The Gulf fixed.
Fainted! a preposterous thing for a big strong man to do! Fainted, as
though he had been a school-girl, or a delicate miss, or a romantic
woman troubled with nerves. Mr. Walsingham did not understand it at
all. He rang the bell, and told the servant to get some water and some
brandy, and something--the right sort of thing; and he picked up
Wilmot's head, which was gravitating towards the floor, and he bade
him "Hold up, my good fellow!" and then he let his friend's head fall,
and gazed at him with extreme bewilderment. He was unused to this kind
of performance was Mr. Walsingham, and felt himself eminently helpless
and ridiculous. When the water and the brandy were brought, he
administered a handful of the former externally, and a wine-glassful
of the latter internally; and Wilmot revived, very white and trembling
and dazed and vacant-looking. So soon as he could gather where he was,
and what had occurred, he made his apologies to Mr. Walsingham, and
begged he would add to the kindness he had already shown by sending
for a cab, and by allowing him to borrow the newspaper which he had
been reading at the time of the attack; it should be carefully
returned that afternoon. Mr. Walsingham, who wag the soul of
politeness, agreed to each of these requests; the cab was fetched, and
Wilmot, with many thanks to his young friend, and with the packet for
his young friend's mother, his own passport, and the _Morning Post_ in
his pocket, went away in it. Mr. Walsingham, who regarded this little
episode in his monotonous life as quite an adventure, waxed very
eloquent upon the subject afterwards to his friends, and made it his
stock story for several days. "Doosid awkward," he used to say, "to
have a fellow, don't you know, who you don't know, don't you know,
gone off into fits, and all that kind of thing! Here, too, of all
places in the world! If he'd gone off in my rooms, you know, it
wouldn't so much have mattered; but here, where old Blowhard"--for by
this epithet Mr. Walsingham designated Sir Hercules Shandon, K.P., Her
Britannic Majesty's Minister at the Court of Prussia--"where old
Blowhard might have come in at any moment, don't you know, it might
have been devilish unpleasant for a fellow. What he wanted with the
_Post_ I can't make out. I've looked through every column of it since
he sent it back, but I can't find anything likely to upset a fellow
like that. I thought at first he must have been sinking his fees in
some city company that had bust-up, but there's no such thing in the
paper; or that he'd read of some chap being poisoned in mistake, and
that had come home to him, but there's nothing about that either. I
can't make it out.--I say, Tollemache, do you see that Miss Kilsyth's
married? Married to Caird, that good-looking fellow that always used
to be there at Brook-street--tame cat in the house--and that used
to--you know--Adalbert Villa, Omicron-road, eh? Sell for you, old boy;
you were very hard hit in that quarter, weren't you, Tolly?"
So Chudleigh Wilmot went back to his hotel in the cab; and the
friendly waiter, who had seen him depart so full of life and
joyousness, had to help him up the steps, and thought within himself
that the great English doctor would have to seek the assistance of
other members of his craft. But no bodily illness had struck down
Chudleigh Wilmot; he had not recovered his full strength, and the
shock to his nerves had been a little too strong--that was all. So
soon as he found himself alone, after refusing the friendly waiter's
offer of sending for a physician, of getting him restoratives of a
kind which came specially within the resources of the Hôtel de Russie,
such as a roast chicken and a bottle of sparkling Moselle, and after
dispensing with all further assistance or companionship, Wilmot locked
the door of his room, and sat down at the table with the newspaper
spread open before him. He read the paragraph again and again, with an
odd sort of bewildering wonderment that it remained the same, and did
not change before his eyes. No doubt about what it expressed--none.
