youth and beauty to age and folly--that I am to

sacrifice myself, and to such as you, and then to be told that _you_

insist! Undeceive yourself, Sir Chetsom. I am my own mistress. I

follow my own caprices. My caprice once was to live with you. Now

my caprice is to show you the door. Go! I owe you nothing. I have

not sold myself. I have not bound myself. Go!--Why do you stand

there gaping at me--do you not comprehend my words? or do you fancy

that it is something so strange I should wish never to see you again?

You imagine, perhaps, that I am not calm now, that I am unaware of

what I do in relinquishing the protection of Sir Chetsom Chetsom?

Undeceive yourself. If I am angry, I know perfectly what I do. I

know the _extent_ of my folly--shall I tell you what it is? It is

that I ever listened to you! It is that I ever sullied my name by

accepting your protection! _Now_, do you understand me?"

She sank in a chair, exhausted. Poor Sir Chetsom was troubled and

confused. The scorn of her manner which lent such momentum to her

words, quite crushed the feeling of anger which continually rose

within him. She had often threatened to quit him; but never in such

terms, and never seemed so earnest.

"My dear Hester," he said, submissively, taking a seat near her, "you

have misunderstood me."

"I do not wish to understand you then."

"But are you serious?--do you wish to leave me?"

"Very serious."

"But what have I done? I am sure my life is spent in trying to make

you happy. Every wish of yours, as soon as it is expressed, I

endeavour to gratify."

"Then my wish is never to see you again; gratify that!"

"My dear Hester, be reasonable! You are angry now--I don't know

wherefore--I won't inquire, if it displeases you--but you will get

over this to-morrow, you will have forgotten it. To-morrow I will

come and see you."

"I will not see you; so spare yourself the trouble."

"Not see me! Is everything over then between us? Is this your calm

decision?"

"It is. I have told you so before. What makes you doubt it? Do you

suppose your society is so fascinating that I cannot relinquish it?

Try me!"

"I will," said Sir Chetsom, buttoning his coat, and rising in

concentrated anger.

"Do so."

"You will repent this. You force me to it, recollect! You force me!"

"Good-morning!"

"I am not joking, I am serious now."

"Good-morning."

"If I once quit this house it will be never to return."

"Sir Chetsom I have the pleasure of wishing you _good-morning_!"

There was no replying to the cutting coolness of her manner. He took

up his hat, buttoned his coat up to the chin, fidgeted his gloves,

and at last making an effort, said:--

"Very well, very well!" and left the room.

Hester felt considerably relieved. She had taken a savage pleasure

in this contest, and utterly reckless of consequences, found in that

very recklessness a satisfaction, which helped to console her

mortified vanity and wounded affection. Towards Cecil, she felt hate

and scorn; towards Sir Chetsom, contemptuous anger, she knew not why.

She had played her whole existence in that quarrel; and knew that she

was a beggar without a moment's anxiety.

The next Day, Sir Chetsom sent her a note, in which he deplored what

had passed between them, but was willing to attribute it to some

extraordinary irritation; and he moreover offered to settle six

hundred a year upon her for her life, if she would only consent to

remain his friend as heretofore.

The irritation in Hester's mind had not abated, and she returned this

laconic answer:--

"CADOGAN PLACE, 13_th June_ 1841.

"Not for six thousand.

"H. M."

Sir Chetsom was alarmed. The idea of her quitting him was more than

he could endure. Completely fascinated by her, the more he knew of

her, the more hopelessly he became her slave. He could not imagine

living without her.

He called; was refused admittance; called again; was refused again;

wrote, and received back his letter unopened.

He was in despair. So great was his preoccupation, that he actually

went out with his whiskers unoiled and undyed! Hester's servant at

length took pity on his sorrow, and consented to let him enter the

house, against her orders.

He stole up to her boudoir, and throwing himself at her feet, said,--

"Hester, I cannot exist without you."

"But I can without you," she said, smiling.

"You smile; then I am forgiven."

"Yes; but I keep to my resolution."

"Hester, hear me out; if, after what I have to say, you still keep

your resolution, I shall have nothing to do but to leave you in

peace. Here, then, I offer you my hand--be Lady Chetsom, and make me

happy."

At that moment a strange image rose in Hester's mind. She had that

afternoon met Cecil driving in the Park. He raised his hat in cold

politeness, but made no attempt to speak to her. The recollection of

this scene now presented itself, as the sort of background to Sir

Chetsom on his knees offering a title, offering wealth, offering

consideration to the friendless, forsaken, ambitious girl.

"Will you accept me?" again whispered Sir Chetsom.

"I shall plague your life out," she said.

"Then that is a settled matter!"

Sir Chetsom was the happiest of men.

But his happiness only lasted a fortnight, and was then suddenly cut

short by that inflexible lady--Atropos. Driving home one evening,

his horse shied at something in the road, and ran away with him down

Constitution Hill, then stumbled and threw Sir Chetsom against the

railings. A concussion of the brain was the consequence.

By this accident, Hester not only lost the honour of becoming Lady

Chetsom, but she was absolutely left penniless, as Sir Chetsom died

intestate.

To this had her ambition brought her! With no resources, with no

_friends_, without even a good name, she had to begin the world anew.

Literature was the desperate resource which alone awaited her; and

she resolved to live by her pen.

BOOK VII.

CHAPTER I.

GEORGE MAXWELL.

_Pietro._--"This Malevole is one of the most prodigious affectations

that ever conversed with nature. A man, or rather a monster: more

discontent than Lucifer, when he was thrust out of the Presence. His

appetite is as insatiable as the grave: as far from any content as

from heaven."

JOHN MARSTON.--_The Malcontent._

Mrs. Meredith Vyner was radiant again; if not happy, she was at least

sprightly, occupied, and flattered. She had not forgotten Marmaduke,

she had not forgiven him; but although his image sometimes lowered

upon her, she banished it with a smile of triumph, for she was loved!

The silent, shy, and saturnine George Maxwell had taken Marmaduke's

place, as _cavalier servente_; and across his dark, forbidding face

there shone a gleam of sunshine, as he now watched the sylph-like

enchantress, who for so long had made him more and more

misanthropical by her gay indifference to him, and who at last had

perceived his love.

Marmaduke, his hated favoured rival, was dismissed; and not only was

a rival dismissed, but he, George, was admitted in his place.

The history of these two may be told in a few words. Maxwell, silent

and watchful so long as Marmaduke was a visitor at the house,

suddenly became more talkative and demonstrative when he found

Marmaduke's visits cease. Hopes rose within him. He spoke with

another accent, and with other looks to Mrs. Vyner. She was not long

in understanding him. Once opening her eyes to his love, she saw as

in a flash of light, the whole history of his passion, she understood

the conduct of the silent, jealous lover, and deeply flattered at

such constancy and unencouraged affection, began to turn a favourable

eye upon him. Smarting herself from wounded affection, she could the

more readily and truly sympathize with him. In a few weeks--for

passion grows with strange rapidity, and days are epochs in its

history--she gave him to understand that he was not _indifferent_ to

her. Of Marmaduke she spoke freely to him, telling him the same

story she had told her husband; and he believed her: what will not

lovers believe!

No word of love as yet had passed their lips, and yet they understood

each other. Indeed, so plain was the avowal of her looks, that a man

less shy and suspicious than Maxwell would long ago have declared his

passion, certain of a return. But he was withheld by the very

fierceness of his passion, and by his horror at ridicule. Maxwell

was one of those men who never enter the water till they can

swim--who never undertake anything till they are certain of

succeeding, held back by the fear of failure. One trait in his

character will set this disposition clearly forth: he had a fine

tenor voice, and sang with some mastery, but he never could be

prevailed upon to sing before any one, except his family, because he

was waiting till he could execute as well as Rubini or Mario.

Meanwhile, he was intensely jealous of those who, not having reached

that standard, _did_ sing; and his scornful criticisms on their

curious presumption, was nothing but miserable spite at their not

having so sensitive a vanity as his own.

Maxwell was in truth a bad, mean-spirited, envious, passionate man,

in whom vanity, ludicrously susceptible and exacting, fostered the

worst of passions, jealousy and revenge. He was misanthropical: not

because his own high-thoughted soul turned from the pettiness of

mankind with intolerant disgust,--not because he had pryed too

curiously into the corruptions of human nature, without at the same

time having been fortunate enough to know familiarly all that is

great, and loving, and noble in the human heart--but simply because

his life was a perpetual demand upon the abnegation, affection, and

admiration of others, and because that demand could not, in the

nature of things, be satisfied. It has been said that a man who

affects misanthropy is a coxcomb, for real misanthropy is madness.

Not always madness: seldom so; it is generally inordinate and

unsatisfied vanity. A man hates his fellow-creatures because they,

unwittingly, are always irritating him by refusing to submit to the

exactions of his vanity: he construes their neglect into insult,

their indifference into envy. He envies them for succeeding where he

dare not venture; he hates them for not acknowledging his own

standard of himself. Maxwell was one of these.

Conceive such a man suddenly caught in the meshes of a brilliant

coquette like Mrs. Meredith Vyner! Conceive him after two years of

angry expectation, during which she has never bestowed a smile on him

which was not unmeaning, now awakening to the conviction that his

merits are recognised, that his love is returned, that he has

inspired a guilty passion!

The guilt added intensity to his joy: it was so immense a triumph!

What a pair! Love has been well said to delight in antitheses,

otherwise we might stare at the contrast afforded by this little,

hump-backed, golden-haired, coquettish, heartless woman, and this

saturnine, gloomy, stupid, bad-hearted man.

Poor Meredith Vyner could not comprehend it. The evidence of his

eyes told him plainly how the case stood; but his inexperienced mind

refused to accept the evidence of his senses. What _could_ she see

in so grim and uninteresting an animal? Marmaduke was quite another

man; affection for him was intelligible at least; but Maxwell! And

what could Maxwell see in her? Why, she was the very contradiction

of all he must feel in his own breast!

In that contradiction was the charm: Maxwell did himself

instinctively, but involuntarily, that justice; he would assuredly

have hated a duplicate of himself, even more intensely than he hated

others.