Madeleine Kilsyth, who had been worshipped by him for months past; and
with whom as his companion he was looking forward to pass his future,
was married to another man--that last fact was expressed in so many
words. It was all over now, the hope and the fear and the longing;
there was an end to it all. If he had only known this three months
ago, what an agony of heart-sickness, of dull despair, of transient
hope, of wearying feverish longing he had been spared! She was gone,
then, so far as he was concerned--taken from him; the one star that
had glimmered on his dark lonely path was quenched, and henceforward
he was to stumble through life in darkness as best he might. That was
a cruel trick of Fortune's, a wretched cruel trick, to keep him back
in his pursuit, to throw obstacles of every kind in his way, but all
the time to let him see his love at the end of the avenue, as he
thought, beckoning to him to overcome them all, to make his way to
her, and carry her off in spite of all opposition; then for all the
obstacles to melt away, for him to have naught to do but gain the
temple unopposed; and when he succeeded in gaining it, for the doors
to be open, the shrine abandoned, the divinity gone!
Hard fate indeed! hard, hard fate! But it was not to be. His dead wife
had said it; Henrietta Prendergast had said it: it was not to be. For
him no woman's love, no happy home, no congenial spirit to share his
thoughts, his ambition, his success. He sighed as he thought of this,
with additional sadness as he remembered that if Henrietta
Prendergast's story were true, all this had been his. Such a companion
he had had, had never appreciated, and had lost. He had entertained an
angel unawares, and he was never to have the chance again. For him a
drear blank future--blank save when remorse for the probable fate of
the woman who had died loving him, regret for the loss of the woman
whom he had loved, should goad him into new scenes of fresh action.
Madeleine married! Was, then, his fancy that she, that Madeleine,
during that interview in the drawing-room in Brook-street, had
manifested an interest in him different from that which she had
previously shown, a mere delusion? Had he been so far led away by his
vanity as to mistake for something akin to his own feeling the mere
gratitude which the young girl had felt towards her physician? Was
she, indeed, "his grateful patient," and no more? Wilmot's heart sunk
within him, and his cheeks burned, as this view of the subject
presented itself to his mind. Had he, professing to be skilled in
psychology, committed this egregious blunder? Had he, who was supposed
to know what people really were when they had put off the mummeries
which they played before the world, and when they had laid by their
face-makings and their posturings and their society antics, and
revealed to their physician perforce what no one else was allowed to
see--had he been deceived in his character study of one who to him was
a mere child? The very suddenness of the inspiration had led him to
believe in its truth. Until that moment, just before that savage
brother of hers had burst in upon them, he had acknowledged to himself
the existence of his own passion indeed, but had struggled against it,
fully believing it to be unreciprocated, fully believing in the mere
gratitude and respect which--as it now seemed--were the sole feelings
by which Madeleine had been animated. But surely that day, in her
downcast eyes and in her fleeting blush, he had recognised--A new
idea, which rushed through his mind like a flash of light, illumining
his soul with a ray of hope. Had this been a forced marriage? Had she
been compelled by her brother, her father, Lady Muriel--God knows
who--to accept this alliance? Had it been carried out against her own
free will? Had his absence from England been made the pretext for
urging her on to it? Had that been shown to her as a sign of the
mistake she had made in supposing that he, Wilmot, eared for her at
all? He had never been so near the truth as now, and yet he scouted
the notion more quickly than any of the others which he discussed
within himself. Such a thing was impossible. The idea of a girl being
forced to marry against her will, of her judgment being warped, and
the truth perverted for the sake of warping that judgment, was
incomprehensible to a man like Wilmot--man of the world in so many
phases of his character, but of childlike simplicity in the others. He
had heard of such things as the stock-in-trade of the novelist, but in
real life they did not exist. Mammon-matches, forced marriages,
diabolical torturings of fact--all these various combinations, neatly
dovetailed together, filled the shelves of the circulating-library,
but were laughed to scorn by all sensible persons when they professed
to be accurate representations of what takes place in the every-day
life of society.
Besides, if it were so, the mischief was done, and he was
all-powerless to counteract it. The marriage had taken place; there
was an end of it. It could be undone by no word or deed of his. The
times were changed from the old days when a sharp sword and a swift
steed could nullify the priest's blessing, and leave the brave gallant
and the unwilling bride to be "happy ever after." He was no young
Lochinvar, to swim streams and scour countries, to dance but one
measure, drink one cup of wine, and bolt with the lady on his
saddle-croup. He was a sober, middle-aged man, who must get back to
England by the mail-train and the packet-boat; and when he got
there--well, make his bow to the bride and bridegroom, and
congratulate them on the happy event. It was all over. His turn in the
wheel of Fortune had arrived too late; the bequest which his good old
friend had secured to him, had it come two months earlier, might have
insured his happiness for life; as it was, it left him where it found
him, so far as his great object in life, so far as Madeleine Kilsyth,
was concerned.
Another long pause for reflection, a prolonged pacing up and down the
room, revolving all the circumstances in his mind. Was his whole life
bound up in this young girl? did his whole future so entirely hang
upon her? Here was he in his prime, with fame such as few men ever
attained to, with fortune newly accruing to him--large fortune,
leaving him his own master to do as he liked, free, unfettered, with
no ties and no responsibilities; and was he to give up this splendid
position, or, not giving it up, to forego its advantages, to let its
gold turn into withered leaves and its fruits into Dead-Sea apples,
because a girl, of whose existence he had been ignorant twelve months
before, preferred to accept a husband of her choice, of her rank, of
her family connection, rather than await in maidenhood a declaration
of his hitherto unspoken love? He was pining under his solitude, the
want of being appreciated, the lack of someone to confide in, to
cherish, to educate, to love. Was his choice so circumscribed by fate
that there was only one person in the world to fulfil all these
requirements? Was it preordained that he must either win Madeleine
Kilsyth or pass the remainder of his days helplessly, hopelessly
celibate? Was his heart so formed as to be capable of the reception of
this one individual and none other, to be impressionable by her and
her alone? His pride revolted at the idea; and when a man's pride
undertakes the task of combating his passion, the struggle is likely
to be a severe one, and none can tell on which side the victory may
lie.
He would test it, at all events, and test it at once. The kind old man
now gone to his rest had hoped that the fortune which he had
bequeathed might be of service to the son of his old friend "and to
Mrs. Wilmot;" and why should it not, although Mrs. Wilmot might not be
the person whom Mr. Foljambe had intended, nor, as Chudleigh had madly
hoped on reading his benefactor's letter, Madeleine Kilsyth? He would
go back to England at once; he would show these people that--even if
they entertained the idea which had been so plainly set before him by
Ronald Kilsyth--he was not the man to sink under an injury, however
much he might suffer under an injustice. "Love flows like the Solway,
but ebbs like its tide," so far he would say to them with Lochinvar;
they should not imagine that he was going to pine away the remainder
of his life miserably because Miss Kilsyth had chosen to marry someone
else. He had been a fool, a weak pliable fool, to make such a
statement as he had done in that interview with Ronald Kilsyth. His
cheeks tingled with shame as he remembered how he had confessed the
passion which he had nurtured, and which he acknowledged beset him
even at the time of speaking. And that cool, calculating young man,
with his cursed priggish, pedantic airs, his lack of anything
approaching enthusiasm, and his would-be frank manner, was doubtless
at that moment grinning to himself at the successful result of his
calm diplomacy. Chudleigh Wilmot stamped his foot on the floor and
ground his teeth in the impotence of his rage.
Married to Ramsay Caird, eh? Ramsay Caird! Well, they had not made
such a great catch after all! To hear them talk, to see the state they
kept up at Kilsyth, to listen to or look at my Lady Muriel, one would
have thought that an earl, with half England in estates at his back,
was the lowest they would have stooped to for their daughter's
husband. And now she was married to an untitled Scotchman, without
money, and--well, if he remembered club-gossip aright, rather a loose
fish. Had not Captain Kilsyth been a little too hurried in the
clinching of the nail, in the completion of the bargain? As Mr.