Meredith Vyner endeavoured once or twice to come to an "explanation"

with his wife; for he _was_ master in his own house, and _would_ be,

or he was greatly deceived. But she answered him with a few galling

sarcasms (adding general allusions to the miseries of young wives

subject to the absurd jealousies of foolish, old men), and ending

in--hysterics! There was no combating hysterics, and Vyner was

always defeated.

CHAPTER II.

ROSE AGAIN SEES JULIUS.

Mrs. Vyner again went into society as usual, the only difference

being that she was generally accompanied by Maxwell instead of her

husband. Rose often stayed at home, but sometimes went with her.

Time had not made her forget Julius St. John, but it had brought back

the elasticity of her spirits; and except an occasional sigh of

regret, or a short reverie, she was much the same as she had been

before.

One Saturday on which they went to Dr. Whiston's soirée, Rose

accompanied them, and was delighted to see Cecil there in high

spirits, and beautifully dressed. Blanche's condition of course

prevented her being there.

"But she is quite well, is she not?"

"Charming, and looks lovelier than ever."

"I have not been to see her this week. Mama has not been able to let

me have the carriage. How gets on your new picture?"

"Famously. How beautiful you are looking to-night, Rose!"

"Of course I am; do I ever fail? But tell me, what is the subject of

your picture?"

He put his finger on his lips.

"That's a secret. I let none know anything about it, as I intend

surprising you all."

"Papa is so proud of you now, that I think if you were to go to him,

all would be made up."

"That's kind, certainly; now I no longer need him, he is willing to

acknowledge his son-in-law. No, Rosy, no; I have made advances

enough; _he_ must make them now."

"But think how delightful it would be for us all!"

"I know that; besides, I know it must come. He will make the first

advance; and he _shall_ make it."

The secret of Cecil's holding back was not pride, but calculation.

He fancied that if Vyner made the first advances to him, he could

_make terms_; and his recent losses at the gaming-table had made him

sensible of the precariousness of his present resources.

As they moved through the crowd, and were passing into the second

room, they came face to face with Mrs. St. John and Julius.

There was no avoiding a recognition. Rose blushed deeply, and felt

extremely embarrassed; but recovering herself, she held out her hand

to Mrs. St. John, who took it coldly.

Cecil and Julius shook hands cordially.

"Have you long been returned?" asked Rose in a low voice.

"Six weeks," was the laconic reply. "I hope Mr. Vyner is quite well,

and Mrs. Vyner?'

"Mama is here--in the other room," she said, with an effort.

She made a movement as if to pass on; her eye met Julius's as she

bowed, but his face, though deadly pale, gave no sign of agitation.

In another instant, they were in the next room; and Rose, with well

acted indifference, occupied herself with the specimens exhibited on

the table, addressing common-place remarks to Cecil, much to his

astonishment.

"Is it all over, then, Rose?" he said.

"All. Oh, do look at this machine for teaching the blind to

write--how very curious."

"Are you serious, Rose?"

"Serious! Didn't you see the cut direct?"

"You take it calmly!"

"Would you have a scene? Shall I faint? Shall I pretend to be

stabbed to the heart? Shall I act a part?"

"Pretend! Are you not acting now?"

"Not I. If you think their reception has pained me, pray undeceive

yourself; it is no more than I expected. Months ago I made up my

mind. I know what to think of _him_. I am glad he has behaved so;

very glad, very glad. It now puts everything beyond a doubt. Very

glad."

She muttered "very glad" to herself as she sat down in a chair just

left by a dowager, and tried to cheat herself into the belief that

she really was glad. In truth, she was at that moment more indignant

than unhappy. The coldness of her reception, both by mother and son,

had exasperated her. Had he looked pleased to see her, had he even

looked very pained, she would have at once given him to understand

that his retreat had been precipitate, and that she was ready to

accept him with delight. But his coldness piqued her; she refrained

from addressing a word to him; and was now indulging in somewhat

bitter reflections on his conduct.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Vyner had been eloquent in her admiration of Cecil

and his genius, to Lady F----, with whom she was talking. Maxwell,

from time to time, threw in a sarcasm, and was evidently uneasy at

hearing any one praised so highly.

"Well, but you know, my dear sir," said Lady F----, "he must be

monstrous clever, or he would never make so much money."

Maxwell shrugged his shoulders, and said, with considerable

significance in the tone,--

"That depends upon how he makes it."

Mrs. Vyner looked at him surprised. A little while afterwards, when

they were standing retired apart from the company, she asked him what

he meant by his reply to Lady F----, respecting Cecil's money-making.

"I mean this: he doesn't make money by his _genius_," Maxwell

replied, with sneering emphasis.

"By what, then?"

Maxwell refused at first to answer.

"What can you be hinting at? By what means does he make his money?"

"By ... there, I may as well tell you; you must soon hear it ... by

gambling."

A shudder of disgust ran over her frame.

"Are you sure--quite sure of this?"

"Quite: I had it from a man who plays nightly at the same table with

him."

"How horrible! isn't it?"

"No," he replied, with a sardonic smile: "it's _genius_."

She looked at him astonished: at that moment, she hated him. Well

would it have been for her if she had taken the warning of that

moment, and flung from her the viper that was crawling to her heart.

But she forgot it. Maxwell's smile passed away, and was replaced by

one of tenderness for her.

Rose and her mother were both thoughtful as they rode home that night.

The next day, Rose communicated to her father what Cecil had said at

Dr. Whiston's, and begged him to write to Cecil, and announce his

forgiveness. Vyner, who would have been well pleased to do so, spoke

with his wife about it.

"He is a credit to us now," added Vyner.

"Oh! yes, a _great_ credit."

"Don't you think so?"

"How should I not? Vyner is an old name--a good name--it can gain no

fresh _éclat_ from honours, but it may from infamy."

"From infamy, Mary?"

"Cecil Chamberlayne, your creditable son-in-law, is a gambler."

"Good heavens!"

"His cab and tiger, his dinners, his trinkets--all come from that

infamous source: it is his means of livelihood."

"My poor, poor Blanche!" exclaimed the wretched father, as the tears

came into his eyes. "But she shall not stay with him .... I will

take her away ... She shall come to us .... she shall."

In vain his wife interposed; he ordered the carriage, and drove at

once to Cecil's house.

CHAPTER III.

WOMAN'S LOVE.

Blanche was trimming a baby cap, when her father entered the room.

With a cry of delight she sprang up, and rushed into his arms. He

hugged her fondly, and the tears rolled down his cheeks as he pressed

his child sadly to his bosom.

It was some time before either of them spoke.

"My poor child!" he said at last.

"Your happy child, papa; I am so happy! I knew you would forgive me

soon. Oh! why is not Cecil here to join with me in gratitude?"

"Blanche," he said with an effort, "I am come to take you away with

me: will you come?"

She looked her answer.

"That is right, ... that is right .... Pack up your things, then, at

once."

"Pack up what things?" she asked in astonishment.

"Whatever you want to take with you .... Come .... don't stay in this

house a moment longer than you can help."

Her astonishment increased.

"Do you mean me to leave my home?"

"Yes."

"And .... my husband?"

"Yes."

"Leave my husband?--leave my Cecil? Why, papa, what can have put

that into your head? Do you suppose, I am not happy here? ... He is

the best of husbands!"

Meredith Vyner had recourse to his snuff-box, as in all emergencies.

He inserted thumb and index finger into it, and trifled mechanically

with the grains, while seeking for some argument.

"Do, dear papa, relieve me from this suspense .... What is it you

mean?"

"Are you serious, Blanche?--_is_ he a good husband?'

"I adore him; he is the kindest creature on earth."

Vyner took a huge pinch. That did not clear his ideas, and he sat

silently brushing off the grains which had congregated in the

wrinkles of his waistcoat, very much puzzled what to say.

"Papa, there is something on your mind. If it is anything against

Cecil .... anything a wife ought not to hear, spare me, and do not

utter it. If it is anything else, spare me the suspense, and tell me

at once what it is."

"Blanche, my dearest child, I came here to save you from ruin, and I

will save you. You must quit your husband."

"Why?"

"Is not my word sufficient? I say you must. Your welfare depends

upon it."

"Why?--I say again--why?"

"Are you--no, you cannot be aware of _how_ your husband gains a

livelihood."

She coloured violently and trembled. He noticed it, and read the

avowal in her agitation.

"You _do_ know it then?"

She burst into tears.

"Well, my dear child, since you know it, that saves me an unpleasant

explanation. But you must leave him; you cannot stay here longer:

you cannot share his infamy; you shall not be dragged into his ruin.

It has been a miserable match; I have always grieved over it; always

knew it would end wretchedly. But to come to this!--to this! No,

Blanche, you cannot remain here. Come and live at home; there at

least you will not live in infamy."

She wept bitterly, but offered no remark.

"Come, Blanche," he said, taking her hand, "you will leave this

place, will you not? You will live with us. I cannot promise to

make you happy, but at least I can save you from the wretched

existence of a gambler's wife. Come--come."

"I cannot!" she sobbed.

"Rouse yourself: conquer this emotion. Think of your future--think

of your child!"

She shuddered.

"Think of the child you are to bring into the world. Must it also

share in the ruin which its father will inevitably draw upon you? My

dear Blanche, you must have courage; for your own sake--for your

child's sake--you must quit this house. Come home to me. I am

unhappy myself; I want to have some one about me I can love: Rose is

the only one: Violet is away: your mother--but don't let me speak of

her. You see, Blanche, dear, I want you; you will fill a place at

home; you will be so petted; and the little one will have every

comfort--and his aunt Rose--but don't sob so, my child: do restrain

yourself. You will come, eh?"

"I cannot!"

Vyner took another pinch of snuff, and was disconcerted; there was

such wretchedness, but such resolution in her tone, that he felt his

arguments had been powerless.

Her sobs were pitiful to hear, and his own eyes were filled with

tears, in spite of his rising anger at what he considered her

obstinacy.

"Why can you not?"

"Because he is my husband--one whom I have chosen for better for

worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, to

cherish, and to obey, till death do us part--one from whom death

alone shall part me, for I love him, he loves me, and by his side I

can smilingly await poverty, even ruin."

"Even infamy!" exclaimed Vyner.

"Even infamy!" she replied, in a low sad tone.

"This is madness."

"It is love--it is duty. I know the wretched fate which must befall

us. I foresee it: but if it had already fallen, I should say the

same. I cannot leave him! I may be miserable; we may be brought to

beggary; my child may want every necessary--oh! I have not shut my

eyes to _that_ terrible prospect! I have seen it; it has wrung my

heart, but I cannot--would not, if I could--leave him who is all my

happiness. Cecil is more than my husband: he is all that I hold

dearest in life: he is the father of that child whose future you so

gloomily foresee; shall that child--shall _my_ child not smile upon

its father? You do not know what you ask."

"I ask you to be happy."

"I am so. Without Cecil I could not be so. Let misfortune come to

me in any shape, so that it rob me not of him, and I can bear it;

only not that--only not that!"

"Bless you for those words, my own beloved!" said a voice which made

them both start and look up.

Cecil stood before them. He had overheard the greater part of their

conversation, and had opened the door without their noticing it,

absorbed as they were in their own emotions.

Vyner took three rapid pinches, and felt greatly confused. Blanche

threw herself into her husband's arms, and sobbed aloud.

"Bless you, my own Blanche, for the unshaken depth of your love. It

shall not be thrown away. I will no longer be unworthy of it. I

have been a villain--yes, sir, I confess I have been a weak and

selfish villain; seduced by my necessities, and by vile temptations,

I have nearly brought this dear girl to ruin. But this morning has

saved me. I have seen the peril--I will--hear me, sir, solemnly

swear, by all that is sacred--by all my hopes of happiness--by this

dear head now resting on my heart--I swear never again, on any

pretext, to touch a card--to enter a house of play! Will you believe

me? You hear my oath--a gentleman's word ought to be sufficient, but

you have my oath--will you believe it?"

Blanche pressed him convulsively to her, and laughed hysterically in

her joy.

Vyner rose, and taking Cecil's hand, said,--

"Chamberlayne, you are a man of honour; I respect you. What you have

now done effaces the past. We are reconciled. I will assure you two

hundred pounds a year during my life, which, with your own income,

will suffice, I hope, to keep you in decent comfort, and will enable

you to employ your talents honourably, and, I hope, profitably. My

house is open to you. We are reconciled, are we not?"

Cecil pressed his hand warmly.

"I have been angry with you," Vyner continued, "but my anger is

gone--what says our favourite?"

Non Dindymene, non adytis quatit

Mentem sacerdotum incola Pythius

Non Liber æque, non acuta

Si geminant Corybantes æra

Tristes ut iræ--

Eh? is it not so? The past then is forgotten?"

"Oh, sir," said Cecil, wiping away a tear, "I do not deserve such

kindness.... I have been a wretch.... But my future conduct shall

thank you--I cannot now!"

"All I ask is--make Blanche happy."

Cecil looked down upon her upturned face, and met her loving glance

with a look of unutterable tenderness; then drawing her head to him,

he pressed his lips upon her eyes; she threw her arms around him, and

exclaimed,--

"How can I help being happy with him?"

Much affected by this scene, Vyner again pressed Cecil's hand with

great warmth, kissed his child, wiped his eyes, and withdrew; for his

heart was full.

CHAPTER IV.

A BEAM OF SUNSHINE IN THE HOUSE.

Cecil was very earnest in his repentance, and sincerely meant to keep

the oath he pledged. He at once sold his cab and horse; discharged

his tiger; reduced his expenses in every practicable way; paid the

great bulk of his debts; ceased to visit the club; ordered the

servant to deny him to Frank Forrester, whenever that worthy called;

and was assiduous at his painting.

Having thus shut himself out from temptation, and begun again the

career of an honourable man, he ought once more to have been happy.

He was so for a few days. Blanche's recovered gaiety, and her

grateful fondness, made him bless the change. But the excitement

soon wore off; and in getting into the broad monotonous rut of daily

life, he began to miss the variety and excitement of his former

pursuits.

He could not work with pleasure: he had lost all the "delight" which

"physics pain." Work to him was drudgery, and it was no more. His

spirits became low. From Blanche he hid the change as well as he

could; but he could not hide it from himself. He would stand for

half an hour before his easel, absorbed in reveries, and not once

putting pencil to the canvass. He would sit for hours in an easy

chair, smoking, or affecting to read; but his mind incessantly

occupied playing imaginary games at _rouge et noir_, in which he was

invariably a winner.

There is this excuse for the gambler: the temptation besets him in a

more powerful shape than almost any other temptation to which man is

exposed. Imagination, stimulated by cupidity, is treacherously

active. The games being games of chance, imagination plays them not

only with alarming distinctness, but with most delusive success.

Heaps of gold glitter before the infatuated dreamer; and although he

rouses himself with a sigh to find that he has only been dreaming,

yet the dream has had the vividness of reality to him. Many and many

an unhappy wight has started up from such dreams, goaded with a sense

of their reality, and persuaded that, if he only play the game as he

has just played it in imagination, he must infallibly win; has pawned

his last remnant, or robbed his employers, to rush to the

gaming-table, and venture everything on the strength of that

conviction. Ruined, perhaps dishonoured, people have exclaimed, The

wretch! or The scoundrel! and have been stern in their indignant

condemnation of his pitiable folly. But little do they know to what

fearful temptations he has succumbed; little do they know the

_fascination_ of the gaming-table to one who has played much, and

whose hours have been crowded with imaginary games, in which he has

been eminently successful.

I do not defend the gambler: God forbid! I am merely endeavouring to

present a psychological explanation of the very common phenomenon,

which people generally regard as produced only by some innate

wickedness. The gambler knows the folly of his act: no one so well!

He knows that the bank must win, and in his cooler moments will

demonstrate the matter clearly to you. But then comes this seductive

imagination, like a syren, picturing to him gorgeous realities: he is

dazzled, fascinated, and succumbs.

To resist imagination, to trample down temptation, a man needs

strength of will; but this is precisely the quality men are most

deficient in; and here, as almost everywhere, we find that vice is

not, as Plato says, ignorance, but weakness!

Cecil held out manfully against temptation, and everyone believed him

cured. No one knew what was constantly passing in his mind, or they

would not have been so secure.

Meanwhile Blanche had passed safely through her blissful trial, and a

little girl was nestled at her side. The joy and rapture of the

happy parents, the delight of Rose, the pride of Vyner, and the

supreme indifference of Mrs. Vyner, may well be conceived. Little

Rose Blanche, that was her name, was more welcomed, and more caressed

than if she had come into the world to preserve great estates from

passing into other hands; and how she escaped being killed by the

excess of attention and variety of advice, is only another

illustration of the mysterious escapes of infancy: a period when it

would seem some good genii must be always on the alert to prevent the

ever imminent catastrophe. There is said to be a special god who

looks after drunkards, and preserves them in their helpless state;

but what are the perils of a drunkard to the perils of an infant

surrounded with nurses, relations, and female friends?

Rose Blanche throve, however, and grew into a dimply, rosy babe

enough, incomparably more beautiful than any other babe ever seen, as

mother, father, nurse, and aunt incessantly testified. It did squall

a little, to be sure, and Cecil who had irritable nerves could not be

brought to consider that musical. But men! what do they know of

babies?

My dear madam, answer me frankly, did you ever know a man who was

worth listening to on that subject? Did you ever meet with one whose

head was not crammed with absurd notions thereupon? Is not your

husband, in particular, characterized by the most preposterous

incapacity--is he not fidgety, crotchety, absurd? I knew it.

Let me not, therefore, admit one word of Cecil's respecting Rose

Blanche, who promised to have more beauty, intelligence, and heart,

than any other infant then sprawling in long clothes, or then looking

with profound impenetrable calmness upon the wondrous universe to

which it had been so recently introduced.

A beam of sunshine had been let into the existence of Blanche and

Cecil, a beam which stretching far out into the future gilded the

distant horizon, so that they, and all, pronounced great happiness in

store for them. The exquisite expression of maternal love made

Blanche incomparably beautiful; and Cecil, as he watched her gazing

downwards on the infant at her breast, in that deep stillness of

seraphic love, whose calm intensity Raphael, alone has succeeded in

pourtraying,--would bend forward and press his lips upon her forehead

chastened, purified, and exalted. In those moments he was another

man; ennui fled, discouragement was conquered, and the cards were not

before his mind's eye.

CHAPTER V.

VIOLET TO MARMADUKE.

Learn, by a mortal yearning, to ascend--

Seeking a higher object. Love was given,

Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end:

For this the passion to excess was driven,

That self might be annulled:--her bondage prove

The fetters of a dream, opposed to love.

WORDSWORTH.--_Laodamia._

DEAREST MARMADUKE,

I must write to you. I have been on the point of doing so often,

very often, and now I learn from Rose that you have written to ask

her if she could send you news of my health from time to time. Thank

you, Marmaduke, thank you for the delicacy which has dictated your

respect for my resolution--thank you for not having attempted to

discover my retreat. You see I disclose it to you now--I am with my

kind old uncle--I let you know it, confiding in your not abusing the

knowledge, and attempting to see me. We cannot meet. I could not

endure it. But we can write. Your letters will be a solace to me;

to write to you will be an exquisite pleasure. Yes, Marmaduke, I

long to pour out my soul to you; I long to tell you all I think, all

I do; and you will tell me what you think, and what you do, will you

not? There is no issue from our fate; we must bear it, but we shall

bear it with less murmuring if we can speak to each other without

reserve.

"My health, you will be glad to learn, is good. Exercise keeps up my

strength, in spite of what I have suffered. I am almost all day on

horseback with my uncle, and that keeps me strong. Shot is of course

my inseparable companion; the dear beast sympathizes with me, I am

sure; and sometimes when I sit still, my soul carried away in some

sad reverie, I see his intelligent eyes fixed inquiringly on my face,

and then I say, 'where is Marmaduke?' and he pricks his ears, wags

his tail, and runs to the door to listen if indeed you are coming;

disappointed, he returns to his place to look sadly at me, as if he

knew that your presence alone would bring the smile again upon my

face.

"I am much calmer than I was. Renewed health has doubtless a great

deal to do with it, for misery is but malady; the healthy are not

long unhappy. I now resign myself to the inevitable, and no longer

beat my distracted wings against my cage. Happy I am not, and cannot

hope to be; but I am calm, and in my calmness it seems to me that the

privilege of writing to you, and of knowing that you think of me, is

a privilege which the happiest might envy.