Foljambe's heir, he, Chudleigh Wilmot, would have been worth a dozen
such men as Ramsay Caird; and as to the question of former intimacy,
of acquaintance formed during his wife's lifetime, the world would
have forgotten that speedily enough.
He would go back to England at once, but when there he would show them
he was not the kind of man which, from Ronald Kilsyth's behaviour,
that family apparently imagined him. Still the Border song rang in his
head--
"There were maidens in Scotland more lovely by far
Would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."
Not more lovely, and probably never to be anything like so dear to
him; but there were other maidens in England besides Madeleine
Kilsyth. And why should the remainder of his life be to him utterly
desolate because this girl either did not love him, or, loving him,
was weak enough to yield to the interference of others? Was he to pine
in solitude, to renounce all the pleasures of wifely companionship, to
remain, as he had hitherto been, self-contained and solitary, because
he had placed his affections unworthily, and they had not been
understood, or cast aside? No; he had existed, he had vegetated long
enough; henceforward he would live. Wealth and fame were his; he was
not yet too old to inspire affection or to requite it; by his old
friend's death he had obtained an additional claim upon society,
which even previously was willing enough to welcome him; he should
have the _entrée_ almost where he chose, and he would avail himself
of the privilege. So thus it stood. Chudleigh Wilmot left London
broken-hearted at having to give up his love, and full of remorse
for a crime, not of his commission indeed, but which he imagined had
arisen out of his own egotism and selfish preoccupation. He was
about to start on his return, with stung sensibility and wounded
pride--feelings which rendered him hostile rather than pitying towards
the woman to whom he had imagined himself sentimentally attached, and
which had completely obliterated and driven into oblivion all symptoms
of his remorse.
He wrote a hurried line to Messrs. Lambert and Lee, informing them of
his satisfaction with their proceedings hitherto, and notifying his
immediate return; and he told the friendly waiter that he should start
by that night's mail, and get as far as Hanover. But this the friendly
waiter would not hear of. The Herr Doctor must know perfectly
well--for had not he, the friendly waiter, heard the German doctors
speak of the English doctor's learning?--that he was in no condition
to travel that night. If he, the friendly waiter, might in his turn
prescribe for the English doctor, he should say, "Wait here to-night;
dine, not at the _table d'hôte_, where there is hurry and confusion,
but in the smaller _speise-saal_, where you usually breakfast; and the
cook shall be instructed to send up to you of his very best; and the
Herr Oberkellner, a great man, but to be come over by tact, and
specially kind in cases of illness, shall be persuaded to go to the
cellar and fetch you Johannisberg--not that Zeltinger or Marcobrünner,
which, under the name of Johannisberg, they sell to you in England,
but real Johannisberg, of Prince Metternich's own vintage--pfa!" and
the friendly waiter kissed his own fingers, and then tossed them into
the air as a loving tribute to the excellence of the costly drink.
So Wilmot, knowing that there was truth in all the man had said;
feeling that he was not strong, and that what little strength he had
had gone out of him under the ordeal of the morning at the Embassy,
gave way, and consented to remain that night. But the next morning he
started on his journey, and on the evening of the third day he arrived
in London. He drove straight to his house in Charles-street, and saw
at once by the expression of his servant's face that the news of his
inheritance had preceded him. There was a struggle between solemnity
and mirth on the man's countenance that betrayed him at once. The man
said he expected his master back, was not in the least surprised at
his coming; indeed most people seemed to have expected him before.
What did he mean? O, nothing--nothing; only there had been an uncommon
number of callers within the last few days. "Not merely the reg'lars,"
the man added; "them of course; but there have been many people as we
have not seen here these two years past a-rat-tattin', and leavin'
reg'lar packs of cards, with their kind regards, and to know how you
were, sir." The cards were brought, and Wilmot looked through them.