"I read much. Tell me what books you are reading that I may read

them too, and so be with you in spirit, even in your studies. Mind

you obey me in this particular, and tell me all the books you read.

Do not be afraid of frightening me by the dryness of the subject. I

have been a miscellaneous and unwomanly reader. Papa's and uncle's

libraries have always been at my disposal, and although I have

studied no one subject, and am consequently very, very ignorant, yet

in my unrestrained liberty I have read all sorts of books, from

treatises of philosophy to novels. You know papa made us all learn a

little Latin, that he might explain Horace to us; so that I have got

a tincture of learning, just enough to make men's books intelligible,

and not enough to make me a blue.

"Therefore, let me read what you read; I shall, perhaps, understand a

serious book all the better from knowing that you have understood it;

for I want my mind to be as little below your level as culture can

make it.

"Describe to me your daily habits and avocations. Rose tells me that

you are seen nowhere; that you have ceased to visit all your old

friends. What replaces them?

"I do not ask you if you think of me. I know you do. My own heart

tells me so. I know your character; with all its manly strength, it

has womanly tenderness in it, like the honey Samson found in the

lion's mouth; and that tenderness is my guarantee that I am not

forgotten; that, although separated by an insuperable barrier, we are

not less united in heart. You will not cease to love me because I

cannot be yours; you will not love me less because I am forced to

deny you. No, Marmaduke, love such as yours is not selfish: it is

something higher than self, and I will not pay you the ill compliment

of doubting it. Could I do so, I should be selfish enough to appeal

to your feelings, to entreat you to love me ever, and not to think of

another. I should be jealous could I doubt you--but I cannot doubt.

"God bless you, Marmaduke, may you be happy! Write to me soon; and

write only of yourself.

"VIOLET."

CHAPTER VI.

BRIGHTER SCENES.

You o'erjoyed spirits, wipe your long-wet eyes!

JOHN MARSTON.--_The Malcontent._

There was a charming ball at Mrs. Langley Turner's. The rooms were

full without being crowded, and the company was brilliant: rank,

beauty, and talent, gave their éclat to the scene.

Mrs. Meredith Vyner and Rose were there; George Maxwell of course,

and to Rose's extreme delight, Julius St. John. She was at first

annoyed at recognising him, but her second thoughts showed her that

the present was an excellent opportunity for exhibiting her

indifference. She was, accordingly, in high spirits, or seemed to be

so; accepted the homage paid her with saucy coquetry; danced, talked,

and laughed as if her heart were as light as innocence could make it.

A careless bow had been her only salute of Julius, and she passed by

him several times without affecting not to observe him.

She noticed that he had grown thinner and paler. His face had grown

more thoughtful, but his demeanour was perfectly calm.

Late in the evening, Rose was examining the flowers, and thinking of

the handsome young guardsman who had just left her side, when she

felt some one approach her. It was Julius. She resumed her

inspection of the flowers.

"If you are not engaged for the next quadrille, Miss Vyner," he said

in a low but firm tone, "may I hope for the honour?"

"I am engaged," she replied quietly, and then moved half-way round

the flower-stand, as if to discover fresh beauties.

Julius did not mistake the refusal; but he was not to be so easily

discouraged.

"Are you also engaged for the quadrille after that?"

"I am."

There was less firmness in her tone; he thought it trembled.

"And .... I hope I am not intrusive .... and the next?"

Rose fancied that a refusal would look like fear, so she mastered her

voice, and replied, with the stereotyped smile,--

"I shall have much pleasure."

He bowed, and withdrew.

Rose's gaiety was somewhat damped; she tried to be lively, but there

was a depression on her spirits she could not shake off. It seemed

as if her eyes could fix themselves nowhere but in the direction in

which Julius stood.

She tried to look away, but she soon found herself again watching him.

Meanwhile, Maxwell was remonstrating with Mrs. Vyner upon the little

desire she exhibited to be near him, to speak to him.

"We must think of appearances," she replied; "here every action is

noticed and commented-on."

"But other men sit by you; you talk to them."

"Yes; as a blind. If I am seen much with you, people will begin to

gossip."

"What if they do?" he brutally replied.

"What if they do! Are you indifferent to it?"

"You do not seem to be, at any rate," he said, sarcastically. "You

have grown very respectful of appearances of late. You never thought

of them with Mr. Ashley."

"Because I did not care for him."

"You _looked_ as if you did; you acted as if you did; and every one

supposed you did."

"But they were wrong. I was not careful then, because there was no

danger of my committing myself. With you, it is very different."

"So it appears."

"Now you are angry."

"I am."

"What about?"

"Your indifference."

"Foolish fellow!" she said playfully.

"Oh, yes, it is very easy to say that; but I feel I have cause to be

angry. You pretend to love me, yet you can leave me here in the

room, and chatter away to any fool who pleases to accost you. One

would think I was indifferent to you."

"_One_ would think! who would? would you? What does it matter to you

if the world thinks me indifferent to you?"

"It matters a great deal."

"How so?"

"Of course it does; it always matters to a man to have a charming

woman care for him. People envy him his good fortune. They think

more highly of him."

"And you wish to be envied?"

"I do not wish it to be supposed that I am so unattractive that no

woman can care for me."

"It would please you, then, if people gossipped about us?"

"I don't say that exactly; though I don't see what harm their gossip

could do us."

She fixed her grey eyes upon him with a strange expression. In an

instant she read his character--its intense selfishness was revealed;

and she began to doubt whether he, too, might not be playing with

her, as Marmaduke had played; or worse, whether his love might not be

the mere prompting of a wretched vanity, which sought her conquest as

a trophy, not as a desire.

"Mr. Maxwell, we differ so entirely in our views, that it would be

useless to prolong this discussion. I have only this more to say: so

far from giving the world any right to gossip about me, in reference

to you, it is my determination to relinquish the pleasure of your

acquaintance from this time forward. When you have learned what is

due to me, I may resume it; not till then."

She rose, as she said this, and walked across the room to Mrs.

Langley Turner, by whose side she sat down; while Maxwell gazed on

her with mingled feelings of astonishment and rage, his brow

darkening, his lips compressed, and every nerve within him trembling.

Mrs. Vyner was wrong in her suspicions. It was not vanity, it was

jealousy which prompted his words. He suffered tortures from seeing

her smile, and chat with other men, and scarcely notice him. He was

sincere in his wish for her to distinguish him above all the rest;

not simply to gratify his vanity, but to assure him that she really

loved him enough to brave everything for him. Besides, he could not

understand how her love allowed her to keep away from his side.

Prudence never chilled _him_. Appearances never restrained him. He

could have sat by her all the evening--every evening--it was what he

most desired; and he did not understand how she could forego the same

pleasure.

Maxwell was narrow-minded, even stupid; but his passions were

intense; and at this moment he felt as if he could murder her. He

quitted the ball in a state of deep concentrated anger, brooding on

what he considered his wrongs.

Julius came to claim Rose for the quadrille. They were silent at

first, and embarrassed.

"How did you like Italy?" she said, by way of breaking the silence.

"Not at all."

"Indeed! then you are singular. I thought every one must like it.

Perhaps you prefer contradiction?'

"No; I was in no frame of mind to enjoy anything."

She trembled slightly; the _chaine des dames_, by obliging her to

quit his side, prevented her speaking. When they again stood quietly

beside each other, he continued,--

"We went to see everything, and the only result was, that we so tired

ourselves during the day, that we slept soundly at night."

"But the pictures, the statues, the architecture, the people?"

"I saw them all; but they all wearied me."

"You were rehearsing Childe Harold, I suppose?" she said, with a

feeble attempt at liveliness, which her voice belied.

"If I had been acting a part--even of misanthropy--I should have

enjoyed myself unhappily ... It is your _l'été_."

She advanced, and the conversation was again interrupted. Nothing

more was said during the rest of the quadrille; both were absorbed in

their own thoughts.

He led her to a seat, and took another beside her. After a pause of

some moments, she said,--

"So you were unhappy in Italy?"

He looked earnestly into her eyes as he answered,--

"Does that surprise you? Were you not already aware of it? Had I

not cause?"

She blushed deeply, as she said,--

"No; you had .... no cause .... if you had stayed in England .... you

might have got over it."

His lower jaw fell as she concluded this phrase. She felt herself on

the eve of a declaration, and by a strong effort turned it off in

that way.

At this moment a partner came to carry her off for a waltz, and

Julius was left to his own reflections. He reproached himself for

having so far betrayed his feelings; but in truth they had been wrung

from him, as from her, by the irresistible fascination of the moment.

On closer inspection, it seemed to him, as if there had been in her

manner a tenderness and embarrassment which implied a wish for

reconciliation, if not a regret for the past.

Prompted by this idea, he went up to Mrs. Vyner, and began a long

conversation with her, at the termination of which he asked if he

might be allowed to pay his respects to her some morning.

"Always delighted to receive you, Mr. St. John, that you must know;

indeed, I should pick a quarrel with you for not having called

before, but that I suppose you have some excellent excuse."

"Then, to-morrow?"

"To-morrow we shall be at home."

The morrow came, and Julius, resolved at any rate not to lose Rose as

a _friend_ (beautiful sophistry of lovers!), was punctual in his

visit. He was there before every one else. Vyner and his wife were

alone in the drawing-room.

"Let Miss Vyner know that Mr. St. John is here," said Mrs. Vyner to

the servant.

In a few minutes Rose came down: a volume was in her hand, and it

caught the eye of her lover as soon as she appeared. She was very

agitated, but shook him by the hand as if nothing particular was

about to transpire. She tried to join in the conversation, but could

never finish a sentence.

Mrs. Vyner left the room shortly afterwards, and then Rose suddenly

remembered that papa had bought a new and rare edition of Horace,

which she was sure Mr. St. John would like to see.

Julius expressed enthusiastic eagerness.

Vyner thought he could lay his hand on it in a minute, and trotted

away to his study for that purpose.

No sooner had he left the room than Rose, blushing and trembling,

said,--

"Here is a book .... I meant to give it you .... before you left the

Hall .... that night."

She could say no more. He snatched the volume from her hand: it was

Leopardi. A thrill of rapture ran through his whole being; and, in a

voice choked with emotion, he said,--

"Rose .... dearest Rose .... is this .... is this the answer to my

.... to my letter?"

"It is."

He clasped her in his arms, and, with hysterical passion, groaned, as

he held her to his heart.

"Here is my treasure .... Eh?" said Vyner, opening the door, and

discovering the lovers in that unambiguous embrace.

"Tell him all," whispered Rose in Julius's ear, as she fled in

confusion from the room.

Julius did tell all; and that very hour Vyner gave his delighted

consent.

CHAPTER VII.

ANOTHER LOVE SCENE.

_Claude_.--"Miserable trickster! you know that your weapon is

harmless!--You have the courage of the mountebank, sir, not the

bravo."

BULWER.--_Lady of Lyons._

That very day a strangely different scene took place in that house.

Mrs. Vyner was in that famous boudoir before described; Maxwell was

gloomily pacing it to and fro. He was there for the purpose of

having an "explanation"; but he found her more than a match for him,

and was now trying to beat from his stupid brain a convincing

argument.

"You don't love me," he at last exclaimed.

"Have you come here to tell me that? If so, I would have you

observe, that you have chosen a singularly inappropriate occasion."

"I say you don't love me," he repeated, and his eyes sparkled with

malignant fire.

"Perhaps not. You do not take the way to make me love you."

This was said with such an air of quiet indifference, that he paused

to look at her, as if he could read on her brow a confirmation of

what she said.

"I do not love you then!" he said bitterly. "I have not loved you

for two years .... not saying; a word about it .... loving you in

secret .... seeing others more favoured, seeing others looking into

your face as I dare not look .... suffering tortures of jealousy ....

I do not take the way to gain your love! what way should I then take?"

"Be amiable .... women are not captivated by scowls .... George, you

are unjust to me. Sit down, and listen to me calmly. Remember my

position."

"You take care I shall not forget it."

"Would you then forget it?"

"Yes; for it keeps you from me. It is in your mouth at all times.

'My position' is your excuse for everything."

"And is it not a valid excuse?"

"No; it is not: it is a mere excuse. Remember your position, indeed!

why do you love another man than your husband, if your _position_

forbids it?"

She looked at him in surprise, but even her tiger eyes quailed

beneath the savage glance of her brutal lover. She felt that he was

her _master_! He was not to be led as Marmaduke had been led,

because in him there was none of the generous principle, or chivalric

sensibility, which made Marmaduke, in spite of his impetuosity,

pliable and manageable. He had almost as much vehemence, and

infinitely more brutality. She saw all this; yet she loved him.

Strange paradox of human nature, she loved the fierce, narrow-minded,

ungenerous Maxwell, with a far deeper passion than she had felt for

the generous, open-hearted, high-spirited Marmaduke! It may be that

she felt more sympathy with a being of a lower order; or it may be

that Maxwell alone had conquered her: certain it is, that she felt

for him another kind of passion, and was more his slave than he hers.

By a not uncommon transposition of places, he, who as an

unacknowledged lover had been the most abject slave, became, when

acknowledged, the most unflinching tyrant. This is generally the

case with brute natures.

It is not to be supposed that she submitted quietly. She was too

fond of power to relinquish it without a struggle; but although

ridicule was a weapon she wielded with unsparing skill, and a weapon

he dreaded more than any other; yet even that was but a small sword

which was beaten down by the heavy sabre of his fierce sarcasm.

"You do not answer me," he said, irritated at her silence.

"Until you can speak to me as a gentleman," she replied, "I shall

remain silent."

"That is an easy way of ending an argument."

"There is an easier."

"Is there, indeed?"

"And more efficient--do not force me to it."

"Pray what is it?"

"To leave the room."

She rose and walked to the door. He seized her wrist.

"Let me go, sir; you hurt me..... This violence is _manly_--but it

is like you..... Let me go..... Will you force me to ring the bell,

and have you ordered out of the house?"

"Ring the bell! you dare not ring it! I defy you..... What could

you say? what do I do here? .... Ring it, by all means!"

She was stung by his manner, and looking on him with intense scorn,

said,--

"I will."

As she moved towards the bell, he drew a pistol from his pocket. She

started, terrified at the sight.

"You brave me, do you?" he said, hoarse with passion; "you brave me;

well! ring!"

Her hand was on the bell: she hesitated.

"What means that? Do you intend to murder me?"

"_I do!_"

She did not start, she did not scream; a smile of unutterable scorn

passed over her face.

"Ring it, I tell you."

"You wish me to order you to be turned out?"

"I wish to end this struggle--and I declare to God that I will end

it, either in my favour, or with your life. I am reckless; choose

you! You think I am a fool; you are mistaken: I am no fool; nor

shall you make me one. You say you love me; I hope for your sake you

speak truly; if you do not, you shall not live to torture me."

"Your hand trembles."

"It is with passion, then. It is because the crisis has arrived. It

is because this is the moment that must decide everything."

Her hand was still upon the bell. Her calmness puzzled and

exasperated him, and when she said with a slight irony in her tone,--

"And you really talk of shooting me, to prove your love?"

He levelled the pistol at her, and shouted,--

"Ring the bell, and try me!"

"I will. But first allow me to observe, that if there is one thing

more despicable than the threat you make, it is to commit the

exquisitely ridiculous mistake of _acting_ such a part as you now

act. Passion might excuse the _deed_; nothing can efface the

childish stupidity of the _pretence_. Mr. Maxwell, when next you get

up a scene like this, at least take care that your pistol is

_loaded_; yours has no cap!"

Having uttered this in the coldest, calmest tone imaginable, she rang

the bell.

A cry burst from him as he looked down, and saw in truth, that there

was no cap on the nipple. He thrust the pistol into his pocket, and

threw himself into a chair in wild confusion.

The servant entered.

"Order a cab for Mr. Maxwell," Mrs. Vyner said.

The servant retired, and they were again alone. Not a word passed.

Overwhelmed with rage and shame, Maxwell sat brooding on his stormy

thoughts. Mrs. Vyner watched him with scorn: he had lost the hold

over her which his violence had gained: she now thought that he was

not so terrible as Marmaduke had been, and from having feared, she

now despised him.

"The cab is at the door," said the servant.

Maxwell did not move. His dark thoughts occupied him. It had been

no vulgar threat, for the pistol was really loaded, although the cap

had been forgotten; but he understood the contempt with which she

must regard him, and he was ruminating projects of vengeance.

She had taken up a book and was affecting to read, as if undisturbed

by his presence; he was made aware of it by the rustle of the leaves

as she turned them over; and conscious of the disadvantage of his

position, he at length arose, and looking at her malignantly, said,--

"You fancy me an actor; I am one; my first appearance has been in a

farce; laugh, laugh! my next will be in a tragedy!"

And with a low bow he retired.

CHAPTER VIII.

VIOLET WRITES AGAIN.

Les lettres d'amour ne portent l'émotion que dans le cœur qui

inspire et qui partage le feu qui les a dictées. Par elles-mêmes

elles se ressemblent toutes: mais chaque être épris d'amour trouve

dans celle qui lui est adressée une puissance irrésistible, une

nouveauté incomparable.

GEORGE SAND.--_La Comtesse de Rudolstadt._

Your letter, dearest Marmaduke, was a great joy to me, but the joy

was dashed with pain as I came to the close, and read there the hope

you express of our speedy union. No, that cannot be. Oh, do you not

feel that it cannot be? do you not feel that it does not depend upon

my love, but upon the irrevocable past? I thought I had made you

understand all my feelings on this unhappy subject, and that I might

write to you freely without awakening in either of us a hope which

cannot be gratified. Your letter has greatly pained me; pained me

because you seem to think that, inasmuch as we both love, we must be

united--that love will bear down all obstacles and triumph at last.

But no; that cannot be. If there were the remotest chance of it, do

you think I should not catch at such a hope with all the impatient

eagerness of love? Have I nothing to subdue? Have I no temptations

to overcome? Think, Marmaduke, my noble Marmaduke, think of what I

have suffered and must still suffer when I look upon our fate, and

yet can say, am forced to say, we must never meet! I fled from

London, fled from you, because I feared the insidious counsels of my

heart. My reason tells me that I acted rightly--do you not feel so

too?

I had looked forward to this correspondence with such longing! I had

pictured all the rapture it would give us both; and see! the first

letter from you rips up old wounds, and draws from me bitter, bitter

tears.

It must cease, unless you can accept my hard conditions. It must

cease, Marmaduke, for I dare not let it continue. I could not trust

myself--I should allow myself to be persuaded--your hopes would

become my hopes--your prayers would melt my resolution. I know it.

I know my own heart; I know its strength and its weakness, and I feel

that it would be madness in me to expose myself to the temptation of

corresponding with you on _that_ subject. You would defeat me at

last; and I must not, I will not be defeated! Therefore, promise me

at once to accept my conditions, promise to love me as one whom an

inevitable fate has separated from you, and for ever. Let us at the

outset understand the relation which can alone exist between us. We

love, but we must love without hope. Let us accept our fate--a fate

which our murmurs or our struggles cannot alter, and in this

resignation our love will be as a guiding star to light us through

life; let our souls blend into one; let our hearts never be

separated, and we shall live together in spirit, though distant from

each other. This is not the happy lot which might have been ours,

but it is the happiest which remains for us. Isolated we shall be;

without home, without family; but life will still have one sacred

feeling one immeasurable delight, and above the turmoils and petty

cares of the world there will be a heaven for us.

Will you accept my love upon such terms? Will you struggle with

yourself as I have struggled, and conquer as I have conquered?

I may seem cold in writing thus! Oh, do not think it; do not think

that this conquest has been lightly made! I love you, love you with

the passionate excess of a fervid nature: but the stern necessities

of our condition imprison me in this reserve. It is because I see no

outlet that I am so firm; and it is only since I have clearly seen my

lot is inevitable that I have learned to be calm and happy. Write to

me without delay, write to tell me that you do not misunderstand

me--that you do not think me cold: oh, you cannot think _that_!

Write to me to tell me that you see, as I see, how our only chance of

happiness is in resignation--in love without hope. Write to me to

tell me that my love will be as a star to you in your ambitious

career, and that when the busy day is done, and night with all its

deep repose comes on, your thoughts will then rise from the

occupations of the day to that serener sphere where souls commingle.

For my love _will_ be this to you, dearest; I know it, since I

interpret my own heart for you.

VIOLET.

CHAPTER IX.