The man was right; scores of his old acquaintance, whom he had not
seen or heard of for years, were there represented; people whom he had
only known professionally, and who had never been near him since he
wrote their last prescription and took their last fee months before,
had sought him out again. To what could this be accredited? Either to
the earnest desire of all who knew him to console him in the
affliction of having lost his friend, or to the information sown
broadcast by that diligent contributor to the _Illustrated News_, who
had given exact particulars of the will of the late John Foljambe,
Esq., banker, of Lombard-street and Portland-place. But there was no
card from any member of the Kilsyth family in the collection. Wilmot
searched eagerly for one, but there was none there.
He had a hurried meal--hurried, not because he had anything to do, and
wanted to get through with it, but because he had no appetite, and
what was placed before him was tasteless and untempting--and sat
himself down in his old writing-chair in his consulting-room to ponder
over his past and his future. He should leave that house; he must.
Though Mr. Foljambe had made no binding requirement, the expression of
his wish was enough. Wilmot must leave that house, and obey his
benefactor's behests by taking up his residence in Portland-place. He
had never thought much of it before, but now he felt that he loved the
place in which so much of his life had been passed, and felt very loth
to leave it. He recollected when he had fire moved into it, when his
practice began to increase and his name began to be known. He
remembered how his friends had said that it was necessary he should
take up his position in a good West-end street, and how alarmed he
was, when the lease was signed and the furniture--rather scanty and
very poor, but made to look its best by Mabel's disposition and
taste--had been moved in, lest he should be unable to pay the heavy
rent. He recollected perfectly the first few patients who had come to
see him there: some sent by old Foljambe, some droppers-in from the
adjacent military club, allured by the bright door-plate; old
gentlemen wishing to be young again, and young gentlemen in
constitution rather more worn and debilitated than the oldest of the
veterans. He remembered his delight when the first great person ever
sent for him; how he had treasured the note requesting his visit; how
he had gone to his club and slily looked up the family in the Peerage;
and how when he first stood before Lady Hernshaw, and listened to her
account of her infant's feverish symptoms, he could, if he had been
required, have gone through an examination in the origin and progress
of the Hawke family, with the names of all the sons and daughters
extant, and come out triumphantly. His well-loved books were ranged in
due order on the walls round him; on the table before him stood the
lamp by whose light he had gathered and reproduced that learning
which had gained him his fame and his position. In that house all
is early struggles had been gone through; he remembered the first
dinner-parties which had been given under Mabel's superintendence, her
diffidence and fright, his nervousness and anxiety. And now that was
all of the past; Mabel had vanished for ever and aye; and soon the old
house and its belongings, its associations and traditions, would know
him no more. What had he gained during those few years? Fame,
position, men's good word, the envy of his brother-professionals, and,
recently, wealth. What had he lost? Youth, spirit, energy, the at one
time all-sufficing love of study and progress in his science, content;
and, latterly, the day-spring of a new existence, the hope of a new
world which had opened so fairly and so promisingly before him. The
balance was on the _per-contra_ side, after all.
The fashionable journals found out his return (how, his servant of all
men alone knew), and proclaimed it to the world at large. The world at
large, consisting of the subscribers to the said fashionable journals,
acknowledged the information, and the influx of cards was redoubled.
Some of these performers of the card-trick lingered at the door, and
entered into conversation with the presiding genius in black to whom
their credentials were delivered. Whether the doctor were well, whethe
he intended continuing the practice of his profession, whether the
rumour that he intended giving up that house and removing to
Portland-place had any substantial foundation; whether it were true that
he, the presiding genius, was about to have a new mistress, a lady from
abroad--for some even went so far as to make that inquiry--all these
different points were put, haughtily, confidentially, jocosely, to the
presiding genius of the street-door, and all were answered by him as
best he thought fit. Only one of the queries, the last, had any
influence on that great man. He fenced with it in public with all the
coolness and the dexterity of an Angelo, but in private, in the sacred
confidence of the pantry engendered by the supper-beer, he was heard to
declare that "the guv'nor knew better than that; or that if he didn't,
and thought to introduce furreners, with their scruin' ways, to sit at
the 'ead of his table and give horders to them, he'd have to suit
himself, and the sooner he knew that the better."