FRANK IN REDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES.

Little Rose Blanche throve apace; but Cecil's painting proceeded

slowly, and his mind was still more busy with those imaginary games

in which his success was greater and greater every day.

Rose and Julius were in that feverish condition which is common to

lovers, whirled amidst the bustle of marriage preparations.

Fevers are not usually enviable things; but that is a kind of fever

which we all envy. The Present how crowded, how occupied, how

intense! the Future, how radiant, how dream-peopled! The pulse

beats, the brain is over-excited, the step is light (and the head

also), the face wears an aspect of everlasting beatitude, the hand is

generous, the whole man is in a dream.

Some people, indeed, "wondered" at the match; some very ill-favoured

men couldn't, for the life of them, imagine what she could see in

that ugly fellow: while others, less charitable (they were females),

would be sorry to hint at anything illiberal, but they really did

think that Rose Vyner, though a lively girl enough, and all that sort

of thing, was scarcely the girl to make a good wife. But none of

these opinions reached the ears of the parties concerned; and the

circle of the Vyners, and the St. Johns was, with few exceptions,

sincerely rejoiced at the approaching marriage.

One afternoon, while Cecil was laboriously painting, Frank Forrester

knocked at his door.

"Not at home, sir," said the girl, resolutely.

"Bah!" said Frank, introducing his person into the passage.

"Indeed he is not, sir; and he's very particularly engaged."

"You see, my lily of Westminster .... for you are a lily, damn my

whiskers!" said Frank, passing his arm round her waist, and kissing

her smutty and reluctant cheek; "you see I understand perfectly well,

that it is your business to say your master's not at home...."

"Yes, sir; he told me so strictly."

"But it is my business not to believe you ... so announce me, you

peony of Pimlico! announce me .... No; I'll announce myself."

So saying, Frank marched up stairs, and without ceremony walked into

the _atélier_.

Cecil was embarrassed at seeing him.

"What's this? cut so old a chum as Frank Forrester! Not at home to

Frank! Damn my whiskers! it is enough to make one give the lie to

those prime histories of ancient friendship; the Damons and Pythiases

didn't say not at home to each other, I presume.... What's the

start, Cis, my boy? How is it we never see you? How is it I am

denied whenever I present my agreeable person at your inhospitable

door?"

Cecil briefly explained to him the change which had taken place in

his finances and his habits.

"Quite right too, Cis. Damn it! there's nothing to be done at _rouge

et noir_. I have quite given it up! Unfortunately, not before it

cleaned me out. You see," he added, looking down upon his costume,

"I am not magnificent .... I don't flourish."

To judge by his appearance, indeed, he did not flourish; and Cecil

could not help being painfully struck with the contrast between his

costume now, and when last he saw him. Rings, chains, studs, shirt

pin, and cane were gone. The hat was greasy, and glossy from being

carefully brushed after repeated wettings; the cut-away coat was so

threadbare, and its collar so greasy, that it seemed as if it had

been worn for ten years, and was hourly in danger of falling to

pieces. The double-breasted waistcoat, the brilliant shawl-pattern

of which was now greatly faded, was buttoned up to the throat. The

sky-blue trousers, worn at the seams, and bagged at the knees, were

tightly strapped over a pair of decent boots. Altogether, there was

such unmistakeable poverty, coupled with such an attempt at style,

that his appearance was singularly painful. It was not humble

poverty; it was faded splendour. It was the wreck of a man about

town.

His face also showed the effects of the change. Poverty had brought

with it a forced abstinence from that excitement which hitherto had

sustained him; and every one knows the effects which follow any

cessation of accustomed stimulus. Frank having been used to live

freely, sometimes intemperately, now drank water. Accustomed to the

excitement of the gaming-table, he now could rarely indulge in it.

Some men, forced to abstain from wine, would have taken to spirits,

or even beer; but Frank damned his whiskers, and declared he was a

gentleman, and had never learned to "guzzle": if he could not get

wine, and good wine, he would not defile his palate with vulgar

drinks.

"What are you doing?" asked Cecil.

"Living the life of a beast, damn my whiskers! dining off a solitary

chop, lounging about to be cut by former associates, making vain

attempts to induce my friends to go through the matter of form of

putting their names to a bill, and moralizing on the fragility of

human friendship, and the limits of human credit."

"Well, but have you no means of getting a livelihood?'

"What means? You don't expect me to turn painter, and be moral like

yourself, do you?"

"No, indeed; but still, my dear Frank, you must do something."

"Something will turn up, perhaps."

"But if nothing should turn up, what can the end be?"

"Oh! a new broom and a crossing! That's a _dernière ressource_;--not

a bad one, either. A man 'sees life' at a crossing;--besides, the

occupation's healthy--all in the open air. I should make a fortune

at it. Damme! a gentleman with a broom--that would produce an

effect, I think!"

Cecil shook his head, though he could not refrain from smiling at

Frank's coolness.

"You haven't such a thing as a sovereign about you, eh?" said Frank,

combing the long thin hair over the top of his head, so as to hide

his daily increasing baldness.

"Yes, Frank, I have, and very much at your service."

"You're a trump!" said Frank, jumping up, and shaking him by the

hand. "I have asked that question of eight of my friends within the

last two days, and--it was very unfortunate--but at that moment not

one of them could lay his hand upon such a thing, damn my whiskers!"

Cecil passed the sovereign to him.

"At any rate, I shall dine to-day," Frank exclaimed.

"Is that anything new, then?"

"So completely novel, that it has not occurred this whole week. In

fact, I haven't what I call _dined_ for a month; I have only stifled

the baser cravings of hunger, but not satisfied those higher and,

perhaps, more imperious cravings of the man who knows how to dine.

For, as you know, it is one thing to eat, another thing to eat as an

intellectual being should eat. It breaks my heart to pass the club

windows, and know how many facilities there are within of dining as a

man with an immortal soul should dine,--and to reflect how few among

the diners know how to accomplish that solemnity."

"Well, but do you mean to say that, in your present state of

finances, you intend spending that sovereign on your dinner?"

"That, or the greater part of it," replied Frank, with considerable

seriousness. "I have a strong desire to _dine_. I can support

hunger, I can live upon a crust (if forced), but, damn my whiskers!

from time to time I must satisfy the higher cravings of my nature,

and dine."

"Frank, you shall dine to-day, and at my invitation; save that

sovereign for next week. I warn you, that you will seldom get one

from me after this; for I myself am poor. So make the most of it;

but to-day we'll dine together."

"We will; the suggestion does credit to your head and heart, Cis."

CHAPTER X.

EFFECTS OF DINING WELL.

After a dinner at the Thatched House, limited in the number of

dishes, but selected with the skill of a Frank Forrester, and

assisted by a bottle of Barsac, two bottles of Æil-de-perdrix, and a

bottle of Romané, the two friends were seated at the table in that

state of indolent beatitude which succeeds a scientifically-chosen

repast. The pulse is heightened, but digestion is light; the brain

is active, yet somewhat dreamy; the will seems lulled, and anything

like an effort seems impossible.

Sipping their Burgundy, Frank and Cecil sat talking over the various

experiences of their lives, especially with women--a subject on which

men are usually communicative during such hours. Frank was

inexhaustible in stories, which made Cecil roll with laughter, or

listen with breath-suspended interest. Meanwhile the lights grew

dimmer, and their brains grew heavier: the Burgundy was steadily

overcoming them. Frank perceiving it, made a movement to go. Cecil

tried to persuade him to have another bottle, but he was resolute;

and having paid the bill, they departed.

The fresh air somewhat dissipated the effect of the wine, but Cecil

was now in a state of craving for a fresh sensation; and when Frank

announced his intention of trying his luck with the sovereign he had

borrowed, Cecil noisily declared he would go with him.

"Not that I intend to play, though. No, no, I've given that up; that

won't do. But come along, Frank; anything for a lark. Lalla-liety!

Lalla-liety!" he shouted, in a feeble falsetto, as if announcing to

the universe that he was not the boy to go home till morning did

appear.

When they entered the gaming-house, Cecil, though perfectly aware of

everything he did and said, was still what is called "far gone"; and

the dazzling lights, the well-known cries, the chink of the money,

the click of the rake against the coin, the murmur of conversation,

all conspired to intoxicate him.

While Frank played, he walked about the room, observing the various

countenances of the players. In one corner sat a young man of about

three and twenty, haggard and pale: he was weeping silently, the

tears rolling unheeded down his cheeks, and falling upon the ground,

while every now and then a stifled sob seemed to tear his breath. He

had lost all.

There was something so painful in this retired sorrow; that Cecil,

who was contemplating him with a sort of drunken compassion, went up

to him, and said,--

"Do not be downcast, sir, fortune may change. Have you lost much?"

"Seventeen pounds," sobbed the young man; "but it was my all--I am

ruined! utterly ruined! Fortune cannot change for me, for I shall

never have another sixpence, to tempt her with. O my poor mother! my

poor mother!"

A tear stood in Cecil's eye, and he hiccupped. He was debating with

himself whether he should give the unhappy youth a chance of

recovering his gains. At last, slipping a half sovereign into his

hand, he said,--

"There--risk that. But if you win back your money, promise me

solemnly never to play again. You may not another time find one to

give you a chance."

The bloodshot eyes of the youth flashed fire as he saw the piece of

gold in his hand. He tried to utter his thanks, but a sort of

gurgling murmur was all that escaped. He instantly went to the table

and began to play. Cecil, interested in his fate, stood beside him.

He won, and won, and won. In a quarter of an hour, in spite of

several losses, he had recovered his seventeen pounds, and five more

with them. He repaid Cecil the half sovereign, and clasping his

hand, said fervently:--"God bless you! you have saved a

fellow-creature!" and ran rather than walked out of the house.

No sooner had he departed than, strange inconsistency! Cecil began

to play.

The young man's presence had been a restraint on him, which not even

the intoxicating sight of the gold could overcome. He had presented

himself as a Mentor to that young man, and could not in his presence

descend from the pedestal; accordingly he was irritably anxious for

his protégé to win, and to depart. All the time he had been standing

at the table, a sort of fever of cupidity possessed him. He staked

imaginary sums, and always, or almost always, won. Yes, even with

the game played before him, he juggled with himself almost as much as

when alone in his _atélier_ he played those successful games.

Whoever has stood at a table where a game of chance is being played,

and has, in imagination only, participated, must remember this:--We

choose a side; if it is victorious, we reflect how great would have

been our gain; if it is unsuccessful, we say to ourselves, "There

would have been a loss;" but we do not, to our minds, realize that

loss with anything like the vividness with which we realize the gain;

and, moreover, we constantly shelter ourselves under the idea that

"most likely we should not, after all, have chosen that side."

This was the process going on in Cecil's mind as he stood by that

table, and saw the game played; and he was impatient for his protégé

to begone: so impatient that he cared not whether the youth won or

lost; and indeed at one period when the losses were frequent, he was

rather disappointed to see a gain follow them, because it deferred

the youth's exit. Such is human egotism!

No sooner was he freed from this restraint than, heedless of the

whispers of his conscience, he flung down a sovereign, and was soon

absorbed in the game.

Frank presently came round to him, having lost back twenty pounds

which he had won, and now begged another loan. Cecil took up a dozen

sovereigns from the heap before him, and handed them to him with a

caution to be careful.

Till deep in the night they played, and Cecil left the house a winner

of sixty pounds. Frank had lost the twelve lent him, and was savage

against fate. Cecil, half intoxicated as he was, and glorying in his

winnings, still felt a pressing sense of remorse, at having been

seduced. But he vowed that it should never recur again; and told

Frank if ever he proposed to go into another gaming-house, from that

instant their friendship would be at an end.

"I have been led astray to-night," he said, "but I dare not repeat

it. I know what the end must be; and nothing shall make me forget my

oath; so remember, Frank, the first word with which you tempt me, is

the word that parts us for ever!"

"I tempt you, indeed! I didn't propose it to-night, did I? Besides,

I have abjured the fickle goddess myself. I touch no more cards.

Damn my whiskers!"

Cecil rose the next morning with a fearful consciousness of having

broken his oath, and of having again plunged into the mire from which

he had been extricated. He was ashamed of his weakness, but tried to

convince himself that it was a moment of intoxication, and would not

recur.

That night he took Blanche to her father's; the next night he invited

Rose to come to them, which invitation, as Julius was included in it,

was accepted.

Thus were two days placed as barriers between him and temptation. He

felt the desire so strong within him to return to the gaming-table,

that he was obliged to place himself in a position which would make

that return almost impossible. But the third night, he had no

engagement. The passion had grown stronger from the restraint: it

subdued him! He struggled with it; he tried to gain courage in

reflecting on the miseries which would ensue; but the "still small

voice," though heard, was impotent. Passion bullied Reason into

silence; unable to answer its arguments it gagged them with a

reckless "don't care!"

Struggles were vain: the gamester would fulfil his destiny.

CHAPTER XI.

THE HONEYMOON.

When the fretful stir

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart,

How oft in spirit have I turned to thee,

O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods!

WORDSWORTH.

Mira queste mine

E le carte, e le tete, e i marmi, e i templi,

Pensa qual terra premi; e se destarti

Non può la luce di cotanti esempli,

Che stai? Levati e parti.

LEOPARDI.

Julius and Rose were married, and a brighter day never shone upon our

island than that which saw these two admirable creatures united.

Vyner's heart was heavy as he gave her away; for although he had the

highest opinion of Julius, and thought the match in every way an

excellent one, yet Rose was the only child he had now at home with

him; and his affection, rejected by his wife, had turned itself once

more towards his children.

They set off for a wedding tour, down the Wye into Wales. Who shall

depict their silent, deep, unspeakable happiness, as they felt

themselves now for ever united? Words have no power of expressing

such feelings: there is no standard to which to refer an experience

which transcends all former experience. Either the reader has felt

this bliss; or he will, some day, feel it. To his own experience I

must refer him.

Everything then has a certain newness; yet everything comes as such a

matter of course! All emotions glide through the soul with such a

soft sure pace, that they excite no surprise even by their novelty.

The lovers "feel as if they had been married years;" and yet a

curious sense of novelty is always present. They do not feel what

they expected to feel; yet are they not surprised. In fact, they are

all feeling; all deep, vivid, unspeakable emotion. Hand clasped in

hand, lip pressed to lip, eyes fixed on eyes, hours of silent and

unbroken bliss pass swiftly on, as if the wide universe were shrunk

into one spot, as if a whole eternity were not too great to be filled

by that one passion.

Love is the intensest form of life. No wonder, then, that all human

beings crave it; no wonder that we all feel a perennial interest in

it, and that the look of tenderness we detect in its passage from one

loved being to another, stirs strange memories in our hearts, and

breaks like a smile over our souls; no wonder that in the cunning

pages of the poet, we are fascinated by his pictured reflex of those

feelings which belong to our common humanity!

Rose and Julius, so fitly formed to be united, each soul being, in

Plato's language, the half of the other--the two souls rushing into a

perfect one, and making a harmonious life between them: she so gay,

witty, wild, frank, and gentle; he so grave, high-souled,

earnest-minded, and so noble; she so beautiful, and he so honest--how

could they fail to be happy?

To Tinterne's lovely scenes they at first repaired: a delicious spot,

made for honeymoons, did not honeymoons fortunately make every place

a paradise. The beauty of the spot was sweetly accordant with their

minds; and they were delighted to alternate the admiration of nature

with their adoration of each other. The sky seemed more blue,

significant, and tender, after witnessing a kiss snatched amidst the

tangled overgrowth of shrubs (with most unfeminine indifference, too,

be it said, in passing, to the crumpling of bonnets!); and the sunny

slopes looked still more verdant, as these lovers chased each other,

like happy children, down them.

I am not going to betray any more of the secrets of those Eleusinian

mysteries of love: the initiated will understand them; and they alone

are fit to hear them.

How Julius and Rose admired Tinterne Abbey! Everybody does.

Everybody remembers Wordsworth's magnificent lines; and it is the

glorious privilege of poetry to open our eyes to the divinity of

beauty which lies around us, and to confer on nature herself a

splendour not her own. But lovers have no need of an hierophant:

beauty to them is visible without the poet's aid; for they themselves

are poets. And to our lovers the abbey was more exquisite than to

any wayfarer's eye seeking only the picturesque.

"I am often puzzled," said Julius, as they stood within the majestic

ruin, "to explain how it is that the proportion we so much admire in

ancient and in Gothic architecture should be the endless despair of

the moderns. With all our perfection of geometry and masonry, we are

miserably behind our forefathers in the first principle of art:

proportion. We build more comfortable houses; but we cannot build a

palace, a temple, or a monument. The Comfortable we attain: our

efforts after the Beautiful are singularly feeble and abortive. I

suppose those writers are correct who place the cause of failure in

the absence of that religious idea which animated the ancients.

Certainly it seems as if we measured with the rule and compass,

rather than with the mind: we aggregate materials, instead of

incarnating an idea. We use the symbols of other times, and build

churches and cathedrals with the columns and façades from sunny

Greece, and the Gothic nave and cross from Germany and France; the

flying buttress and the pointed arch side by side the architraves and

pediments of Greece!"

"You will call me a little ignoramus," replied Rose; "but I can't

help it: I prefer this abbey in its ruins to any perfect work of art.

No doubt, in its original state it must have been very lovely; but

look at it now! With no roof but heaven, no painted windows, but,

instead, those charming glimpses of the hills around; and the chinks

in the walls--the ruin with its moss and lichens, and the soft

shadows thrown on this grassy pavement by the fragments of beauty

which are still remaining--is not all this more beautiful than a work

of art?"

Julius looked into her eyes and thought she was right; but what

stopped his lips from replying, I leave to the reader's imagination:

to my ears it had a very musical sound.

It was in vain they tried to be æsthetical and talk architecture; the

time and mood were not made for it; and even the exquisite beauty

which surrounded them could only draw from them fragmentary remarks.

But if they did not express much, they felt a great deal.

It was not a spot to stand on without having the thoughts constantly

withdrawn from the present to the past, of which it was a fragment.

The mind would wander. On that very spot where they stood, had many

a pious monk bowed himself down in prayer: asking, in the contrition

of a weary spirit, for pardon and for courage. The faith which moved

him has passed away, effaced beneath the giant march of time; the

tessellated pavement no longer echoes the slow and heavy tread of

monks, but has been broken and scattered, and has passed away with

the faith it served; and, like that faith, exists only in broken

fragments, curious amongst the weeds that have usurped its place.

The painted windows

Richly dight,

Shedding a dim, religious light--

are no more: yon broken, crumbling shaft, springing up like an

aspiring soul to the sky, no longer holds the glass

Diamonded with panes of quaint device,

Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,

As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings.

Looking on these fragments which speak feelingly of the decay and

change of all things, a soft melancholy would invade their minds.

"Everything then changes, is it so?" asked Rose.

"Everything," he replied, "but love; and that sustains the world."

Did I not say that lovers were poets? Here is Julius talking a

language that would surprise himself, were it not the natural

expression of his feelings. And Rose--instead of being witty and

sparkling--Rose was throughout their tour so serious and sentimental,

that no one would have recognised her; but she was intensely happy in

her melancholy, and would not have changed it for all the gaieties in

the world.

While I contemplate, not without a touch of envy, this change and its

cause, it occurs to me, that as I am, unluckily, in no danger of

falling into the error myself, I may, to follow my usual bent,

moralize for a moment on this all interesting subject of honeymoons.

Rightly is the first month of marriage called a honeymoon: a period

of unceasing sweetness, cloying at last upon the palled and exhausted

palate, unless it have something higher and better upon which to rest

than its mere sweetness. Before the year is out, the "happy pair"

have, alas! too often found indifference succeed to this

all-exacting, all-impatient passion; a consummation not easily to be

avoided, but perhaps, to be delayed.

Many ingenious writers have tried their hands at a definition of

love; may I not venture after them?

Love, in its commonest form, I take to be an _enthusiasm with which

the mind intensifies and dignifies its desires_. Unhappily, in most

cases, it is only a passing enthusiasm, dying away with the

gratification of its desires; and dying, because not founded on

lasting qualities; dying, because the sympathies are not involved,

because the moral requirements are not responded to with the same

facility as the physical. A love, whose root is in passion, and only

in passion, cannot be supposed to survive the first ardour of that

passion. It is only when above and beyond that passion, giving it

force and perpetually renewing it as from a central fire, there

exists what I should call a moral passion,--an intense moral

desire,--that the love can be durable. The sensuous desire is

violent but limited; the moral desire is infinite: the craving which

soul feels for perfect communion with soul, and the infinite variety

with which that desire is maintained, give to love its lustre and its

immortality.