Some of the callers on seeking admittance were admitted--among them
Dr. Whittaker. Perhaps amongst the large circle of Wilmot's
acquaintances calling themselves Wilmot's friends, that eminent
practitioner was the only one who had a direct and palpable feeling of
annoyance at Wilmot's return.
Dr. Whittaker's originally good practice had been considerably
amplified by the patients who, under Wilmot's advice, had yielded
themselves up to Dr. Whittaker's direction during Wilmot's absence,
and the substitute naturally looked with alarm upon the reappearance
of the great original. So Dr. Whittaker presented himself at an early
date in Charles-street, and being admitted, had a long and, on his
side at least, an earnest talk with his friend. After the state and
condition of various of the leading patients had been discussed
between then, Whittaker began to touch upon more dangerous, and, to
him more interesting, ground, and said, with an attempt at
jocosity,--and Whittaker was a ponderous man, in whom humour was as
natural and as easy as it might have been in Sir Isaac Newton,--
"And now that I have given account of my stewardship, I suppose my
business is ended, and all I have to do is to return my trust into the
hands of him from whom I received it."
He said this with a smile and a smirk, but with an anxious look in his
eyes notwithstanding.
"I don't clearly understand you," said Wilmot. "If you mean to ask me
whether I intend to take up my practice again, my answer is clear and
distinct--No. If you wish to inquire whether those patients whom you
have been attending in my absence will continue to send for you, I am
in no position to say. All I can say is, that if they send for me, I
shall let them know that I have retired from the profession, and that
you are taking my place."
Dr. Whittaker was in ecstasies. "Of course that is all I could
expect," he replied; "and I flatter myself that--hum! ha! well, a man
does not boast of his own proceedings--ha! Well then, and so what the
little birds whispered _is_ true, eh?"
"I--I beg your pardon," said Wilmot absently--"the--the little birds--"
"Cautious!" murmured Dr. Whittaker in his blandest tone--that tone
which had such an influence with female patients--"we are quite right
to be cautious; but between friends one may refer to the little birds
which have whispered," he continued with surprising unction, "that a
certain friend of ours, whom the world delights to honour, has
succeeded to wealth and station, and is about to exchange that
struggle in which the--the, if I may so express it--the _pulverem
Olympicum_ is gathered, for a soft easy seat in the balcony, whence he
can look on at the contention with a smiling _conjux_ by his side."
"Little birds have peculiar information, Whittaker, if they have been
so communicative as all that," said Wilmot with a rather dreary smile;
"they know more than I do, at all events."
"Ha, ha! my dear friend," said Whittaker, in a gushing transport of
delight at the thought of his own good fortune; "we are deep, very
deep; but we must allow a little insight into human affairs to
others. Why did we fly from the world, dear Bessy, to thee? as the
poet Moore, or Milton--I forget which--has it. Why did we give up our
practice, and hurry off so suddenly to foreign parts, hum?" Dr.
Whittaker gave this last "hum" in his softest and most seductive tones,
such as had never failed with a patient. But perhaps because Wilmot was
not a patient, and was indeed versed in the behind-scenes mechanism of
the profession, it had no effect on him, and he merely said: "Not for
the reason you name. Indeed, you never were farther out in any
surmise."
"Is that really so?" said Whittaker blandly. "Well, well, you surprise
me! It is only a fortnight since that I was discussing the subject at
a house where you seem often spoken of, and I said I fully believed
the report to be true."
"And where was that, pray?" asked Wilmot, more for the sake of
something to say than for any real interest he took in the matter.
"Ah, by the way, you remind me! I intended to speak to you about
that case before you left. The young lady whom you attended in
Scotland--where you were when poor Mrs. Wilmot died, you know--"
"In Scotland--where I was when--good God! what do you mean?"