But how are we to distinguish between these two kinds of love? How

is a man to know whether he loves in the complete and exalted manner

last described, and not in the limited, instinctive, perishable

manner? There, I confess, lies the mystery. Time alone can solve

it. No man can well discriminate in his own case, and precisely for

the reason that love is an enthusiasm, which not only intensifies,

but also _dignifies_ his desires, so that in his eyes, his passion

appears exalted, imperishable, unchangeable.

How many an unhappy wretch has awakened from a dream of passion, to

find that after all it was only his enthusiasm which dignified the

object which dignified his passion, and threw around it the lustre of

immortal youth!

To think of this, to see in your own experience so many examples, is

enough to make you register a vow that you will never--no never again

fall in love. The vow may be registered; Love, who "laughs at

locksmiths," knows the durability of such barriers as vows; and,

looking down with the saucy pity of that imp Puck, exclaims--

Lord! what fools these mortals be!

BOOK VIII.

CHAPTER I.

AMIABLE PEOPLE.

It was November. Rose and Julius had returned to London to continue

their felicity in a new sphere: they were quite a model couple, and

were so happy that several people "of experience" shook their heads

sceptically, and exclaimed:--"Ah, well! early times yet, early times!"

What a world of envy in a little phrase!

Meredith Vyner grew morose. His domestic comfort was now utterly

destroyed, for his wife was entirely estranged from him; and he was

without hope of her ever returning to the former state of

hypocritical fondness. Beyond this, Violet would not remain in the

house with her step-mother; so that except in his visits to Rose he

saw no one that he loved. Blanche was also separated from him: her

husband absolutely interdicted all communication between her and her

father. This was the result of a violent quarrel on the old subject

of his gambling, and of her father's attempt to get her from him.

Cecil's passion for gambling had returned with more than its former

force and recklessness. Vyner had discovered it; had suppressed the

allowance; lectured Cecil sharply, and endeavoured to persuade

Blanche to leave him. A complete rupture was the consequence.

The miserable old man saw his daughter's impending ruin, and saw that

he was impotent to save her from it. This, added to his domestic

sorrows, made him morose. He was a changed being. He became dirtier

and dirtier. He never quoted Horace. The dust collected on his

manuscripts like the grains of snuff upon his waistcoat, without any

effort on his part to shake them off. Life to him was purposeless,

joyless.

Mrs. Vyner was as lively and dissipated as ever. No care sat upon

her brow; no sorrow darkened her existence. For some weeks after the

scene between her and Maxwell, he ceased to see her; a circumstance

which made her husband for a moment rejoice; he believed that a

rupture having taken place, his wife would return to him. The hope

was not of long duration. She, at first indifferent, became at last

uneasy at Maxwell's absence. She loved him, she was accustomed to

his presence, she liked the excitement of his love, with its fierce

whims, its brutal expressions, and its passionate, unrestrained

vehemence. She _missed_ him.

Unable longer to bear his absence, she wrote a long and touching

letter, in which real feeling aided her natural adroitness, and

gained the victory.

Maxwell was on the point of giving way, when it reached him.

Obstinate, violent, and revengeful as he was, he too was so uneasy at

being absent from her, that he was glad to have such an excuse for

forgiveness. He felt as if he could have stabbed her to the heart;

yet he was softened in an instant by her letter.

Peace was made between them. He promised never again to doubt her

love; she promised never again to offend him. Things resumed their

old course; yes, even to the renewal of his jealousy and his threats;

but on the whole Mrs. Vyner's brow was smooth!

Not very long after the reconciliation, they were together at a party

at Mrs. Langley Turner's. Among the company there happened to be

Lord * * * *, notorious in his early days for his successful

gallantries, and not having yet relinquished the ambition of making

conquests. He sat next to Mrs. Vyner, who was that evening in high

spirits, and looked enchantingly _piquante_. She was a violent

radical in her opinions, and a great tuft-hunter; a title was always

resplendent in her eyes, no matter what the wearer might be like. It

is easily conceivable therefore, how, both as a coquette and a

tuft-hunter, she should have been inordinately gratified at the

attentions of Lord * * * *. She put forth all her fascinations; and

although from time to time she met the dark scowl of Maxwell, who was

observing her like a panther watching from his jungle, she only

answered his anger with a scornful smile, and continued her

attentions to the old nobleman.

As Maxwell saw her rise to depart, he hurried down stairs to the

cloak-room, and there awaited her with the intention of expressing

his anger, as he handed her into the carriage; but to his rage he saw

Lord * * * * accompany her down stairs, gallantly cover her white

shoulders with the shawl, and then handing her to the carriage, take

leave of her in the most significant manner.

Maxwell with difficulty restrained himself from challenging his rival

on the spot.

The next day when he called on Mrs. Vyner, he saw a cab drive from

the door: it was Lord * * * * coming from his first visit. Maxwell

refused to go in.

Day after day he saw that cab standing there for an hour or two

together; he waited in the street the whole time, and in his

impatience the hour seemed quadrupled. It was enough to irritate the

least jealous of men; him it drove to phrenzy.

Pale with passion he at last went in, and found the two together.

She received him with easy unconcern, as if he were no more than an

_habitué_. Lord * * * * looked somewhat "glum" at his presence, and

after a few commonplaces, rose and departed.

"So," said Maxwell to her when they were alone, "my place is taken,

is it?"

"What! jealous again?"

"Not jealous, but convinced."

"Convinced of your own folly?"

"Yes."

"Then, there are hopes of a reformation. George, don't scowl in that

way; you are not handsome at any time, and when you scowl, least of

all."

"Mary, you must see him no more."

"Him? explain: I hate enigmas."

"Lord * * * * I insist upon it."

"Now, don't be absurd, pray! Why should I not see a man old enough

to be my father?"

"But not too old to be your lover."

"The old story! What a queer creature you are! Why, who ever could

suppose there was danger in a man of his age--he hasn't an unbleached

hair on his head."

"Perhaps not; but a coronet hides that."

"Ha! ha! ha! Oh, you green-eyed monster! Really, you are capital

fun, though you don't mean it."

"Beware, beware!"

"Ah! now you are getting tragic ... have you an unloaded pistol about

you by chance?"

A dark smile passed over his face.

"Mary, listen to me: I am very serious. Laugh, if you please, at my

jealousy, but at any rate, acknowledge that I have a right to insist

on a cessation of his visits."

"I acknowledge nothing of the kind. Why am I to be deprived of

seeing whom I please? My husband does not object to my receiving

Lord * * * * why should you?"

"Because you take pleasure in those visits."

"I do."

"They flatter you."

"They do."

"He flatters you."

"He is gallant enough to find my society agreeable--that is more than

I can say for yours at this moment."

"You think it a feather in your cap to have a worthless old nobleman

dangling after you."

"Perhaps I do; what then?"

"I will not allow it."

"Come, come; this is getting a little too imperious."

"I will not allow it, I say."

"Your permission is not necessary."

"I tell you it _shall not be_!"

"George--I am serious now--as you raise your voice--if you know me,

you must know that I may be persuaded to anything, but I am not to be

_driven_. Obstinacy may not be an amiable quality; but it is a

quality which belongs to me. Cease that tone of command therefore;

you will get nothing by it."

"I shall not cease that tone. I shall adopt any tone I please."

"Do so; then don't wonder if I refuse to listen to you."

"But, by God! you shall listen."

"Try me."

Her eyes dilated as she said this, though her voice was perfectly

calm. She was getting almost as angry as he was. The spirit of

opposition was abetted by the resolution she had formed not to rebut

the attentions of Lord * * * *, and she now was roused for the

struggle.

And yet, flattered as she undoubtedly was, by the admiration of the

old roué, she loved Maxwell well enough to have sacrificed that

delight, had he taken another course, had he implored instead of

threatened; but that was not in his nature, and his brutal

imperiousness roused her to rebellion.

He had become livid with passion, and it was only with great effort

that he could articulate--

"Don't play with me ... you know not the danger ... I warn you ... I

warn you."

"And I laugh at your threats."

"You think I am not serious?"

"I do not care a straw whether you are serious or not."

"You are resolved then?"

"Quite."

"Oh, beware! beware! do not drive me to the last extremity...."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"By God!" he exclaimed, striking a small table with his fist.

"See," she said, "you have broken my china--a real bit of rococo;

that's what it is to be ungentlemanly and violent."

"Mary ... This is .... You are rushing to destruction! Look here; I

am almost mad ... but I know what I say ... choose whether you will

obey me--if you do not, as I live, I will blow your brains out, and

then my own!"

"Mr. Maxwell, if you think I am to be frightened by your ravings, if

you think I am to obey your ridiculous caprices, if you think you are

to be my _master_, you are egregiously mistaken. Leave the house: _I

hate you_!"

Her look expressed her hate, as she said this.

He was convulsed; the veins started on his forehead; his chest heaved

laboriously, and his eyes were dilated with fury, but he uttered no

sound.

"Your love is degradation! Your soul is as ignoble as your manners

are brutal! I have put up with this too long. I have been

contaminated by your presence, and now, I hate you!"

A sort of gurgle, like the death rattle, sounded in his throat; his

face was purple.

"I hate you!" she added. "Is that clear? Do you understand me now!"

With his eyes fixed horribly upon her furious countenance, he put his

handkerchief to his mouth; when he removed it, she saw that it was

stained with blood.

A sudden sickness overcame her, and she trembled.

He did not speak another word, but staggered rather than walked

towards the door. Slowly he descended the stairs, and with his

handkerchief still at his mouth reached home. The paroxysm of

passion had burst a small bloodvessel.

Left to herself, Mrs. Vyner sank on a couch shivering, and her teeth

chattering together from the combined effects of rage, excitement,

and fear.

The heavy pall of a terrible doom seemed stretched over her future:

dark, mysterious, and awful. She shuddered as she thought of what

had passed, and only recovered a slight decree of calmness as the

thought occurred to her that perhaps that broken bloodvessel might

put an end to him!