"Miss Kilsyth, you know. Well, you left her in charge of poor old Rowe
as a special case, didn't you? Yes, I thought so. Well, the poor old
gentleman got a frightful attack of bronchitis, and was compelled to
go back to Torquay--don't think he'll last a month, poor old
fellow!--and before he went, he asked me to look after Miss Kilsyth.
Thought she had phthisis--all nonsense, old-fashioned nonsense; merely
congestion, I'm sure. I've seen her half-a-dozen times; and about a
fortnight ago--yes, just before her intended marriage was
announced--she's married since, you know--we were talking about you
and I mentioned this rumour, and--and we had a good laugh over your
enthusiasm."
"It is a pity, Dr. Whittaker," said Wilmot, quivering with suppressed
rage, "it is a pity; and it is not the first time that it has been
remarked, both professionally and socially, that you offer opinions
and volunteer information on subjects of which you are profoundly
ignorant. Good-morning!"
Just before the announcement of her intended marriage! Had the vile
nonsense talked by that idiot Whittaker had any influence in inducing
her to take that step? He thought of that a hundred times, coming at
last to the conclusion--what did it matter now? The irrevocable
step was taken. Ah, for him it was not to be! His dead wife had said
so--Henrietta Prendergast had said so. It was not to be!
What was to be was soon carried out according to his old friend's
expressed wish. Wilmot removed from Charles-street to Portland-place,
and materially changed his manner of life. All his old patients
flocked round him directly his return was announced; but, as he had
promised Whittaker, he let it be understood that he had entirely
retired from practice. He even declined to attend consultations,
alleging as an excuse that his health was delicate, and that for some
time at least be required absolute repose. He had determined to take
as much enjoyment out of life as he could find in it; and that, truth
to tell, was little enough. The growth and development of his love for
Madeleine Kilsyth had lessened his thirst for knowledge and his desire
for fame; and when the fierce flames of that love had burned out,
there was still enough fire in the ashes to wither up and destroy any
other passion that might seek to occupy his heart. He tried to find
relief for the dead weariness of spirit, the blank desolation always
upon him, in society. He gathered around him brilliant men of all c
lasses; and "Wilmot's dinners" were soon spoken of as among the
pleasantest bachelor _réunions_ in London. He dined out at clubs, he
joined men's dinner-parties; but he resolutely declined to enter into
ladies' society. The resolution which he had formed at the Berlin
hotel of proving to the Kilsyth people that there were families equal
to theirs into which he could be received, and girls equal to
Madeleine who were willing to marry him, never was brought to the
test. Many ladies no doubt asked their husbands about Wilmot; but from
the answers they received they regarded him as never likely to marry
again; and save from hearsay report, they had no opportunity of
evidence.
He went about constantly, rode on horseback a great deal, visited
theatres, and sat with a melancholy face at nearly all the public
exhibitions. The few persons who had sufficient interest in him to
discuss the reason for this change attributed it to the impossibility
of his ever recovering the shock of his wife's sudden death; and he
was quoted perpetually before many husbands, who sincerely wished they
had the opportunity of showing how they would conduct themselves under
similar circumstances. So his life passed on, monotonous, blank,
aimless, for about three weeks after his installation in
Portland-place; when one evening returning from a long ride round the
western suburbs, as he turned his horse through the Albert-gate,
hecame full upon a carriage containing Lady Muriel and Madeleine. They
were so close, that it was impossible to avoid a recognition. Wilmot
raised his hat mechanically, Lady Muriel gave him a chilling bow, and
then turned rapidly to her companion. Madeleine turned dead-white, and
sank back as though she would have fainted; but Lady Muriel's look
recalled her, and she recovered herself in time to bow. Then they were
gone. Not much hope in that, Chudleigh Wilmot! Not much chance of
bridging that gulf which is fixed between you!